On another sabbath, when He entered the synagogue and taught, a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched Him, to see whether He would heal on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against Him.
Matthew’s Gospel prefaces the collection of Jesus’ moral teachings by noting that He went up on a mountain and taught His disciples (like a second Moses on a second Mt. Sinai). Luke prefaces a similar body of sayings by saying Jesus “stood on a level place” with His disciples. Luke’s point is that Jesus is one of us — one with the whole human race. That is why his genealogy traces Christ’s origins back, not merely to Abraham as Matthew does, but to Adam. For Matthew, Jesus unites us in the New Covenant of the New Moses. For Luke, Jesus unites us in the New Covenant family of the New Adam. And unlike the first Adam, He is not weak and powerless: He is the source of power for life and healing to the whole human family.