Saturday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 18, 2020

Matthew 12:14-21

[And when he had passed from thence, he came into their synagogues. 

10 And behold there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. But he said to them: What man shall there be among you, that hath one sheep: and if the same fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not take hold on it and lift it up? How much better is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do a good deed on the sabbath days. Then he saith to the man: Stretch forth thy hand; and he stretched it forth, and it was restored to health even as the other.]

The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet: Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.

St. Matthew records the healing of the man with the withered hand a few verses after he quotes the Lord Jesus as declaring that he is “the Lord of the Sabbath”, thus showing the Father’s approval of the Son and his confirmation of his claim.  Matthew has shown this approval before, especially in the miracles immediately following the Sermon on the Mount.  But rather than convince the Pharisees, the miracle inflames them and they “went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.”

In the account of the healing of the man with the withered hand, which is strangely omitted from the lectionary at this point (it should have formed part of today’s Gospel reading), the Pharisees challenge the Lord to perform a miracle on the Sabbath, bringing forth a man with a withered hand.  The Lord reminds them that they would not blame a man for rescuing his animal on the Sabbath, leaving to them the question of whether they would hold someone guilty for saving a man’s health on the day of rest.  The Lord then orders the man before him to hold out his hand, and he cures it without touching him.  The Pharisees are enraged.  Once again, however, they have confused what the Law says with their interpretation of what it says.  And, once again, we see that miracles do not impress them.  For religious men, they do not seem very religious.  But these are the same men who will cover their ears and yell when, years later, the deacon Stephen answers their charges.  Theirs is a bizarre mindset, that of ignoring plain evidence in order to preserve a set of ideas based on an entirely subjective source.  It is very childish.  When adults possess it, it can lead to murder.

“When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place.” This verse is better translated, But Jesus, knowing this, departed from there.  The choice of the verb  “to realize” to render the Greek verb is not correct, and it also makes it seem that at some point Jesus came to know something he did not know before.  And so he departed from the Pharisees, leaving them to their hatred and plotting.  But he continued to heal: “Many followed him, and he cured them all.”

Matthew quotes Isaiah 42, 3 at this point, saying that what had just seen place fulfilled these words.  What is significant in the quoted passage is that it is about the salvation of the Gentiles.  It is as though Matthew is saying that the rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish leaders leads to the Christian mission to the world.  This prepares the reader for the terrible moment when the Jews, crying out for the Lord to be crucified, called out, “His ooh be upon us and our children.”  It also reminds us of how much later St. Paul strove to teach the Gospel to the Jews in the synagogue in the Greek city of Corinth, and they resisted hearing him to such an extent that “he shook his garments and said to them: Your blood be upon your own heads: I am clean. From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles” (Acts 18, 6).  

While we can understand these texts as warning us to to argue with people over religion (or anything else) who have made their minds, we ought to take it primarily as a warning that only so many opportunities for real conversion will present themselves to us in the life, and that we must act while we still can.