Reading 1
1 Cor 5:1-8
Brothers and sisters:
It is widely reported that there is immorality among you,
and immorality of a kind not found even among pagans–
a man living with his father's wife.
And you are inflated with pride.
Should you not rather have been sorrowful?
The one who did this deed should be expelled from your midst.
I, for my part, although absent in body but present in spirit,
have already, as if present,
pronounced judgment on the one who has committed this deed,
in the name of our Lord Jesus:
when you have gathered together and I am with you in spirit
with the power of the Lord Jesus,
you are to deliver this man to Satan
for the destruction of his flesh,
so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not appropriate.
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
in as much as you are unleavened.
For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Gospel
Lk 6:6-11
On a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught,
and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.
The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely
to see if he would cure on the sabbath
so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.
But he realized their intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
"Come up and stand before us."
And he rose and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them,
"I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?"
Looking around at them all, he then said to him,
"Stretch out your hand."
He did so and his hand was restored.
But they became enraged
and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.
Meditation: Luke 6:6-11
“Stretch out your hand.” (Luke 6:10)
Critics play an important role in the music world. They help the public to evaluate what is good and by doing so, they set standards for music. But critics can also be unreceptive to anything new and different. For example, one of Bach’s students called his music “turgid and confused.” A contemporary of Mozart said his music was “overloaded and overstuffed.” One critic said of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: “It was hard to figure out what all the noise was about.”
You could say that many Pharisees of Jesus’ day had become like those critics. In their zeal to preserve the Law, they had attached their own limited expectations to it. One of those was that curing the sick was forbidden on the sabbath—unless the sick person was in danger of death. The man Jesus healed in the synagogue had only a withered hand, so that clearly didn’t qualify. These Pharisees weren’t willing to admit that God could go beyond their assumptions of what the Law was all about.
This attitude can affect us as well. We can take our own personal experiences of fatherhood and apply them to God—and end up limiting him as a result. Our heavenly Father wants to go beyond our expectations, both our expectations of who he is and our expectations of who we can become. He is not interested in healing you just enough so that you can squeak your way into heaven. He wants to fill you with so much grace that you dance through those gates joyfully, bringing countless people behind you whose lives you have touched!
Don’t you think it’s possible that you can know the Lord even more deeply than you do right now? Don’t you think it’s possible that you might be able to pray with someone and see them healed? Don’t be like those music critics with their limited expectations and their reliance on the status quo! God has great plans for you. So go ahead and stretch out your hand in faith and see how God fills you with his life, his love, and his power.
“Lord, open my eyes to your wonderful works. Help me to see how much you’ve blessed me in the past so that I can be open to receive the grace you have prepared for me in the future.”
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