Mtr Mary Trainor

Guideline vs. Law

Dear friend,

Years ago I visited a friend who was hospitalized at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Offering outstanding medical care to people of all faiths, or no faith, the hospital is described on its website as a Jewish hospital.

Arriving on a Saturday morning, the Jewish sabbath, I entered an elevator, pressed the button for my floor, and settled in.

I soon realized the elevator was stopping at every floor, automatically.

Such programming, I came to know, is an effort to keep the sabbath holy—by not forcing people to work.

***

In Mark’s Gospel for today, Jesus is hassled by Pharisees and scribes over the fact that his disciples did not wash their hands before eating.

What chafes Jesus is when his opponents confuse the breaking of human-made guidelines with the law, the actual commandments of God—to the detriment of people’s well-being.

These rules, or traditions, were developed to help people keep God’s commandments, some of which are rather loosely stated. 

Even so, over time, some people clung to the rules instead of the law. One of Scripture’s clearest examples of this was the attempt to stop Jesus from healing a man on the Sabbath, because healing was considered work.

But, Jesus argues, keeping the Sabbath holy is better accomplished by acts of mercy than rigid rule-keeping. And then he cured the man with the withered hand.

Mtr Mary