Greetings friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome to another episode in our Lectio Divina series,
The Questions Jesus Asks.
As we begin our time today,
I advise you just to bring yourself fully into this moment.
Take a nice slow breath in.
Slowly breathe out.
Allow yourself to settle into stillness.
Let the noise of the day begin to soften around you.
And receive this time together as an invitation to be present to yourself.
To this moment.
And to God.
As today we sit with a question that Jesus asks at a dinner table.
A question that reaches into the tension between compassion and control.
In Luke chapter 14.
Jesus is eating in the house of a religious leader on the Sabbath.
Everyone's watching him carefully.
And a man suffering from dropsy,
Swollen and ill.
Is there before him.
Now for some reason the atmosphere in the room just feels tense.
It's very guarded.
And before healing the man,
Jesus asks the lawyers and Pharisees,
Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
Now,
They remain silent,
But the silence reveals something,
Because beneath the question is a deep attention.
What matters most.
Is it the preservation of the system or the restoration of the person?
Now Sabbath itself was originally a gift,
A sacred rhythm of rest,
Liberation.
And renewal.
It was meant to protect human dignity.
And remind people that they were more than producers or labourers.
But over time,
What had happened was that this gift had become rigid.
The structure had become more important than the suffering person standing in front of them.
That this isn't something that's just.
Applies to Jesus time.
It happens in every age.
Religious systems can become more invested in being correct.
Than compassionate,
Can't they?
Institutions.
Prioritise order.
Over healing and even within ourselves we can cling to certainty and routines and identities or beliefs and we hold them so tightly that we struggle to respond lovingly when life interrupts them.
But Jesus continually reveals that love is not opposed to holiness,
But love is the fulfillment.
Of it again.
And again in the Gospels,
Jesus places human need at the center.
And it's not because the rules are meaningless,
But because.
.
.
The heart of God is mercy.
And the question invites us to examine the ways we respond when compassion becomes inconvenient.
What happens when love interrupts the schedule?
Someone's pain.
Complicates our plans when mercy is needed.
Challenges our assumptions when healing requires flexibility rather than control.
And I mean,
To be honest,
Most of us prefer predictability,
Right?
We create systems specifically for that to make life manageable.
And many of those systems,
Hear me right,
They're necessary.
And they're good.
Spiritual maturity isn't measured there.
Just by how well we maintain order,
It's measured by the depth of our compassion.
And so the Pharisees in the story.
.
.
They're not evil people,
In many ways they're devoted people.
But devotion without tenderness,
Well that can slowly harden.
Into distance from the very heart of God,
And maybe this is why Jesus asks them the question publicly.
He doesn't want to debate the law per se,
But.
.
.
He wants to reveal something hidden within the human heart.
Because there's always a temptation to protect our structures.
At the expense of love.
Contemplative spirituality calls us to something deep,
A way of seeing where compassion becomes more important than self-protection or image.
Or even certainty,
And maybe the question.
.
.
Here isn't only about institutions or religion.
I think this question's also personal.
Where have I?
Become rigid.
Where have I stopped making room for tenderness?
Where do I resist interruption because control feels safer?
And compassion.
And Jesus,
Well,
He heals the man anyway.
Love moves towards suffering even when others remain silent.
And so as we move into the reading.
Listen gently.
Look for that word or phrase that the Spirit's drawing you to.
Even the hard ones,
And perhaps that's a place to notice where you feel resistance,
As well as where you feel openness.
And allow the question of Jesus to linger with you and within you.
To die.
As we read from Luke chapter 14 verses 1 to 6.
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath.
They were watching him closely.
Just then,
In front of him,
There was a man who had dropsy.
And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees.
Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath?
But they were silent.
So Jesus took him and healed him.
And sent him away.
And then he said to them,
If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well,
Will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?
And they could not reply to this.
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath.
They were watching him closely.
Just then,
In front of him,
There was a man who had dropsy.
And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees.
Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath?
But they were silent.
So Jesus took him and healed him.
And sent him away.
And then he said to them,
If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well,
Will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?
And they could not reply to this.
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath.
They were watching him closely.
Just then,
In front of him,
There was a man who had dropsy.
And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees.
Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath?
But they were silent.
So Jesus took him and healed him.
And sent him away.
And then he said to them,
If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well,
Will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?
And they could not reply to this.
As we bring our time together to a close,
I invite you to join me in prayer.
Christ of compassion.
You see the wounded standing quietly before us,
The suffering we overlook,
The pain we avoid,
The people hidden beneath systems and expectations.
You know how easily our hearts become rigid.
And how often we cling to certainty control.
And self-protection.
But you continue to show us a deeper way.
Teach us to value compassion.
Over appearance.
Teach us to remain open to interruption when love calls us beyond ourselves.
Teach us to hold our beliefs with humility.
And our relationships with tenderness.
Where we've become hardened,
Soften us.
Where fear has narrowed our vision,
Widen it.
And where silence has kept us distant from suffering.
Awaken courage.
Within us.
May we learn from the sacred rhythm of mercy.
A way of living where healing matters more than image.
And love becomes the true fulfillment of every law.
And may grace,
Peace and love go with us and remain with us today and every day.
Until next time,
Friend.
God's peace.
Be with you.
