Romans 9:1-5; Psalm 147:12-15,19-20; Luke 14:1-6
This week begins and ends, perhaps oddly, with the tail of an Ox. It is typical of Luke to create an elegant balance of two stories with a link, in order to make a point stick in our minds. Back on Monday, a long time ago in a week with two powerfull days, the Pharisees complained about healing a woman, and Jesus compares that complaint with their willingness to untie an Ox, which even those who stricktly followed the rules would have done in order to allow the animal be free to go feed and water itself. Todays Ox, poor animal, finds itself in a much worse dilema: it has fallen into a pit. The woman was crippled by some disease of the back, the man suffering though he was only had dropsy - so Luke has inverted the severity of the disease that he was healing in opposition to the difficulty of the Ox.
I think thank Luke uses such an elegent technique to have us remember the same thing that Matthew had us ponder last Sunday - which is the greatest commandment? Well, we all know - Love God, and Love your neighbour - and on these two, hang all the law and the prophets.
In the time of Jesus there was a vigourous debate going on for example about interpretation of the very strict rules about working on a Sabbath. This was all somewhat built upon the golden rule - do not do to others what you would not want them to do to yourself. An example: I was reading Lionel Blue the other day, who mentions that in his Grandmother's home a tea urn was left running from Sabbath eve, as no one was allowed to do the work of turning on a Kettle on Sabbath itself.
If we have a tendency sometimes to stick to ways of doing things, rules we have built up - we must take time every so often to question them and check out their compliance with the Greatest Commandment. Let us lift our Oxen out of the Pit.
If we have a tendency sometimes to stick to ways of doing things, rules we have built up - we must take time every so often to question them and check out their compliance with the Greatest Commandment. Let us lift our Oxen out of the Pit.