When to Go Rogue: What Jesus Says About Saving Life and Breaking Rules

One sabbath while Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them.  But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” He got up and stood there.  Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” After looking around at all of them, he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.  —Luke 6:1-11

On The Moth Radio hour this week, Greg Audel shared his story. He talks about a childhood in a home with no rules. His parents were, as he said, “Busy with their own things,” and didn’t place many expectations on his habits or behavior. He slept when he wanted, ate what he wanted, and went to school when he felt like it. Which wasn’t often.

But then when he was 12 years old, something shifted. He started going to a private school that was about 30 miles from his house, and there he made good friends with another boy who lived much closer to the school. He started spending time at this friend’s house. Audel says the first time he went home with his friend, they had after school snacks. Well, that’s quaint, he thought.

And the first time he heard the dad ask to see his son’s homework, Audel said to his friend, “Are you going to take that from him??”

But then, his friend’s mother told them it was time to get ready for bed. And Audel teared up… Never in life had anyone told him to go to bed.

He then went into the bathroom…where a toothbrush had been laid out for him. The mom stuck her head in and said, “if you want to throw your clothes in the hamper, I’ll be happy to wash them for you.” So that by the time they got to bed, he was literally sobbing… Because he had never experienced these particular expressions of love and care before. It was a whole new world as he began to see that “rules, routines and structure…had value.”

So, you heard it here first, kids. Bedtime, homework, and curfew… that is a LOVE LANGUAGE.

What’s interesting is that the title of this segment has nothing to do with rules, or discipline. Instead, it is called “Finding My Village.” It goes to show how powerfully a few simple rules can shape a sense of belonging… How sharing expectations and boundaries is a big part of what forges a family connection.

“My friend’s parents said that I could stay there anytime I wanted,” he said. “So I pretty much stayed for the next 5 years.”

Some of the rules that we live by, as civilized people, are for our own good. There are traffic laws, laws against stealing, laws against doing bodily harm to another person. And some of the rules that order are lives are more of a covenantal nature…things that bind us as family and community, but are not legally binding.

In Jesus’ world, sabbath law was both; a law, and a covenant. A central part of community and family life, meant to restore the body, connect the family, and even serve justice–providing a needed break for workers, and even the land itself.

Which is why the sabbath law was the perfect issue for the Pharisees to leverage when they wanted to back Jesus into a corner. It was a great hot-button ideological issue that touched every part of life. That’s why we frequently come upon stories in scripture like this one, otherwise known as the “sabbath controversies.” If the authorities can catch Jesus doing something on the Sabbath Day that counts as work, they can easily say, “look, he clearly doesn’t know how we do things.”

Jesus healing on the sabbath day, or looking the other way as the disciples grind some grain for their breakfast, creates the perfect opportunity, and the Pharisees are ready. “See??” they say to the onlookers. “He doesn’t know the rules. He isn’t one of us.”

As always though, Jesus does not submit to their legalistic pop quiz. Instead, he changes the conversation. He shifts the focus from the letter of the law (which, obviously, he knows as well as they do) to the spirit of the law. And that, as we know, is when things always get interesting with Jesus.

Because the spirit of the law is far more complex than its wording. In this case, Jesus says, the spirit of the law is not about what day it is, or what counts as work and what doesn’t–it is about right and wrong; doing good vs.doing what is evil. No matter what the law says, the word on the page is never more important than the person in front of you.  When someone is hungry, you feed them. When someone is injured, you heal what’s hurting. Laws have their place in our lives, but ultimately, you have to be in the moment, and root your actions in love. You have to ask if keeping the law, in this moment, will give life–or take it away.

This is a moment of empowerment that Jesus gives to his disciples, to the onlookers, and to all who would come and hear this word later. It is a call to live, not just within the law, but within the deeper covenants that bind us as people of God. It is a call to the hard work of discernment; to not rely on written rules to guide our conscience; but to dig deeper. To find that intersection of our humanity and the Holy Spirit, recognizing that no legitimate law calls us to let another person suffer. And if it does, then that law goes against the deeper covenant of who we are.

So, for instance–just hypothetically speaking, for example–if you were a National Park Ranger, and a word comes forth that says you can no longer share information with the public about the environment, or climate change… Well, then that law goes against your deepest values; your beliefs about stewardship of the earth, and the shared ownership of our greatest national treasures. So maybe you have to go rogue. Maybe you create an “Alt” Twitter account, so that you can still engage the public, and share actual facts. Maybe you even inspire a growing resistance… So that within 24 hours there is also an AltNASA account, an AltUSForestService, and an UngaggedEPA; all positioned to voice opposition to the growing threat against the environment.

Or maybe you are the Mayor of a sanctuary city. And maybe your government threatens to come in and do broad deportation sweeps… That goes against every expectation you and your community have established about what it means to be a place of welcome and inclusion. So maybe you stand at a lectern, with cameras flashing, surrounded by your people…and maybe you look into those cameras, and lean into those microphones and you say, “not in our house. This is not who we are.”

Maybe your name is Mark Hetfield, and you are the President of HIAS–one of the largest refugee resettlement organizations in the country. And the powers that be say that refugees aren’t welcome here anymore. That’s when you make a public statement and say “Faith groups are going to kick and scream and object to every aspect of this vile executive order that makes America something it is not.” Maybe you say something like that.

And if you are a person deeply committed to interfaith relationships, and your President passes a thinly veiled maneuver to keep Muslims out of your country…then maybe you send the ACLU to every airport in America and watch this bill get lawyered to death. You stand up and you say “that law has no life in it. This is not who we are.”

Because, after all, we have been shaped by the things that bind us. Rules and customs; shared values and expectations; the law of the land and the covenants of community. We value all of these things too deeply to let any of them be distorted; manipulated by those hungry for power or filled with hate. We do not let that stand, because we know who we are. We know who we are together, and we know who we are in Christ.

Jesus calls us to live by a higher calling than the word on the page, the letter of the law. We are called to live by the rule of heart, the inner voice of the holy. We are led to that sacred intersection of our humanity and the Holy Spirit, and when we find that place, we are empowered to discern what is right in the moment; and to meet the need in front of us.

Of course, there is a difference between laws that are legally binding, and those of our covenantal relationships. There is a time and place for both, and all of these boundaries serve to shape us in some way. But ultimately, it is not the letter of the law that shapes us… it is the spirit of love and transformation that we have known in Christ and community; it is this higher calling to be people who heal, and feed, and show mercy. And when, from time to time, the law of the land is at odds with who we are as people of faith–then we push the edges of the law, as Jesus did.

We may not always know when it’s time to do that. But Jesus gave us a simple test to know what is right, in any given moment: we just have to ask ourselves a few simple questions. Is it good? Is it just? Does it protect the vulnerable, or give more authority to the powerful?

Does the law give life, or take it away? 

Sometimes rule breaking is a love language of its own.