We don't know the situation from which the Lord delivered
our writer but it seems it was indeed a dire set of circumstances, lies had
been told to the king about the scribe and it would seem that his life was in
danger. What we do know is that the
writer was deliberate about thanking the Lord for what He did for him. Thankfulness is easier when the situation is
life or death or when it seems like life or death. It isn't as easy or natural or effusive in
other times. We have much for which to
be thankful and we who are Christians have already been delivered from an even
more advanced life and death situation by the blood of Jesus. Do we live in a state of awareness always of
not only the grace we have received but that we have been delivered from death
and are being delivered from death every moment of every day of our lives? Thankfulness should be our default mode.
In a scene similar to the one where the woman who was
suffering from a condition that caused her to be unable to stand upright is
before Jesus on the Sabbath, here we find Jesus at the home of a Pharisee on
the Sabbath and a man is there who suffers from dropsy which was a disease in which fluid collected in the
cavities of the body, evidenced by abnormal swelling. Jesus first asked if it were lawful to heal
on Sabbath, healed the man and then made the defense that if an animal were at
risk the law allowed action, how could one do less for a fellow human. This is followed by a parable that
demonstrates that the value system of the world are upside down. Serving is better than being served, we
should not seek places of honor for ourselves, the opposite of what culture
taught and teaches. When we observe
these mores, we are able to be thankful for being lifted up, we know we don't
deserve it.
In this lesson, as with the Gospel and the first reading, I am
reminded of Mary's song, the Magnificat, upon her encounter with her cousin
Elizabeth during their pregnancies. Her
words were that God was lifting up the humble and abasing the exalted,
overthrowing the order of the world. In this
reading, the great city is being overthrown and debased for all the world to
see. All who plied their wares with her
are in mourning for she was the source of their prosperity and now she is no
more. We cannot rely on the system of
the world, the Lord is sovereign over all things. He calls us out of the world's value system
and into a new one, an eternal value system.
Have we heard and acceded that call?
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