Pentecost 14C
August, 21, 2016
Luke 13:10-17
Imagine this: you’re in church,
listening to a sermon. You always come to church on Sunday, because God tells
you to, in the 10 commandments. Remember the Sabbath, to keep in holy. Also
because you like to come and see your friends, and to worship God, and to be
filled up for the week, yes, but you also get a certain satisfaction in knowing
that this commandment, about the Sabbath, you’re doing your part to keep.
So the sermon is getting going,
getting to the part where you squirm a little in your seat, and you think, “Oh
yeah, I needed to hear this this week. This speaks right to a situation I’m
dealing with right now.” And suddenly, the preacher stops, and starts walking
down the aisle. You turn around to see he’s walking to meet a strange woman who
has just walked in. She’s sort of bent over, maybe osteoporosis. You overhear
the pastor talking to the woman, as she explains she’s had this condition quite
a few years now. The pastor decides now is the time to go find a phone number
for a good doctor, to help this lady out.
You feel for her, you really do, but
man! The sermon was just getting to the good part, the part you needed to hear!
You can’t help but feel a bit annoyed. This lady has been dealing with this
thing a long time already. Maybe she could just have waited it out until the
end of worship and dealt with it then? (There was even communion that day,
which you love and really needed today!) Why did she have to interrupt worship?
Apparently the council president feels the same way, and she stands up to say
something about it: “Can’t this wait until we’re done? There are 23 other hours
in the day to get help!” You secretly agree with her. And the pastor says,
“This woman is a child of God, who is in need right now, and has been for a
long time. Isn’t during worship the perfect time to set her free
Does the pastor have a point? In the
first century version of this story that we just heard, the crowd thought so!
When Jesus stands up to the leader of the synagogue’s insistence that this is
the Sabbath and certain things shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath, Luke tells us
that the crowd gathered was delighted! Rejoicing at what he was doing!
The story of the bent over woman: an
unassuming woman who probably was just going to synagogue like she had many
times before, probably a devout woman seeking to experience God that day. Being
so bent over, she likely didn’t see much of the world – if you imagine her
posture, what do you think she saw most of? Her own belly button! But she
trudged to synagogue each week, as the commandments told her. And on this
particular day, she experienced an encounter with God she had not anticipated!
Keeping the Sabbath is such a
fascinating commandment. So many of the commandments appear to be for others’
benefit – don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t lie. Even the first couple: “put God
first, don’t have idols.” But the Sabbath is something different. Let’s
consider this a moment. First, a little quiz: do you remember what is the
rationale behind keeping the Sabbath? [God rested on the 7th day.]
Right, God did it, so we should too. It’s a day of rest, a day we don’t work.
That’s what Genesis and Exodus tell us. BUT, for a bonus point: the
commandments also appear in Deuteronomy. Do you remember what the rationale is
there? The explanation there says, “Remember that you were a slave in the land
of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and
an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the
Sabbath day.” Here, the Sabbath isn’t so much about rest as it is about redemption,
about freedom. “Remember that I am the God who frees you from what holds you
captive,” God says, and implied then is, “On the Sabbath, use this time to remember
how I free you.”
I bet “free” is one word that bent
over woman would use to describe how she felt that morning! 18 years she had
dealt with this condition, 18 years of being so bent over she couldn’t see
anything but her own navel, 18 years she could barely participate in society
because she couldn’t even walk straight. This past week, my mom had eye surgery
to correct something that has obstructed her vision for several months, maybe
more. On Wednesday was the moment of truth: she got the eye patch off to see if
it worked. On Facebook appeared the exuberant post in all caps: “I CAN SEE!!
WHEEEE!!!” She dealt with a condition not nearly so debilitating, and for much
less time, but the recognition of it being fixed was such a relief, such a
sense of freedom! Just imagine how this bent over woman felt!
Some of us deal or have dealt with
such debilitating illnesses as the bent over woman, some currently are. But even
those of us who mercifully haven’t, the sentiment is still applicable. So many
things hold us captive, not just illnesses. So many things, even, cause us to
feel bent over, physically
But when we do this, we have the same
problem as the bent over woman in Luke: we can’t see. Sometimes, when we can
only see ourselves, we find it difficult to look outside ourselves for help. Martin
Luther has a wonderful phrase for this: incurvatus
in se. It’s Latin for “curved in on yourself,” and it’s his definition for
sin. When we are curved in on ourselves, we see only our needs, our wants, our
perspectives. We are slaves to these
things, and so neglect the needs and the offerings of what is outside of
ourselves – our neighbors, and of course, God.
Grace, my daughter, is almost one
year old now (!), and it has been so fun to watch her learn to walk. She’s so
close! At first, we showed her how to stand by holding onto something. She
would stand there with her head hanging, looking down at her feet, unsure about
this new posture. Eventually, she would just crumble into a seated position and
crawl around instead. Now, she looks up. Holding her head up high, she looks
around for what she wants or needs, and uses her feet and our furniture to get
to it, laughing all the way. With her head up, she is full of delight and
rejoicing. The next step, of course (no pun intended), is to walk without the
aid of furniture. At this point, she stands and we hold our arms out inviting
her over. She looks at those hands, keeps her eye on what will keep her safe.
She’s yet to jump out of the nest, though. Sometimes she gets scared and curls
in on herself again, crumbling into a seated position. But sometime soon, she
will trust those arms
reaching out to her, and go to them.
 |
| Grace, enjoying her erect freedom |
Jesus holds these arms out to us. Jesus
sees us, even when we don’t see him, when our heads are too bent down from our
suffering, our pain, our captivity, too bent down to see him offering his
healing, love and grace. Jesus sees us, and Jesus reaches out to us, offering
us the very essence of the Sabbath: the knowledge that God frees us from sin,
frees us from captivity, frees us from all that would keep us bound.
And an amazing thing happens when we
are free, when our heads are lifted and our backs straightened out: suddenly,
we can see the world around us through the eyes of our freedom. Thinking again
of my little Grace: her raised head and the resulting mobility has allowed her
to experience the world in a more profound way. The other day I was so upset, I
came home and sat on the couch weeping, head in hands. I was bent over in pain
and sadness. Grace toddled over to me carefully, holding the furniture, and
gently touched me. I looked at her and she grinned at me and said something in
her baby language, and engaged me in a game. Suddenly, my head was up, and I
was laughing. This small human, with her head held high, was able to extend the
most basic form of empathy, of compassion, to someone in need. When she wasn’t
captive to her hands and knees and her hanging head, she could reach out to
love and serve.
This is the amazing thing about the
freedom the Sabbath offers us, the freedom the gospel offers us, the freedom
that God through Christ offers us. No longer bound by our ailments, we can lift
up our heads, look around the world, and be the servants that God has called us
to be, loving and serving the world. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray… Redeeming God, the weight of the world causes us to spend too much time
bent over, stuck in our own navels. Thank you for seeing us, for lifting us up,
for showing us the freedom you offer, so that we might share that freedom with
others. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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