April and I have a few TV shows that we like to watch over and over. One of those shows is Brooklyn 99, starring Andy Samburg as detective Jake Peralta. Jake is a detective at the NYPD, and he is one of those characters who acts like a big goof off but always seems to get the job done. Despite his jovial demeanor, Jake is very clearly committed to his work. The thing that gets him into the most trouble though is not his jokes and carefree attitude, it is the fact that he will occasionally break the rules in order to solve a case. He would be reprimanded, taken off the case, even lose his badge, but that didn’t stop him. He was so confident that he could solve the case that he would continue to work on it.

I’ll admit that I’m kind of drawn to characters like Jake Peralta who break rules or bend social norms, like: Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Moana, Elle Woods, Lieutenant Daniel Caffee, and more. These characters don’t play by the normal rules because they are focused on a higher priority. They are not just breaking those rules for the fun of it. They want to achieve something much bigger: stop Voldemort from stealing the Sorcerer’s Stone, catch the criminal, help the poor, etc. In the end, the good they’ve accomplished far outweighs the rule-breaking it took to achieve it.

This morning in our story from the gospel of Luke, Jesus and his disciples are on their way toward Jerusalem, and it is the Sabbath. Jesus has entered one of the synagogues to teach. As he was teaching, a woman came into the synagogue who was bent over and unable to stand up straight. Jesus took notice of her and invited her to draw near to him. Jesus said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Then he laid his hands on her, and she was healed. On its face, this was not a surprising act from Jesus at this point in his ministry. He had healed Peter’s mother-in-law. He had healed a whole group of people that were brought to him at sunset on one particular day. He cleansed a leper, healed a paralytic, and restored a man’s withered hand to normal. He healed yet another multitude of people, as well as a Centurion’s son, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, and a man who was mute.

Jesus was pretty famous for his healings at this point, yet the leader of the synagogue was outraged because Jesus had done this healing on the Sabbath. The leader said to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

There are two parts of this statement that I want to discuss. First, the leader says, “There are six days on which work ought to be done.” This is a reference to the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment says, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” The definition of what constituted work for the Jews was complex, but by Jesus’ day, many rules had already been constructed to describe what was and wasn’t permitted on the Sabbath. For the Pharisees, the Jewish lawmakers, healing was considered against the rules, which quite frankly doesn’t make any sense to me. And it seems that it didn’t make sense to Jesus either, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

There is one other part of the leader’s complaint that I wanted to talk about. The leader says, “come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” It feels to me like the leader is blaming the woman here. He tells the people, “There are six days available during the week for you to work. Why not come to be healed on one of those days to be healed?” It’s not, “Jesus, you should not be healing people on the Sabbath,” though I think that was a concern also. The synagogue leader here was instead blaming the woman who came to be healed, after all, she was the one whose sins made her sick in the first place…or so was the belief of the day. Anyone who was sick must have done something wrong that made them that way.

That wasn’t the opinion of Jesus though. Jesus responded to the entire synagogue, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” Jesus defends this woman, not only her choice to seek healing, but he argues that she was not to blame for her affliction. Instead, Jesus says that her affliction came from Satan. Jesus stands up for her while also calling out the hypocrisy of those speaking out against her. His argument is that these people are saying that it is wrong for this woman to be healed on the Sabbath, but they have no problem leading their animals out of the barn to get water.

I find it interesting that Jesus’ argument isn’t that he didn’t break any rules. His argument is that sometimes we have to break the rules for something more important. You probably all know the saying “rules are meant to be broken.” Quite often that phrase is used to justify bad behavior. They can break whatever rules they want and then somehow saying, “Rules are meant to be broken” saves them from the consequences. That is not what Jesus is doing here. He is not saying that you can just break the rules any time you want to. He’s not suggesting that the rules don’t matter. But what I think he is saying is that there are, on occasion, times when breaking the rules is the right thing to do.

So, when is it acceptable, or even right, to break the rules? I believe that Jesus gives a couple different answers to that question in this story. First, it’s acceptable to break the rules if it is to save a person’s life. This woman had been ill for a long time. I suspect that she’d lost hope of healing long before stepping into that synagogue. But she’d heard about the miracles of Jesus, so she came. Despite her years of experience, her hope of healing arose within her…just a tiny bit. She probably tried to push it back down, telling herself that it probably wouldn’t happen. She worked hard to convince herself that those other stories she was hearing of the miraculous healings of Jesus would probably not be her story. But she still couldn’t keep herself away, so she came and entered the synagogue. There was nothing wrong with her entering the synagogue, but then Jesus saw her and asked her to come near to him. This would likely have been a bit unorthodox. Then Jesus touched her and she was healed. Jesus broke the rules to give this woman her life back.

Also, it is acceptable to break the rules if there is an issue of injustice that needs fixing. Not only did this woman’s body not work right, but her ailment meant that she was not accepted into the community. She was an outcast due to no act of her own. She was simply unlucky. But she was paying a price anyway. Jesus saw her and in compassion he healed her. He did not just heal her body, he healed her soul as well. With her body fully well, she would have been able to find a new place in her community. It was a matter of justice for Jesus to heal her.

Breaking the rules of one’s society or religion or family group can be necessary from time to time, but it is extremely important to know how to live the rules fully first so that you know when and how to break them to achieve a greater purpose. Jesus lived into God’s Word so fully that he knew exactly when he needed to break the rules a bit. You’ve probably all heard of Pablo Picasso, the famous artist who invented cubism, a painting style that broke images down into geometric shapes. Picasso was stepping out and breaking the traditional rules of painting. Breaking those rules led to something new and exciting, a new life for Picasso and his art.
Rules are meant to be broken, occasionally, when it is for a good reason. Jesus had compassion on the woman and felt that healing her was more important than strict adherence to the rules for Sabbath practice. So, when is it okay for us to break rules? Some Christians would be like the Pharisees and say it is never okay to break the rules, but this passage (among others) teaches us something different. In a different instance when Jesus breaks the laws of the Sabbath, he says to his critics, “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” While it is important for us to observe a time of rest each week, the Sabbath was made to be a help to us. That means there may be times when helping others becomes more important than strictly adhering to that exact day or the full amount of rest that the Bible suggests.

Rules are important. They can keep us out of trouble and help us live better lives. They can help us be more loving and kind. But there occasionally come times when we must break a rule in order to help others or act with justice for those in need. There is certainly a fine line to walk there, and Jesus would have been better at walking that line that we are, so we must trust in God to guide us. And when we are uncertain, we err on the side of love and compassion. It seems like that was how Jesus lived, and we are called to follow his lead. May God help us in that endeavor. Amen.