To see the readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/nab/040511.shtml

In today's reading from the gospel of John, observant Jews make trouble for Jesus because he healed a man (who had been ill for 38 years) on the sabbath. This is just one of several stories in the New Testament where Jesus works a miracle on the sabbath, and the religious leaders get upset with him because they perceive that he violated the rules about observing the sabbath.

I can only guess that so many of these stories are included because God knows it is a message we really need to hear, and may have trouble grasping. If you've grown up in the church, you've heard stories like this so much that it is easy to feel contemptuous of those religious leaders. “Hah!” we say to ourselves. “What kind of an idiot focuses on the violation of some rule about observing the sabbath instead of focusing on the miracle Jesus performed? Get your priorities in order, dudes!”

But I think if we are honest with ourselves, and we step back a little, it becomes easy to see why we have to hear these stories over and over again. Sure, in the context of a miracle of Jesus it seems clear that the rules about the sabbath are minor in comparison. But bring it into the context of things we actually encounter, and it becomes a lot less clear. What about choosing between attending Mass and going out of town to visit your aging grandparents? Ideally, you should find a way to do both. But what about when that doesn't work out?

Or how about the choice between sticking to the Lenten discipline you've chosen – abstaining from coffee, let's say – and the need of a close friend for someone to talk to in a rough time when the invitation is to meet at Starbucks and talk. I know that the ideal would be to meet your friend in Starbucks, abstain from coffee and offer that sacrifice up to God, and fully be there for your friend. But I know, too, that life doesn't always work like that. What if you realize once you are there that forgoing your coffee is proving to be such a distraction to you that it threatens your ability to listen and respond like you should? I think it's a call we each have to make for ourselves, but I think it is a time when the grace of God is bigger than any rules we try to impose on ourselves.

Sometimes, I even think those little failures to live up to the ideal just serve to keep us humble. They help us realize that no matter how hard we try, we can never be perfect. And if not perfect, then we fall short of the mark God set for us. And falling short, we are on the same plane as those we think of as the worst of the worst sinners. So maybe we need to just lower out nose from the air a bit, take a deep breath, and accept that we are all mere mortals who stumble and fall and live each day by God's grace. It makes it a little easier to get our hands dirty helping those around us, and a little more patient with the next set of failings we encounter in someone else.