“Here’s a question for you: Is it legal on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or destroy it?” Luke 6:9 CEB.
The story here will be familiar to most. Pharisees are following Jesus around hoping to catch him breaking the Sabbath law. First, they catch Jesus’ disciples picking wheat on Sabbath. Another Sabbath, they are about to catch Jesus healing a man with a withered hand when suddenly he levels this question at the Pharisees:
“Is it legal on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or destroy it?”
Jesus is reframing the debate here. The Pharisees can point to chapter and verse of the laws that they believe are being broken until they are blue in the face. Instead, Jesus wants them to answer more fundamental questions. Is it good? Does it save life? Jesus is asking for discernment from Pharisees who are incapable of doing anything more than point at their laws.
What Jesus is doing here isn’t new. It’s one of the ways we grow from 10 commandments to 613 laws in the Old Testament. Laws are debated, expanded, and reimagined for each generation. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees that at the heart of their laws there should be goodness and life, and it’s telling that this makes the Pharisees furious.
This isn’t the only time Jesus does this to the Pharisees. In Matthew, when Jesus is approached by the Pharisees and asked, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replies: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind [and] Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matt. 22:36-40. The Law and the Prophets grow out of the simple commands to love God and love your neighbor — not the other way around. If our interpretation of scripture ever runs counter to those two commands, then we need to take a closer look at our interpretation. Perhaps, we could start by answering Jesus’ questions from Luke 6. Does our interpretation do good or do evil? Does it save life or destroy it?
My wife Stefani and I had the good fortune of being a part of a Bible Study group led by Stuart Tyner for the better part of the last 18 years. Not long after Stuart became our pastor, he was with us at the hospital where our twins were born, prematurely, and prayed with us as our tiny daughter Madison took her last breath only hours later. He helped us cope with the onslaught of well-meaning acquaintances who thought that telling us that this was all part of God’s plan would somehow comfort us. This couldn’t have been God’s plan. It didn’t pass the Luke 6 test. Was it good? Did it save life? Absolutely not, on both counts.
During our years of study together, Stuart pounded home his message of a God of grace. Stuart was very protective of his view of God. I can remember a few times when we got into heated arguments over one bit of scripture or another. Once in particular, I was stubbornly clinging to an Old Testament vindictive view of God to explain a difficult passage, and Stuart rounded on me with such fury in his eyes. I had offended his view of God.
Stuart, of course, quickly softened, and we continued our “discussion” in a civil tone. I didn’t realize it then, but I do now, why Stuart was so protective of his God of Grace. How we perceive God affects our interpretation of Scripture. And how we quote that Scripture to others affects how they perceive God. We must be careful, or we will “shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.” Matt. 23:13. We must be careful what we say to grieving parents. We must be careful what we say to people like the man with a withered hand. To the Pharisees, this man was unclean. He was disfigured because either he or his parents had sinned. He was to be shunned. What kind of picture of God does that paint? Luckily for him, and for all of us, we have the kind of God who brings life even at the expense of His own.
Today, we still have people like the man with a withered hand in our own community. People whom we marginalize with carefully worded doctrinal statements. People who find themselves in a list alongside child molestation and incest, simply because of how they were born. We live in a world where LGB youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual youth. 40% of Transgendered adults have attempted suicide, 92% of them before the age of 25. That’s 700,000 people in the U.S. alone. These people desperately need a better image of God than the one that we’ve been providing. For some, it’s literally the difference between saving a life or destroying it.
Be the difference. Do good. Preserve life. Paint a better picture of God for yourself; for your neighbor.
Jeff McFarland is a freelance graphic artist, stay-at-home dad, and currently a co-leader of the Journey Sabbath School class.