Our Gospel reading for this weekend relates the story of Jesus curing a badly stooped woman who had been suffering for 18 years. He cured her on a Sabbath and in a synagogue. In the Hebrew system of the numerical value of words, the Hebrew word for life (chai) has the value of 18. This, then, makes 18 a favorable number as it indicates hopes for a long life. Likewise, the Shemoneh Esrei, the consummate Hebrew prayer, literally means eighteen (8+10). It has this meaning because it originally contained 18 blessings divided into three distinct types of prayer: Praise, Petitions and Thanks. A 19th blessing was later added. (You will note that we Christians also have these same three types of prayers).

This story is unique to Luke’s Gospel and attests to Jesus’ kindly regard for the unfortunate and for women. Jesus always had an eye for the needy.

Luke expresses the fact that Jesus revealed that it is more important that we live in accord with God’s Spirit of kindness and love for others rather than observing laws and judging others who do not agree with our beliefs. The chief of the synagogue, obviously, judged Jesus because He did not observe the Jewish Law the way that the synagogue leader believed it should be observed.

Our Epistle reading, which is taken from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, says at one point that we must have zeal to propagate the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace, as you will recall, is best summarized by the following:

• The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;
• The Judgment Rule: Don’t judge others if you don’t want to be judged;
• The Love Rule: Love others as you love yourself; and
• The Forgiveness Rule: Forgive others if you want to be forgiven.

What God revealed in the Person of Jesus is that it is important how we treat others since God is the life-force within all humans and therefore how we treat our neighbors who we can see is, in reality, how we treat our God Whom we cannot see. God revealed through Jesus that our neighbors, that is other human beings, are the real opportunities that life presents to us to grow in our likeness of Jesus, Who is God in human form.

Indeed there is no argument we can make which can justify us treating badly our neighbor. We can, as one lawyer did in the New Testament, pretend we don’t know who our neighbors are, but in reality we are only fooling ourselves. We all know who Jesus meant when He taught us to love our neighbors. Our neighbors are all other humans, regardless of how they treat us. This is the challenge of Christianity.