We have a process for everything.
Applying for college, registering to vote, buying a house, baking a cake, and even potty-training your child all possess a deliberate process. These charted and published methods serve as our effort to bring order and standardization to an otherwise chaotic world. For their seeming effectiveness we have elevated their importance and our adherence.
However, it is easy to forget that these now sacred processes were born of humans. Because of this omission, we errantly devalue alternative thoughts and our own questioning nature. In doing so, we can lose sight of the purpose and human beings involved. Such was the case in the story captured in Luke 13:
“He was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.
The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.””
Have you ever gotten hung up on the process? I certainly have. On both the adherence and enforcement side. For example, we have a well-established pattern at home for our daughter as the night winds down. Several months ago we got home far-later than anticipated and I was frustrated: Our daughter was well-past tired and we had yet to begin the process. In my mind we were in for a long night. However, my wife suffered no such hang ups and deftly placed her in her pajamas and laid her down to sleep. She understood that while bubble-baths and story-time were valuable, there is a time and place to deviate from the process in the interest of people.
This meeting-place president was no different. In his mind, things were supposed to happen in a certain way and anything else was wrong. While we may demonize him now, the process he was enforcing wasn’t necessarily bad; after all he was trying to adhere to a model demonstrated by God. He just failed to properly weigh people in the equation.
And the unfortunate reality is people are really hurting. Sure there are challenges associated with foregoing the established pattern (it was likely established for good reason) but if we aren’t ultimately putting people first, then we have missed the point and the process is broken. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing here and deliberately chose this day so the message might be sent: People over process.
It is time to examine the impediments we have self-generated and ask ourselves some pointed questions. A process can be a good thing, but only if it get us to the right place. People, not the process itself, must be the metric by which the effectiveness of the process is ultimately evaluated.