PODCAST
To Save a Life
June 20th, 2014
Luke 6:1-16
In the summer of 2012, Hallandale Beach, Florida lifeguard Tomas Lopez was fired for saving a man’s life.
He was terminated because the drowning man was just outside the zone patrolled by the company that employed Lopez. He told one reporter: “I’m not going to put my job over helping someone. I’m going to do what I felt was right, and I did.” While the hero was eventually offered his job back (he declined), the point had been made–“lifeguards guard lives”–no matter “the zone.”
It was this same kind of monumental missing-of-the-point that Jesus was addressing with the Pharisees in Luke 6. Even in the end, the Pharisees come out “furious,” completely overlooking the irony (or, more accurately, folly) of arguing the rules of the Sabbath with the Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5).
It’s easy to mock the Pharisees, until I recall times when my behavior was similar. It’s important to remember Jesus’ rhetorical question: “‘I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?’” (Luke 6:9b).
Author: Brian Charette
