Is Now the Right TIme?

“I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?”

In yesterday’s reading, Jesus addressed a question concerning the right time to fast. In today’s reading, Luke continues the theme of the “right time” in two episodes. Jesus corrects the Pharisees, who are preoccupied with whether the Sabbath is the right time to work or to heal, according to the Law. While Jesus’s disciples are more concerned about their grumbling stomachs than the Law in the first episode, Jesus preemptively attends to the Pharisees’ unspoken accusation is the second episode by asking a rhetorical question. Jesus’s reply essentially asks, “Is there a right or wrong time to do good?”

This should be a rhetorical question. We think the answer is obvious: “No, there is no wrong time to do good.” But our actions often contradict this proclamation. As the Ash Wednesday “Litany of Penitence” in the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, we must confess the ways in which we have sinned “in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” In one of his final instructions to the people of Galatia, Paul admonishes us not to grow weary in doing what is right but to do good at every opportunity (Gal. 6:9-10). Are there good deeds that we leave undone? Whether being weary or blind to someone’s need, we can be like the priest or Levite in Jesus’s parable about the good Samaritan, passing up the right time to do good for someone.

During this season, may your eyes be open to every opportunity to do good, and may you never tire in doing what is right.

Father God, help me see every opportunity to do good as the right time to show your love. Amen.

KYLE BERRY
Master of Divinity/Master of Music student
Waco, Texas