– Scripture:

When Jesus left the field, he entered their meeting place. There was a man there with a crippled hand. They asked Jesus, “Is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?” They were baiting him. He replied, “Is there a person here who, finding one of your lambs fallen into a ravine, wouldn’t pull it out even though it was a Sabbath? Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!” Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out, and it was healed. The Pharisees walked out furious, sputtering about how they would ruin Jesus.

                        Matthew 12:9–14 MSG

Key Verse –  Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!

– Reflection:

I must admit something for most of my life; I have been reading the verse above as a question…” How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep?” I read this as a question as if there is a range where it could be calculated as if both the life of a sheep and the life of a human can be valued in either time, money, or quality. Except, that is the problem here – people aren’t things, and our value cannot be quantified no matter how hard we try, no matter what system we plug metrics into.

Where do we go from here?

So in this passage, Jesus confronts the everyday norms and thoughts of his day. People had been misusing the Sabbath law and order to maintain their own comfort and well-being rather than practicing the sabbath for the peace, wholeness, and well-being of the world to the glory of God. Where do we place our comfort above the lives of others? Where do we live as if Jesus’ proclamation about the value of a human is more of a question than a definitive statement? May we pause in our sabbath living to get our values aligned with God, holding all of humanity as valuable and worthy of God’s loving embrace?

Our Prayer for Today

Father, help us to pause and examine our ways. Make us uncomfortable to examine our comfort. Open our hearts and lives so we may live as if all people are of immeasurable value. Let us hold your love in our lives and extend that to one another. Amen.