I recently read an interview with Warren Buffett in which he was asked to offer advice about life and the importance of values. At one point, he said something rather bracing. “You cannot make a good deal with bad people,” he observed, “because they live for loopholes, extortion, bogging down processes in litigation, and making everything about themselves. You can try your best to make it a good deal, but they are better at plotting.”

It is a sober insight. Not because it is cynical, but because it is realistic. There are situations in which reasoned compromise fails—not due to lack of intelligence or goodwill on one side, but because the other side is playing an entirely different game. They are not interested in truth or fairness; they are interested in leverage.

That, I suggest, is the Goliath-sized challenge Jesus faces in today’s Gospel.

At first glance, the scene seems unremarkable: a synagogue, a Sabbath, a man with a withered hand. Nothing dramatic. Nothing confrontational. And yet beneath the surface, something far more serious is unfolding. Jesus is not being observed out of curiosity. He is being watched closely—carefully—by people who are already preparing their response.

They are not seeking understanding.

 They are seeking a loophole.

Their question is not whether the man should be healed, but whether Jesus can be caught. Whether compassion can be turned into an offense. Whether mercy can be made illegal.

Jesus understands this perfectly. Which is why He does not negotiate.

He brings the man forward and asks a question so simple that it strips away all evasions: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil? To save life rather than to destroy it?”

It is not a trick question. It is a moral one.

And the response is silence.

Here, the Gospel becomes uncomfortable—not because of hostility, but because of calculation. The silence is deliberate. A refusal to engage honestly. A decision to let suffering stand rather than risk losing control of the system.

This is the true Goliath in the story.

Not the Law itself, which was given for life. But a way of thinking that uses the Law as a shield against responsibility.

A mentality that prefers procedure to mercy, certainty to compassion.

Jesus does not attempt to strike a bargain with it. He does not try to make a “good deal.” He simply acts.

“Stretch out your hand.”

And the hand is restored.

The miracle is decisive—and so is the reaction. Instead of repentance, there is plotting. Instead of wonder, there is strategy. Because, as Buffett observed, some people are simply better at plotting than others—and mercy, once unleashed, is very hard to control.

This is where the Gospel quietly turns its gaze toward us.

Because the Pharisees are not caricatures. They are devout, serious people who believe they are protecting what matters most. Their tragedy is not malice, but fear—fear that love might become inconvenient, that compassion might upset the order they have carefully constructed.

Every age faces its Goliaths. Ours is not disbelief, but a temptation toward moral maneuvering. Toward silence disguised as prudence. Toward protecting systems even when those systems no longer serve life.

Christ refuses that game.

He places human need at the center and he chooses action over delay, revealing that neutrality, in the face of suffering, is not neutral at all.

So the question this Gospel leaves with us is not whether we admire Christ’s courage. It is whether we recognize our own Goliaths—those habits of thought that keep us calculating when love requires decision.

Jesus does not ask us to win the battle by force. Only to refuse fear. Only to stretch out what has grown stiff within us.

Because when mercy is chosen without compromise, the giant has already fallen.

Amen.