A Reflection for Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Strange Time
Find today’s readings here.
“However the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the gang in reply,
‘There are six days when work ought to be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.’” (Lk 13:10-17)
There’s little doubt about it, Jesus had great timing—in one other life, perhaps he would have made a terrific humorist. I haven’t done an official count, but I feel a disproportionate amount of his miracles happen on a sabbath, organising the potential for optimum drama with the religious authorities of the day.
Jesus knows that timing is one in all the ways during which we will put God in a box, and he desires to shake us out of it. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus heals a girl on the sabbath who had suffered a debilitating condition for 18 years. The leader of the synagogue was “indignant” at Jesus’ motion—or more precisely, for the timing of his motion.
I understand the synagogue leader’s response because all too often it looks like my response to Jesus. “This Gospel stuff is all well and good, but not right at this moment.” How repeatedly will we shove the Gospel to the back of our minds within the face of suffering?
It’s all the time the best time for God. It’s all the time the best time to live the Gospel. The dominion of God exists within the everlasting present.
After I was entering college and starting to come across God in a private way through prayer, I started to experience a way of consolation in my prayer and a deep desire to spend more time with God in silence. These experiences were real and wonderful. But additionally they made my life confusing. Outside those periods of prayer, I struggled to offer any form of meaningful witness to the Gospel amongst my friends, and I often sacrificed that Gospel for fitting in amongst a snug friend group. I used to be often unable to assume a world during which I lived as a very integrated person—acting as the identical person in each facet of my life.
For me, this tension between a “right” and “fallacious” time to live the Gospel continues to be an internal struggle. But Jesus desires to free us from this concept, as he desired to teach the religious authorities of his day. It’s all the time the best time for God. It’s all the time the best time to live the Gospel. The dominion of God exists within the everlasting present and invites each of us to take part in each moment of our lives.
