“Doing Good…Everyday!” – Luke 13:10-17 (Year C, Proper 16)

Read the Lectionary Texts

by Rev. Dr. R. Tim Meadows

Pastor, Protestant Community Church, Medford Lakes, NJ

“I’ve got something to tell you, but I can’t say it here. If we were not in church, I would tell you what he really said! Can you believe what he is doing on the Lord’s Day? I do not want to be too close when God strikes him for such!”

We’ve all heard these statements. Perhaps, some of us have said these exact things to others. Most of us remember a time in our world when what you could and could not do, sell or not sell, on the LORD’S DAY was codified in many state and some national laws, and was certainly regulated by cultural understanding. Most of us remember a time when there was a respect, maybe even a fear, over what one did on the LORD’S DAY!

According to Luke, it was that way in Jesus’ time also, and he did not like it even a little bit. According to Luke, Jesus felt these attitudes about the Sabbath were confining and harmful to the good of society, and not the least bit respectful of God. According to Luke, if the Sabbath was going to prevent good and necessary things from being done, Jesus would just as soon there be no Sabbath.

So, is Luke implying that Jesus was opposed to a day set aside for worship, rest, and renewal? Absolutely not!

We know that Jesus himself was devoted to these activities. What Jesus was opposed to was a day run by rules and regulations that eventually became ends in themselves. What Jesus was opposed to was a false piety that said, just because I do not do certain things on a certain day, I am therefore, holy.

What Jesus was opposed to was a religious system that prevented the goodness of God from getting to places where it needed to be.

What Jesus wanted was a love for God that saw the needs of people, and looked for ways to meet those needs with the grace of God.

What Jesus wanted was a people united around a practical goodness, that sought to lift up whomever was in need.

What Jesus wanted was a faithful people who looked not just to achieve good by keeping the Sabbath laws, but a people who sought to DO GOOD … EVERYDAY!

The good news I have for you today is that this is what Jesus still wants!

Jesus could care less about the consensual conciliar findings of the historic Christian councils, unless they prompt us to do good everyday! Jesus could care less about our doctrines of heaven, hell, baptism, communion, etc. unless they prompt us to do good everyday! Jesus could care less about the style of our church music, the government dictated by our church polity, or what the church trustees, deacons, elders, council or pastors, think unless all those things work together to prompt us to do good everyday!

According to Luke, Jesus had the audacity to believe that what we did for those in need when we had opportunity was the thing God cares about most. Jesus was not trying to ruin a good Sabbath service for all the pious that had come to demonstrate their religiosity. He was simply trying to make it a good Sabbath for a person in great need, who had not had a good Sabbath in a long time.

Jesus was not practicing a form of one upsmanship by doing something no one else could do; he was simply trying to show where God’s attention was focused in this situation. Jesus was not so much interested in heaping condemnation on those pious religionists who did not help, as he was simply hoping to goad them into actions similar to his toward their constantly needy world.

Doing Good… Everyday, that was the central message of Jesus to those he called hypocrites, because they let the regulations of a particular day keep them from doing good.

What would we have done in this situation? What do we do with these situations? Do we become channels of the goodness of God, or do we let religious rules and regulations get in the way?

Do we become channels of the goodness of God, or do we let past history get in the way? Do we become channels of the goodness of God, or do we let prejudice get in the way?

You get the point, if we want to excuse our neglect of the world around us, we can find countless ways to do so. If we want to please God, then we find a way, no matter what, to DO GOOD … EVERYDAY!

May God give us the grace to see beyond that, which would hinder us, and the strength to be a people who are DOING GOOD … EVERYDAY!

Amen.