What should you do when your conscience goes against ‘the rules’?

A Reflection for Friday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

A few details that you could miss in today’s Gospel: “Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.” We do not know their disposition. Are they skeptical? Welcoming? Curious? We’re not told explicitly. But Luke does let us know that “the people there were observing him carefully.” 

Jesus has already had some dust-ups with the Pharisees and the scholars of the law in Luke’s Gospel. (See 11:53-54: “When he left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.”) Jesus presumably knew that this would be at best an awkward dinner, and more likely a downright hostile one. He goes anyway. There is something for us to learn here.

We learn that “in front of” Jesus, there was a man suffering from dropsy (today called “edema”). We are not told if he is one of the guests or is just passing by. Imagining this Gospel in either scenario is fruitful, so just pick one for now. 

Jesus is in a bind—or he assumed that his dinner companions thought he was. Here was someone who could use some healing, and yet it was the sabbath. Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?”

Normally, Jesus is the one presented with these loaded questions. But this time, he beats his dinner companions to it. Perhaps the lawyers in attendance looked at the situation and knew it would have been silly to ask: with Jesus, in this place, with someone suffering right in front of them—it would have been silly to pause and check if helping him was “following the rules.” 

So Jesus heals the man, and perhaps sensing some tension in the room, asks his tablemates another question: “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” The Gospel says that “they were nable to answer his question.”

That said, someone could have easily presented the following argument to Jesus: “Look, this man’s condition is chronic; he could easily be healed tomorrow. Just ask him to come back then if you care so much. What is a few more hours of discomfort?” It’s not a stretch to call this line of thinking reasonable and prudent. But no one does say this to Jesus. 

Jesus’ question is asked in a self-evident way, but we know that it was in fact not self-evident, and Jews debated and continue to debate what exactly is the right way to honor the sabbath. And we should remember, this questioning and debating is a good and holy instinct: Trying to understand what God wants us to do is worth doing. 

But sometimes, understanding what God wants does not involve complicated legal or theological arguments. Sometimes you just need to listen to your gut (or, in more theological terms, your conscience). But it’s easy, so easy, to lose touch with that part of yourself. That part that can look at a situation right in front of you, or across the world, and determine not only what is right and wrong, but more importantly, what you need to do about it. 

That voice of conscience can get trampled on by all sorts of normal human realities: biases (“every time someone has tried this it’s been a disaster”), assumptions (“she wouldn’t accept this help from me even if I offered it”), fear (“what will people think of me if they find out?”). Even perfectly logical reasoning can lead someone to the wrong answer if it is based on a flawed premise. And while these can get in the way of our conscience, they can never ultimately destroy it. Our conscience makes up our most inner and sacred parts. As Vatican II put it: “Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.” 

So today, perhaps we can get in touch with that inner sanctuary of ours, and ask: Is there someone around me who needs healing today? And should I do something about it? 

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