Sherry Sterling

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. —Mark 3:2

Dear friends,

Have you experienced this familiar setup: prove someone wrong, to be right?

People do this in relationship all the time. They might win the fight, but they lose the connection. The individual may score a win, but when the other person feels they’re on the losing side, the “we” of the relationship loses. Win-lose becomes lose-lose.

The research on relational attachment talks about how important it is for our wellbeing to feel that we belong. Are we welcome? Should we welcome this other person? One way people determine belonging is to size up who is like us, and who is not. The church leaders of Jesus’ time did this, too. And Jesus often drew attention to where they got caught up in sizing him up according to what he did, rather than being curious about why he did things.

In the Gospel reading for today, the Pharisees seem to be following Jesus and the disciples around for the purpose of proving their rightness and Jesus’ wrongness, their belonging and his not. They did this by looking to catch Jesus in breaking the letter of the law. In doing so, they revealed how they’d lost the spirit of it altogether. 

They tried to corner Jesus, reminding him that the law says he shouldn’t harvest grain or heal people on the sabbath, as a way to honor the day of rest. But Jesus reminded them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” And he challenged them: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

Jesus upended the rules of the day, righting them back to the heart of God. He modeled moving away from a sense of rightness that can sour into self-righteousness and separateness, toward a win-win of relationship—with God and with each other. 

In the middle of my next disagreement, or more likely upon reflection later, I pray to remember that my belonging is not threatened if I disagree, that I already have belonging in God’s heart, and that heart is to “do good…, to save life,” not to focus on being right. I pray to live out of God’s grace in my ways of relating.

Peace and love,

—Sherry