DO SOMETHING OR DO NOTHING

1 Samuel 17:32-33,37,40-51; PS 144 Blessed be the Lord, my rock Mark 3:1-6

"Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?"


This is the question Jesus posed to the Pharisees.

Interesting fact about the question posed.  The evil Jesus speaks of is the decision to do nothing rather than something.

Jesus sees a man who has a withered hand and chooses to heal him rather than do nothing.  Since it was in his power to act in such way out of goodness, Jesus does it.  It would have been evil to sit back an do nothing.

How often in our life do we have decisions to make?  How often do we have the power to do good to let goodness spread and we choose to do nothing?

How often are we able to save life and yet we turn a blind eye and look the other way because it is not "our" business or it is "their" choice.

Is it?  Are we not commanded to love our neighbor?  Is the refusal to do something and the choice to do nothing an act of love or betrayal?

Today around the US many have gathered in DC for the march for life.   We march for life.  This is good.  Do we stand for life?  Do we speak for life?  Do we act for life?

Or do we do nothing and chalk up to "privacy."

The voiceless need our voice, our hands, our feet, our hearts, our minds.  Life is no choice.  Life is a gift.

Do something or do nothing, this is the choice we have.

Here are a few words from Pope Francis on the eternal newness of the gospel in Evangeli Guadium

"Jesus is the first and greatest evangelizer.  In every activity of evangelization, the primacy always belongs to God, who has called us to cooperate with him and who leads us on by the power of his Spirit. The real newness is the newness in which God himself mysteriously brings about and inspires, provokes, guides and accompanies in a thousands ways.  The life of the church should always reveal clearly that God takes the initiative (that is God does omething), that "he has loved us first" and that he alone "gives the growth".  This conviction enables us to maintain a spirit of joy in the midst of a task so demanding and challenging that it engages our entire life.  God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us."