Luke 6:1-11

Transcript

00:00:01:10 – 00:00:29:24
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends. Welcome back. Good to have you with us. As we close out a week and as we continue through the Gospel of Luke in the sixth chapter today, the third of a series of three stories that Luke has been telling us about some conflict with the Pharisees. And we kind of get that theme continued here a little bit as we move into the sixth chapter.

00:00:29:47 – 00:00:48:10
Clint Loveall
Start verse one here. One Sabbath, while Jesus was going through the grain fields, his disciples pluck some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat them. But some of the Pharisees said, Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Jesus answered, Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

00:00:48:48 – 00:01:10:08
Clint Loveall
He entered the house of God and took from the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat. And he gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, The son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. One of those passages where there’s probably some things that don’t seem like they make a lot of sense on the front end.

00:01:10:08 – 00:01:34:52
Clint Loveall
For a lot of us, it’s a cultural kind of passage. The argument at hand here is what is legal on the Sabbath On Saturday, the Jewish Holy day, and the idea that plucking grain constitutes work. They were very, very sincere about the idea of not doing work or labor on the holy day. And so the idea of harvesting is forbidden.

00:01:35:08 – 00:01:59:20
Clint Loveall
I still see that in some conservative Christian communities that where farmers won’t farm, for instance, on Sunday. And that’s the idea here that that in grabbing these stocks of grain, the disciples are doing what fits in the category of work, even though it seems very innocent and very small. It fits in under that label of work and is therefore forbidden.

00:01:59:20 – 00:02:29:58
Clint Loveall
And so the Pharisees say, why? Why do you do this? And Jesus counters with a story of the Old Testament where David fed his men with sacred bread. And then he ends with this statement The son of man is Lord of the Sabbath, and we see something like this in the other Gospels as well. But this is a declaration that essentially the Messiah, I won’t say redefines the rules, but reinterprets them properly.

00:02:30:16 – 00:02:57:23
Clint Loveall
And the back story here is probably that Jesus is insinuating that the Pharisees have it wrong, or maybe that they are guilty of legalism. Certainly they’re at least guilty of missing the point of who Jesus is, which the next story’s going to confirm. But, you know, not a not a big conflict here, Michael, but certainly one that we’ve seen in other gospels.

00:02:57:23 – 00:03:07:49
Clint Loveall
And we will continue to see. The Sabbath was one of the most important things to the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders. And so it’s a it’s a significant bone of contention that runs through the gospels.

00:03:08:00 – 00:03:28:40
Michael Gewecke
And yet, though in some ways still academic, you know, and I think that. Yeah. Disagree with me if you don’t agree with this claim. But I think that like in the gospel of John, you have a situation where Jesus’s relationship with the Jewish leaders is sour from nearly the get go. I mean, right from the start, it’s very, very contentious.

00:03:28:40 – 00:03:52:30
Michael Gewecke
And here Luke in some ways warms us up slowly to that or shows how that relationship sours at a slightly more moderate pace, I think you could argue. And so, yes, this is a real debate being had in in the time between the Pharisees defining, you know, how strict these rules should be, how much of work is actually work and what isn’t.

00:03:52:30 – 00:04:16:45
Michael Gewecke
And they’re very particular about that. But they were having internal debates with Sadducees and other Jewish religious leaders about the stringent ness of their interpretation of that. So I think you could make the case in some ways this is practical, but it’s also more ideas center. There’s a sense in which it’s a conflict, but it’s not reach the point here where it is a kind of forward pitch.

00:04:16:46 – 00:04:38:32
Michael Gewecke
I will add though, here that of course, this isn’t the only gospel that tells a story like this and in particular a detail that is not included by Luke is, I think, a fascinating detail. So if you had your Bible in front of you, you would turn to mark chapter two and in this verse 27, this is what Jesus says in Mark.

00:04:38:32 – 00:05:00:41
Michael Gewecke
He says, The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath. So the sort of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. And with that being said, this whole narrative that we have here of the Lord is the law of the Sabbath. So the man is the Lord, the Sabbath that we have from Mark, but we have this whole piece missing about human freedom.

00:05:01:06 – 00:05:25:22
Michael Gewecke
When you have that kind of thing in a text, I think it’s worth pausing and noting that Luke is most likely aware of that most biblical scholars talk about how Mark is the thing that the other gospels share most often. So it’s likely that they were aware of it. And if that’s the case, then it’s likely that Luke is leaving that off because not because he’s not necessarily aware, but because he’s emphasizing a different part of the story.

00:05:25:22 – 00:05:53:38
Michael Gewecke
And I do think here that the emphasis is far less on the human component and it’s far more on who Jesus is in this case. This is a story about what Jesus makes lawful, because Jesus is ultimately the fulfillment of the law. He’s even the law giver. And that detail that that emphasis that Luke is giving, I think it’s essential because the conflict that’s being had here is not one between what should humans do or what shouldn’t humans do.

00:05:53:38 – 00:06:06:23
Michael Gewecke
The conflict at its core is who define what is lawful. The Pharisees believe they have that in stone and Jesus is the living law. And so therefore the law looks different when he’s at work.

00:06:06:36 – 00:06:26:40
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s a good point, Michael, because if you don’t have that understanding, it could easily look like Jesus is just doing what the Jewish leaders do. He’s arguing about where the rules and you know what? What are the extent of the rules? Can you pick two heads, a grain or three? Can you pick one? Can you not touch them at all?

00:06:27:01 – 00:07:00:28
Clint Loveall
And that’s not what’s happening here. Jesus isn’t involved in a petty argument over what exactly is the rule. It’s not a matter of definition what Jesus is ultimately going to say. And this doesn’t maybe take us too far down that road, but it begins the journey. What Jesus is ultimately going to say is that they misunderstand the whole point of rules, the whole point of law that they’ve missed, that they they argue about what the law means, but they don’t understand its very purpose.

00:07:00:28 – 00:07:28:31
Clint Loveall
And we’re going to see that as we continue through those stories. And so not the last time we’ll get to have some of this conversation. You know, and there are times we don’t see it here. Maybe we see it in the next story. Michael, To be honest, I don’t think if I don’t think the disciples, Luke, doesn’t give us the impression that the disciples do this on purpose to sort of.

00:07:28:48 – 00:07:29:29
Michael Gewecke
Know, yeah.

00:07:29:38 – 00:07:59:36
Clint Loveall
Make a point to the Pharisees. We almost maybe get that possibility as we move on to the next story here. So let’s jump back in to the text here at verse six on another Sabbath here, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the Sabbath so that they might find an accusation against him, even though he knew what they were thinking.

00:08:00:07 – 00:08:22:49
Clint Loveall
He said to the man with the withered hand, Come and stand here. He got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath to save life or destroy it? After looking around at all of them, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

00:08:23:40 – 00:08:51:09
Clint Loveall
He did so and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and disgust with one another, what they might do to Jesus. So your point is well taken, Michael. That Luke sort of simmers this for us. We don’t jump into full conflict in Luke’s gospel, but we have in this story, I think, seen it go up a peg and Jesus is aware of what they’re thinking.

00:08:51:45 – 00:09:23:24
Clint Loveall
The argument here and again, just to make sure you understand it, the idea of healing is not you could save someone’s life on the Sabbath. You could intervene if someone was in danger, you could do something. But but if you were doing something that constituted a non-life threatening action, then that was considered work. And and the Pharisees would have generally considered that it should have waited to the next day.

00:09:23:24 – 00:09:45:16
Clint Loveall
If you didn’t have to intervene, you could wait and it didn’t have to be done on the Holy day. And Jesus aware of this conversation and in in Luke here as well, aware of what their thinking kind of puts them in a spot. You know, he has the man stand in front of him. He says, you know, okay, let’s talk about why.

00:09:45:16 – 00:10:03:54
Clint Loveall
What what can you do on the Sabbath? Is the Sabbath for good or is it for harm? And then he tells this man to stretch out. We saw a version of this with the man on the mat. But in that point, Jesus said, Your sins are forgiven here. He doesn’t do that. He simply tells the man, Stretch out your hand and he does.

00:10:04:26 – 00:10:36:05
Clint Loveall
And his hand was restored. And what I think fascinating what Luke wants us to get, Michael, is the reaction to this text, because they’re filled with fury. And the idea is they’re not mad because he healed their eye. They’re mad because he backed them into the corner. He made a point of argument with them, and then he proved his point by doing this miraculous thing and now really, for the first time, we get the sense that through their eyes, they see Jesus as someone dangerous.

00:10:36:34 – 00:11:01:46
Michael Gewecke
Not only did Jesus do this healing, and they’re really mad about the way that he’s abusing what their interpretation of the law. I think it’s fascinating to point out they’re not even surprised that he can heal. I mean, Luke makes that explicitly clear. It says they’re wanting to see whether he would not if he could, that there is in Luke’s telling of this story.

00:11:01:46 – 00:11:32:25
Michael Gewecke
No question about Jesus’s capability. The question is what lines are Jesus willing to cross? And from Luke’s perspective, you know, the Pharisees standing between Jesus and this man, they they stand with their rulebook and their expectations. And here’s this man with a withered hand, a life that would surely be affected by his lessened ability to work, if not inability to work, depending upon the extent and nature of his injuries.

00:11:32:51 – 00:12:02:54
Michael Gewecke
What Jesus is offering this man is new life in a concrete, physical, human way. This man gets to live life a new way. The thing that the Pharisees see is a legal question of not whether the man should be healed or certainly even could be healed. The question is, can you do it on this day? And I think that what Luke is exposing for us is not a, at its core, a lack of faith on the part of the Pharisees.

00:12:02:54 – 00:12:30:57
Michael Gewecke
What what it exposes is a inherently small minded, very narrow, focused kind of faith. And we are showed that the heart behind this was never one of real question because as you said, so clearly the emotion that follows this is not one of those who’ve been taught something different or who have been contradicted and see that there might be merit in it.

00:12:30:57 – 00:12:57:37
Michael Gewecke
No, they’re filled with fury, which leads them to a discussion about what they might do to Jesus. And there Luke is. Yes, not even shorthand. I mean, Luke is making it clear, as you say, we’ve gone up another level in the conflict, and the Pharisees now have reached a point where they feel that Jesus is of a particular level of concern, that they need to begin taking action against him.

00:12:57:37 – 00:13:11:11
Michael Gewecke
And I think it’s just striking they’re not doing that because Jesus help the person. They’re not doing it because they were surprised that he could do it. They’re doing it because he showed them the power that he has and it conflicted with what they thought he should do.

00:13:11:18 – 00:13:34:35
Clint Loveall
You know, it’s really if you read it slowly and sort of put the characters in conversation with one another, it’s really a pretty dramatic scene. There’s a man there, Jesus is there, the Pharisees are there. They see the man. They know Jesus could heal him, but they’re wondering if he will. They believe he shouldn’t. Jesus knows that. They believe he shouldn’t.

00:13:35:00 – 00:13:58:37
Clint Loveall
Jesus calls the man to stand out in front of everyone. Then he says words that are really for the Pharisees and not for the man. And then he heals the man on the Sabbath, thereby doing his thing and not their thing. It’s kind of a showdown that we have here in you could you could argue whether it’s intentionally or unintentionally.

00:13:58:37 – 00:14:28:28
Clint Loveall
I think that would be an interesting conversation. Michael But from the Pharisees perspective, what Jesus has done here is an act of defiance. Now that they they believe they understand the law and they believe Jesus should understand the law. And yet he’s he’s kind of called them out. And they’ve had this showdown in public. And he’s made a very clear sign of defying them, of not doing what they believe he should do.

00:14:28:28 – 00:14:58:42
Clint Loveall
And in their mind, I think that’s what offends them. I think that’s what angers them. This isn’t a miscommunication. This is a fundamental disagreement. And Jesus question to them is essentially, how can your rules be of God if they keep you from doing good things for people? If if if your rules mean that a man doesn’t get his life back and his hand healed, how can that be a godly rule?

00:14:59:02 – 00:15:14:51
Clint Loveall
And they don’t they don’t want to engage that conversation. I mean, that’s a terrifying question for them. And the reaction, not surprisingly, for, you know, whenever we’re guilty of self-righteousness, anger is not far behind. And so they’re infuriated.

00:15:15:30 – 00:15:37:04
Michael Gewecke
You know, this is an intentional grouping of stories, and I’m not going to go backwards. I certainly if you haven’t seen the studies before, this, definitely jump back and watch those. But we began with Jesus dining with tax collectors. The Pharisees were upset about that. Then Jesus teaches about fasting when the disciples are eating and drinking and the Pharisees are wondering why?

00:15:37:04 – 00:16:00:07
Michael Gewecke
Why aren’t your disciples doing these spiritual practices? Then we had what we had earlier today, the questions about Sabbath, about what can you do and what can’t you do. The eating food. Make note of the fact that here this is, I believe and correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I believe that this is the first one of this grouping of stories that makes it clear that Jesus knows what they’re thinking.

00:16:00:07 – 00:16:24:27
Michael Gewecke
So here, when Jesus does this action, it’s sort of the culmination of all these stories we’ve had before. Jesus has been sparring with the Pharisees in lots of different ways, but here this is a set up. When Jesus heals this man, he knows what they’re thinking. He knows that they’re going to be upset by this action. He knows that the thing that they’re focused on is the fact it’s the Sabbath and not restoring this man’s life.

00:16:24:50 – 00:16:47:16
Michael Gewecke
And so really, we’ve reached this pinnacle moment in his relationship with the Pharisees, where when push comes to shove, it’s not academic for Jesus. When push comes to shove, this is not a philosophy or theology debate. This isn’t the kind of thing that you just do over the lunch table. And then, you know, you go home and you go back to the rest of your life.

00:16:47:16 – 00:17:08:33
Michael Gewecke
Now, when Jesus comes to the end of this grouping of stories, he is going to make a choice for, well, knowing what it means and he makes it, even though it incites the Pharisees to make the case that he’s the maker of the law. They are not. He’s the one with the power. They are not. And it reminds me of that, saying that the crowd gave all the way back in his first sermon.

00:17:08:33 – 00:17:21:09
Michael Gewecke
This is a man who teaches with authority. I think that that is a an important source of growth that we see happening in Jesus’s relationship with the Pharisees, one that they don’t particularly enjoy.

00:17:21:37 – 00:17:45:30
Clint Loveall
Yeah, And there’s there’s a lot written on this. You can find a lot of great articles. There’s a lot of scholarship. The sort of question is, are the scriptures hard on the Pharisees? Yes, there would have been Pharisees that were favorable to these ideas. Pharisees was it was not a rigid category. They didn’t all agree with each other.

00:17:45:46 – 00:18:12:55
Clint Loveall
But the Pharisee becomes this sort of code word that the New Testament uses for a self-righteous, legalistic kind of faith. You would have probably appreciated the Pharisees in their day. They were devout people, they were genuine people. They would have made pretty good neighbors. They would, you know, they really were intent on doing doing the right thing for the most part.

00:18:13:15 – 00:18:38:09
Clint Loveall
But they perceive Jesus as a threat. They they see the changes that Jesus is sort of implementing. They see Jesus, you know, eating with the sinners. And now they see him doing things on the Sabbath and they can’t make room for Jesus within. They’re sort of closed system. And I think it’s easy to think that’s about the Pharisees.

00:18:38:09 – 00:19:13:03
Clint Loveall
Michael And and it is. I mean, obviously the stories that it’s the Pharisees who are furious with Jesus. But I think the lesson in that for all of us, whatever label we would put on ourself is do our boxes, make room for new truth. Jesus is always going at some level to dismantle what we think we already know in order to give us a new way forward and to broaden our understanding of who God is, who we are, and what our responsibilities are towards others.

00:19:13:03 – 00:19:53:25
Clint Loveall
And, you know, I think when I see the Pharisees, I see ultimately an example of a people who who are so entrenched in their own stuff that they can’t make room to see, even if they don’t see the healing. Right? That’s the ultimate irony here. They see Jesus fix a man’s hand with his words, right? And all they can think of is about the day he did it and whether he broke a rule and there is a lesson in all in that for all of us, because self-righteousness is such a dangerous trap and it keeps us from seeing anything new that God might be trying to show us.

00:19:53:25 – 00:20:06:54
Clint Loveall
And so, yes, we have to be aware that Jesus is conflicted with the Pharisees, but rather than being too hard on the Pharisees, I think we have to read that also as a caution to ourselves.

00:20:07:04 – 00:20:34:10
Michael Gewecke
And I’ll be very brief at this point, and this is a challenging way to read this text, but this last verse, they’re filled with fury and disgust with one another. What they might do. I think our temptation is to think of the Pharisees as they and think that those bad opponents were the ones who were furious. But I wonder if there’s also another lesson in the text for us here that if we encounter Jesus for who He is, there are times that we’re going to be furious, too.

00:20:34:26 – 00:20:54:05
Michael Gewecke
And I submit to you, when Jesus calls you to love your neighbor, you might be quick to do so. When he says Love your enemies, there’s going to be times that’s going to make us very furious. I don’t want to love that person. I don’t want to find within myself the capacity for forgiveness. I don’t want to give what I would rather take.

00:20:54:05 – 00:21:22:44
Michael Gewecke
I mean, there’s a sense here in which I think if we’re honest, Clint, Jesus does call us into areas of life that stretch us beyond our ability to do by ourselves. I think here the Pharisees illustrate that there are people who stand at the scene of an amazing miracle that restores a man’s hand, his health, his life. And yet in that moment, they’re furious about him doing the thing he shouldn’t have done.

00:21:23:00 – 00:21:41:38
Michael Gewecke
And that, I think, is the basic human temptation that we ourselves have. And the question is, when we encounter the living Christ and he calls us into those places, will we to plot what we’ll do against him? Or will we see the great gift, the grace that’s offered in his presence?

00:21:42:07 – 00:22:06:43
Clint Loveall
I don’t want to insinuate that this is in the text, but I think the text is a springboard that might take us that direction. I think maybe the Gospels paint a picture of Jesus as the one who is always most interested in the areas of our life that we are least interested in Jesus being a part of whatever it is that we want to section off and say, you know, that’s off limits.

00:22:06:43 – 00:22:34:37
Clint Loveall
Jesus. That’s the place Jesus wants to start. And not surprisingly, for the Pharisees, that place is law that places self righteousness, that places rigid ness, and Jesus Jesus confronts them in the place that they’re least able to see him. But that’s true for all of us. It may be different places, maybe different issues, but Jesus is most interested in what we’re least interested in Him being a part of.

00:22:34:37 – 00:22:37:39
Clint Loveall
And, you know, I think we see that here.

00:22:38:29 – 00:22:56:00
Michael Gewecke
I think trends that will bring us to the end for today and then also for this week, we’ll continue in our study in Luke chapter six, verse 12. But we continue next week. Until then, like this video helps others find it in the future when they’re studying the Bible themselves. And be sure to join us for worship on Sunday at nine until service.

00:22:56:29 – 00:22:59:27
Michael Gewecke
That’s right. One service. Thanks. Be blessed.

00:22:59:31 – 00:23:00:19
Clint Loveall
Have a great weekend.