People are God's Priority

Jesus said, 'When you see me, you see the Father'. Through his actions and words he was and is continually reinterpreting what we humans understand about God.

One way in which God has been badly misunderstood is in his relationship with the law. Often Jesus bumped up against the religious system and its leaders because their interpretations of the law misled the people. An example of this was Jesus' teaching about the sabbath: 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' His actions backed up this teaching; he would often break the religious rules about keeping the Sabbath by healing and helping people on the Sabbath.

This simple teaching carries profound meaning for our understanding of God. His priority is the well being of humans while religious systems are preoccupied with keeping the rules at all costs. The commandment to honor the Sabbath as a day of rest was intended to serve humans, not to burden us. But the maintainers of religious systems turn the Creator's loving care for humanity into a heavy yoke by making obedience to the rule the issue rather than the well being of the humans.

In his book, Jesus Before Christianity, Albert Nolan says, "Jesus was not opposed to the law as such, he was opposed to the way people used the law, their attitude to the law. The scribes and Pharisees had made the law into a burden, whereas it was supposed to be a service...They were using the sabbath against people instead of using it for them...for Jesus it (the law) was supposed to be for the benefit of people, to serve their needs and genuine interests...Jesus' attitude led to permissiveness whenever the needs of people would not be met by observance of the law, and to strictness whenever this would best serve their needs. The law was made for us, we were not made to serve and bow down before the law."

Jesus' approach to the law reveals God's approach to the law and shows how important human beings are to God. This not only helps us understand what God is like but it empowers us to approach the law in the same manner, seeing humans' well being as more important than strict adherence to the law. This is a challenge to us who want an easy answer to people's problems because it requires genuine care for people and discernment of what God's care should look like in a particular instance.