for September 7
Monday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

We know exactly how this encounter between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees is going to go, whether that’s because it was foreshadowed by Saturday’s gospel or because we know Luke’s gospel well enough, or because we know that’s just how these things go: the scribes and Pharisees are looking for trouble and so they will find it. Jesus knows the game they are playing, so he doesn’t even wait for an answer to his question “is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” before he says to the man standing before him in the synagogue, “stretch out your hand.”

That’s when I imagine the room falls silent and all eyes are on—not Jesus, but the man’s withered right hand: “shrunken from age or disease,” possibly, but also, according to the Merriam-Webster definition, “lacking force or vitality.”

And Jesus says, “stretch out your hand.”

The Lord stretched out his hand to smite Egypt and set the Israelites free (Exodus 3:20). When Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, the waters parted and the Israelites escaped their pursuers (Exodus 14:21). And the Psalmist calls on the Lord to again stretch out his hand from on high for deliverance from the deep waters (Psalm 144:7).

The command that Jesus gave in the synagogue that day led to healing: “his hand was restored.” But wasn’t it also at the same time an invitation, a call to exercise the saving power of God? No wonder the Pharisees “became enraged.” No wonder they began plotting against Jesus.

Do we dare to pray today for the same sort of healing? To ask to be restored to a similar share in God’s healing power? 

In the United States, it is difficult to hear echoes of the Exodus story like those within this gospel passage without remembering also the people who were enslaved in our own country. After a summer of public protest that Black Lives Matter, perhaps today’s gospel asks us what evil will we remove from its power over peoples’ lives? How will we create a way out of no way? Who can we pull from the deep waters of embedded racism? How will we stretch out our hands?

Today is also Labor Day, a good day to reflect on the work of our hands. Hands can be at least as expressive as faces. Hands can make real what we think and feel and believe: creating, protecting, healing. Doing good and saving life. Like God’s hands, even on the sabbath. So, “stretch out your hand.”
—BJ Brown

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.