Don’t Use Rules As An Excuse Not To Love

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is eating in the house of one of the leading Pharisees, and everyone is watching Him closely. Then a man suffering from dropsy is suddenly there in front of Him. Jesus asks a very simple question: “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?” And nobody answers. That silence is interesting. They know the law. They know the arguments. They know what is permitted and what is not. But standing in front of them is a human being who is suffering. And somehow, the question has become more complicated than it needs to be.

Sometimes religion can become like that for us. We can become so focused on doing things correctly that we forget why God gave us His law in the first place. The commandments were never meant to make us less loving. They were meant to teach us how to love rightly. Jesus does not reject the sabbath; He reveals its deepest meaning. The sabbath is about God restoring His people. And so when Jesus heals this man, He is not breaking the heart of the law. He is fulfilling it.

That is the uncomfortable part of this Gospel. Because it is easy to judge the Pharisees, but we can do the same thing. We can become very good at finding reasons not to help. “It is not my responsibility.” “Someone else will do it.” “That person brought it on themselves.” “Now is not a good time.” And sometimes those reasons are sensible. But sometimes they are simply ways of protecting ourselves from the inconvenience of love. Jesus is asking us: when someone is hurting in front of you, do you see a problem, or do you see a person?

And then Jesus gives them that striking example: if your child or your ox falls into a well on the sabbath, would you not immediately pull them out? Of course you would. Why? Because when someone matters to you, love does not need a long debate. That is the point. God does not look at us from a distance and calculate whether we are worth the trouble. He comes toward us. He enters our mess. He lifts us out. The whole Gospel is God refusing to leave humanity in the well.

So maybe the question for us today is not simply, “Am I following the rules?” Maybe the deeper question is: Are the rules making me more like Jesus? More merciful. More attentive. More willing to be interrupted. More ready to notice the person in front of me. Because holiness is not just about avoiding what is wrong. It is also about having the courage to do the good that love places directly in our path.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me a heart that notices people before problems, a faith that is obedient without becoming hard, and the courage to love even when love is inconvenient. Teach me to see as You see, to act with mercy, and never to use religion as an excuse to walk past someone in need. Amen.

– Homily by Rev. Fr. Patrick Agbeko