God's Temple

Gospel: Luke 6: 6-11

Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, to preserve life? Jesus asks this pointed question, one that will inform the rest of the Gospel of Luke.  In what does the worship of God consist? In today's story we find people gathered at Temple for Sabbath worship of God as is customary.  But Jesus invites us to the temple God created for honoring him - the human person.  By healing this man with a withered hand Jesus offers true worship to God.

This same message is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan later in the gospel.  It is the Good Samaritan, not the priest and Levite, who fulfills the law and gains eternal life.  The elements of temple worship - oil and wine - are more appropriately used to worship God in caring for the body of one in need, the body created in God's image and likeness, a body that is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  

Any ritual worship in a temple or church that does not lead us to care for the temple of God in the human person is false worship and taking God's name in vain.  We worship God most fully in caring for those in need, in honoring God in other people who are made in God's image and likeness.  Every day, then, is a Sabbath day.  Every day is a day to do good, to worship God in caring for our neighbor.