A Heart Full of Love by Colleen O’Sullivan

A Heart Full of Love by Colleen O’Sullivan

Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Then he said to the Pharisees, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” (Mark 3:4a)  

Piety

“Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

Study

The Healing of The Man with the Withered Hand,
c. 1000-1020, Hitda-codex, Fol. 114,
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Picture yourself heading to the village synagogue to worship on the Sabbath.  You enter and take your customary place. You are expecting to hear Scripture read and commented on, as well as to take part in prayer.  Instead, you feel tension in the air as soon as you walk in. There’s that itinerant preacher, Jesus, calling a man with a useless, withered hand up to the front.  Wait, surely he can’t mean to heal him here and now! It’s the Sabbath and, according to the Pharisees, that’s not allowed. The Pharisees haven’t uttered a word, but the scowls on their faces say it all.  Jesus says just one thing to them. “Is it permissible to do good rather than evil on the Sabbath?” The answer seems self-evident, but they don’t say anything, simply scowl all the more. Jesus prays over the man’s outstretched hand, and he is healed!  And, of course, the Pharisees run right out to see if joining up with the Herodians will strengthen their cause against this upstart from Nazareth.
Mark tells us that Jesus is grieved and angry because of the Pharisees’ hardness of heart.  This is one of several places in the Gospels where Jesus is said to be angry. We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking Jesus’ anger is the sort where he’s going to take his marbles and go home, forever cutting the Pharisees out of his love.  (That’s more in line with what some of us do when we’re angry.)   Jesus is frustrated because he’s shown them how to do good, but they’re more interested in being right by their own measure.  Jesus desperately wants to soften their hearts, and they are equally determined to get rid of this threat to their status as the learned, religious authorities of their day.

Action

Sometimes I like to watch the Dr. Phil show.  Somebody writes in and begs Dr. Phil to help with a problem in their family.  When they get on the show, though, they don’t listen to a word he says. Their hearts are hardened, and they talk and shout over the host until it seems like you’re watching a verbal free-for-all.  More often than not, Dr. Phil asks if they just want to be right (in which case he can just go home) or whether they have any interest in getting help with solving their problem.

The Pharisees in the Gospels are like those guests in a way, so busy defending themselves, they never hear Jesus’ offer to show them what a person with a heart full of love both for God and God’s children looks like.  The Lord is standing right in their midst and, unfortunately, the eyes of their hearts are blind and they see nothing, and the ears of their hearts are closed and they hear nothing.

Where in your life do you think your heart could use some softening?   Turn it over to Jesus in prayer today. Ask the Lord to open the eyes and ears of your hearts to the example he sets before us in the Gospels.  

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hitda-Codex-Healing_of_a_man_with_a_withered_hand.jpg