Have you ever become angry with someone who did something good? Why were you angry about it? What triggered the feelings within you?
Was it because the person was honored for the good deed they did, and everyone praised them? Did they do something better than you did in the past? Was it because it broke the norms for our group or culture?
Did you resent the person for the good acts because you didn’t think of it first? Why am I upset because some one did an act of mercy or kindness to another person?
What happens in today’s Gospel is more than just being angry with Jesus because he did something good. The Pharisees were waiting to see if Jesus would heal a person whose hand was deformed on the Sabbath so that they might discover a reason to accuse him. They were deliberately trying to trap Jesus.
The Pharisees had over six hundred rules to live by and insisted that everyone obey them. They were very strict and harsh in their condemnation of anyone who broke the rules. Healing on the Sabbath was wrong because the Pharisees believed that “Healing” was work.
Some scholars believe that Jesus was a Pharisee since Jesus was frequently dining with a Pharisee. A person did not share a meal with someone out of their class so a Pharisee would not eat with the poor like Jesus did. It would also help us to understand why Jesus was so harsh with the Pharisees. He was not condemning a group from the outside, he was condemning his own group for their pride and arrogance as leaders.
We have talked about the how important the family was to the Middle Eastern families and that meals were an important ritual for networking and building bonds within families. As a Rabbi and teacher, Jesus ate with everyone and established the meal as place for all to be equal, unlike the strict class system of his culture. Jesus gave us the Eucharistic Feast where we are all equal and invited to partake of his Body at each mass.
Jesus consistently turned his world upside down by his teaching. Yesterday we heard how Jesus said that we must hate our family to follow Jesus. Hating one’s family in Jesus’ culture was unheard of because family was everything.
John Pilch explained that the word hate was a bit strong, and it would be better translated as prefer Christ over family. However, the result was still the same – Love God more than anything in the world, including life itself.
When we see someone doing a good deed, an act of mercy or kindness, even if it’s not the way we would have done it, let pray a prayer of thanksgiving for their kindness to another person and ask God to protect them to do more in the future.
Let us also pray that God will take the resentment and jealousy from our hearts and help us not to be critical because someone performed an act of kindness but stumbled doing it or didn’t do it the way we think it should be done.
Continue to follow Jesus. Continue to Pray. Continue to help others. Your smile or kind words may make all the difference in the life of someone you meet today.
