Daily Reading
First Reading
Romans 9:1-5
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Psalm
Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!
Gospel Reading
Luke 14:1-6
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, or not?” But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. 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.
Reflection
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a man on the sabbath, thus demonstrating his authority over the law. The Jesus portrayed in the Gospels consistently speaks and acts in the very person of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
On another occasion, defending his disciples against the charge of picking grain on the sabbath, Jesus reminds his interlocutors that priests serving in the temple can, under certain circumstances, violate the sabbath and still remain innocent. Then he adds with breathtaking laconicism, “I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.” The only one who could reasonably claim to be “greater” than the temple would be the one who was worshiped in the temple.
In a number of places in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus states, “You have heard it said . . . but I say . . .” This almost casual dismissal of the Torah, the revelation given by Yahweh to Moses himself and hence the court of final appeal to any pious Jew, would have overwhelmed any first-century Jew. Once more, the only one who could legitimately overrule the Torah with such insouciance would be the one who was himself the author of the Torah.