Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.
-Mark 3:1-4

The church leaders in the above scripture could not have been ready for what was about to happen next. Right then, while everyone was watching, Jesus intentionally healed the man's shriveled hand...BAM!

The Bible goes on to say that the leaders then left to plot Jesus' death. Wow. Can you imagine what the Pharisees must have been thinking at that moment?

"Hey, you can't do that...this is church!" or
"Hey, it is the sabbath day, why would anyone break the rules?" or
"Hey, I'm the one in charge! How dare you?"

This is one of many examples in the word of Jesus challenging church leadership to a duel of concepts. The religious leaders of the time had become so caught up in the minutae of regulatory compliance and ordinance, that they lost sight of their collective purpose as a group of spiritual leaders.

They had become more of a hindrance to the people they were supposed to serve than a benefit. The Bible says that Jesus was actually angry with these people. And why not? They were placing people into spiritual bondage by forcing them to focus their attention, energies and, of course, income, on fulfilling the legal requirements of belonging to a faith community, instead of encouraging them to seek God and providing genuine, caring assistance to that end.

You bet Jesus was angry. They were harshing his trip; misleading his people; abusing their positions. And, as you can imagine, they were not to happy about Jesus openly defying their authority. He was taking away their bread and butter, so to speak, and they did not like it one bit.

My question to you is this...obviously, that was an extreme case that happened a long time ago. But, do you sense, in your own faith community, a tendancy to hyperfocus on the little stuff? When you think about your faith community, do you feel liberated in Christ or do you feel enslaved by rules and regulations? We already know what Jesus would do in that situation. But, what would he do if he attended your church?