Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, which changes to Kingdom-time or the Kingdom Season on Sunday with All Saints’ Day. My school year (Gormanston 1969) is meeting for lunch in Roly’s Bistro in Ballsbridge, Dublin, today, and I am sorry to miss this gatering. It’s 57 years since we left school, but many of us are still keep in contact with one another. I have been at most of our gatherings down through the years, so I am disappointed about missing today’s get-together.
Before the day begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 14: 1-6 (NRSVA)
1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ 4 But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?’ 6 And they could not reply to this.
Today’s Reflections:
Over the past four or five years, following a stroke and due to various health conditions, I have been in a number of hospitals, including one in Milton Keynes, two in Oxford, one in London, and one in Sheffield. While I was staying in Sheffield I noticed words from Hippocrates, Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, inscribed at the Medical School in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield. The saying means ‘art is long, life is short’ and the phrase is a Latin translation of the opening line of the Aphorisms by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates: Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή (Ho bíos brakhús, hē dè tékhnē makrḗ).
The familiar Latin translation reverses the order of the original lines in Greek, but still expresses the same principle, life is short and it takes a long time to develop a craft or technical skill, such as the skill of medicine. Perhaps Hippocrates, who is known as the ‘Father of Medicine’, was saying that learning and mastering the practice of medicine takes a lifetime, but a doctor’s life is too brief to learn everything.
Hippocrates of Kos (ca 460 – ca 370 BCE) wrote this pithy saying as the preface of his medical text: ‘The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate’.
The Roman philosopher Seneca and later Latin writers adapted it into the famous order: Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile, ‘Life is short, craft long, opportunity fleeting, experimentation perilous, judgment difficult’.
In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14:1-6), Jesus is faced with a conundrum. It is the sabbath and he is going to eat dinner at the home of a local religious leader: if he ignores the sick man’s plight and delays his opportunity for healing, does he ignore that love and compassion are the core of true religion? Or, if heals this man, is he going to be accused of breaching religious rules, regulations traditions.
How is he going to do not only what is right for himself and the patient, but also win over the co-operation or goodwill of those who are present, those who are also attending the dinner in the Pharisee’s house and those outside three circles, his own, that of the man seeking healing, and the people who may not be oart of the Pharisee’s circle of guests and friends but who are onlookers?
The discussion that arises is not about whether Christ has the moral duty or responsibility, the legal right or power, the appropriate qualifications or the authority, to heal the man with dropsy, but whether doing this on the Sabbath shows disdain for the law of God.
Life is short, but is it so short that it is compelling to heal this man on this day? Is his life so short that he cannot wait until another day to be healed? Could he not healed just as well on, say, Sunday or Monday?
This is the sole, lone and only Gospel incident in which the Greek word ὑδρωπικός (hydropikos) is used to describe a person suffering from dropsy. It is a pathological retention of fluid that causes abnormal swelling. Although it is a medical term, its single New Testament appearance in this reading becomes theologically rich when placed within the Gospel narrative.
In the world of the Biblical Mediterranean, dropsy was seen as incurable and associated with other systemic illnesses. Swelling of the limbs and abdomen visibly marked the sufferer, making him ritually unclean by the religious understanding of the day and socially marginalised.
Physicians such as Hippocrates discussed the malady, yet effective treatment was scarce. A hydropic person embodied chronic suffering and exclusion, providing a stark contrast to the wholeness of life envisioned in God’s covenant promises.
Should this man be left, as it were, among the living dead?
By asking whether it is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not (verse 3), Jesus exposes the discrepancy between the Law’s intent and the tradition-bound application of it. When he heals the man and sends him away whole, he affirms the Sabbath as a day ‘for doing good’.
Of course, the man is not dying. Although he has dropsy, his healing could take place on any other day, indeed at any other venue. But, even before they speak, Christ’s response to his potential protagonists is to ask a question: ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?’ (verse 4).
If they say no, they show their ignorance of the law and the rabbinical tradition; if they say yes, how could they possibly disagree with what they know he is about to do?
After this healing miracle, Christ goes on to share two parables about humility and the heavenly banquet (Luke 14: 7-24). The hydropic man’s restoration anticipates the inclusive feast of the Kingdom, where the physically and spiritually bloated pride of the self-righteous is contrasted with the humble who accept the invitation.
If mercy towards animals or family members is permitted, how much more should mercy for a suffering image-bearer of God be celebrated?
What better day is there than the Sabbath, a day meant to promote God’s commitment to humanity’s well-being, for the restoration of a man with a debilitating illness?
In his response, Christ allows this man to return to work with dignity, and restores him to his full and rightful place in the community of faith that may have been denied to him by the very people who are present that Sabbath.
The man who must once have thought that his life is very short indeed is given new life, and is assured he is a Child of God.
Life is too short to delay the opportunity to assure others of the love and healing mercy of God and their place in the Kingdom of God.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 30 October 2026):
The theme this week (25 to 31 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Update from Myanmar’ (pp 50-51). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Davidson Solanki, Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 30 October 2026) invites us to pray:
Almighty God, we thank you for CPM’s faithrooted and sustainable development work. Uphold the bishops’ commitment to strengthening systems and local ownership.
The Collect of the Day:
Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God of all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Merciful God,
teach us to be faithful in change and uncertainty,
that trusting in your word
and obeying your will
we may enter the unfailing joy of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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