“Women, you are loosed from your infirmity.”

In today’s gospel reading we find Christ teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Seeing a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years Christ heals her. What is unusual about the healing is that it is Christ who initiates the healing. Other gospels relating to healing have the sufferer initiating the healing from Christ. Whether it is imploring Christ, touching Christ, or otherwise asking for his help, the one seeking his help places forth their faith in varying degrees before Christ to perform his wondrous work. Yet, in this particular instance it is Christ, without being asked, who heals the woman of her infirmity.

What is even more unusual is that the healing occurs in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Now we all know from Exodus the exhortation to keep the Sabbath holy. “Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work… For the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it”.

You may recall that the Jews had a very clear understanding of their relationship with God. They saw their history as proof that God demanded obedience. When they were obedient they saw themselves as being rewarded. When they were afflicted as a nation they saw that as being the consequence of their disobedience. The result was that they saw their relationship with each other and with their creator as rules. Indeed, they were able to identify 613 commandments that regulated the relationship with God, each other, the poor, Gentiles, marriage, family, divorce, dietary laws, economic relationships, legal proceedings, property rights, punishments for transgressors, work, taxes, tithes, the temple, sacrifices and offerings, ritual purity, and even war. For everything in their daily lives there was a rule from the Old Testament that governed it.

The Sabbath was central to the Jewish understanding of faith. Keeping the Sabbath meant you could not work – and healing was work. Again, the Jews had worked out a complex understanding of work and there exists some 39 categories of work which are precluded to be carried out on the Sabbath. Everything that one did without thinking on the other six days of the week had to be especially considered in the context of whether it was work or not on the Sabbath. If it was considered work you could not do it. That was the law and the law had to be obeyed.

So in the synagogue itself Jesus carries out a prohibited action before the representative of the law who, according to Jewish law, rightly becomes indignant and addresses of the crowd saying “there are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath”.

Jesus deliberately sought out this confrontation. He could have waited until the Sabbath was over. He could have waited until he was asked by the woman. He could have healed away from the gaze of the ruler of the synagogue – yet he chose not to. The question is why he did this?

Jesus himself gives the answer. “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

Here in essence is the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. The old was based on obedience to the law. Justification before the law was how the pious Jew saw as fulfilling his obligation to God. One only has to remember the prayer of the Pharisee referred to in chapter 18 of Luke who justified his actions by fulfilling his obligations under the law, unlike the tax collector who beat his breast saying “God be merciful to me a sinner”.

The old covenant was based on a gulf between God and his creation. God was understood as something totally unapproachable. Even his name could not be said. The Jewish faith had become Jewish law, and all laws focus on what you can and cannot do without concerning themselves about love. St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians put it most clearly “though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but not have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the Poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love it profits me nothing.”

In this exchange between the ruler of the synagogue and Christ we have a very clear distinction between what is to be under the law as exemplified by the ruler of the synagogue and what it is to live your life in love as exemplified by our Lord Jesus Christ.

It occurs to me that when it comes to our Christian faith there are some Christians who think like the ruler of the synagogue and Pharisee. They reduce our faith to a set of rules and have their justification in those rules. This in turn leads to a focus upon the rules themselves and not on what their focus should be upon. Love. Love is not about rules. It’s about a relationship between God and his creation. Love is about a relationship that we each should have with the other. After all, God, who loves us first “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” If God sent his son to lead us back to him how can we say that his relationship with us is based on anything but love?

Love moves you beyond the law. Love allows you to see clearly the need of your neighbour. Love allows you to see God in the other. Love never fails. Everything else may fail but not love. As Christ himself said “do not judge according to appearance but Judge with righteous judgement”.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the choice is ours. Do we, like the ruler of the synagogue, focus upon the rules of our faith? Or do we imitate Christ and focus upon love for the other. After all, each one of us could be afflicted with the spirit of infirmity that afflicted the poor woman. Would we not want ourselves to be healed even if it was against the law? So, as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” Amen.