January 20, 2010
Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
“All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves. For the battle is the LORD'S, and he shall deliver you into our hands.” 1 Samuel 17:47
Again he entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. Mark 3:1-2
Piety
“I know that God will not give me something I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” Mother Teresa of
Study
Life is a series of tests. The question for us is, “How will we respond to the conflicts and challenges that we will face?”
These tests don’t just mean a math quiz on last night’s assignment or a pop quiz on the reading for Modern European History. Sure, school is a series of tests. But life continues throughout school and beyond. The tests continue long after we get out of school.
Today, our readings have for us one of the most famous conflicts in the Hebrew Bible – David and Goliath. Every school child knows how this turned out. (Spoiler alert: David wins.) But the story is not about the victory but about why David won and what it means for salvation history.
David approached his conflict with confidence and faith that the Lord would be at his side during his time of stress. When David felled Goliath with the stone, it gives new meaning to the term “upon this rock I will build my church.” Jesus was born in David’s family tree. Had he lost the battle, who knows what would have become of our salvation? There might be no Joseph. No Mary. Would that also mean no Jesus? Or would God have intervened in another way to bring the reality of the Incarnation to life? But David won and set in motion the history that we know today.
Jesus approached conflict with the Pharisees in much the same fashion as David. He strode into the temple, in the middle of the day, and set out to heal the man with the withered hand. He did not weight the odds of what consequences such action would bear on his life. Jesus knew, the events that this action would set in motion would culminate in the plot against him. But that inevitable conflict did not stop him.
The notes from the New American Bible put this conflict onto context. “His opponents were already ill disposed toward him because they regarded Jesus as a violator of the sabbath. Jesus' question ‘Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil?’ places the matter in the broader theological context outside the casuistry (reasoning) of the scribes. The answer is obvious. Jesus heals the man with the withered hand in the sight of all and reduces his opponents to silence.”
In the note to John 5:17, the NAB reminds us that “Sabbath observance was based on God's resting on the seventh day. Philo and some rabbis insisted that God's providence remains active on the sabbath, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging (=ruling, governing). Jesus here claims the same authority to work as the Father, and, in the discourse that follows, the same divine prerogatives: power over life and death and judgment.”
Action
What conflict or challenge are you facing this year? Physical? Financial? Social? Spiritual? Can you approach that conflict with the same confidence as David and the intention and same end results as Jesus?
