Pentecost 11C (Proper 14)
August 25, 2019 (VBS Sunday)
Luke 13:10-17
INTRODUCTION
The theme to watch for in today’s
readings is: sabbath, the 4th commandment (“remember the Sabbath, to
keep it holy”), and what sabbath means for a life of faith. First Isaiah gives
us a sense of what God desires from a sabbath, which is different from how
people were practicing it. He talks about how people were “trampling the
sabbath,” pursuing their own interest and well-being on that day rather than
serving others. Then Luke will illustrate that point further, defining what is
the purpose of the sabbath, in the fourth of five stories in which Jesus heals
someone on the sabbath. So before we get too far into this, let’s remember what
we already know about sabbath. Here’s 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 10 commandments
also appear in Deuteronomy. Anyone know what the rationale for sabbath is
there? The explanation there says, “Remember that you [the Israelites] 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.” See 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.”
So as you
listen to today’s readings, think about freedom, considering what it is that
holds you captive – physically, spiritually, or emotionally. And think about
what sabbath freedom would look like in these captivities. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Can you imagine
being bent over for 18 years? What a powerful image that is: a woman “bent over
and quite unable to stand up straight.” There are a lot of reasons I love the
story we hear today from Luke’s Gospel, but one of them is that I find that
bent over image to be such a meaningful one, because it is a position with
which I am myself very familiar – physically and emotionally. So many things
cause us to feel bent over. For example, if you have a horrible stomach cramp,
what do you do? You bend over. Pain, in heart or body, makes us bend
over. If you’re standing near a soccer field and you hear, “Watch out!” what do
you do? Duck and cover your head. Feeling unsafe makes us bend over. If
you are overwhelmed by life and can’t bear one more thing, what do you do? If
you’re like me, you curl up in the fetal position on the couch or in bed and
cover your head with a blanket! We bend over! We bend over to protect
ourselves from the struggles of the world. Bending over, physically or
emotionally, is a natural response to all manner of pain and fear.
It is natural, but when we do this,
what happens to our sightline? We can’t see anything except ourselves. And when
we can only see ourselves, we lose the ability to make genuine human
connection, to see other’s needs, or really even to clearly see our own. 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 become slaves
to these things, and so we neglect the needs and the offerings of what is
outside of ourselves – our neighbors, and of course, God.
This past week
in Vacation Bible School, we learned about the story of the Good Samaritan, and
what it means to be a neighbor. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we explored why those
first two people might not have wanted to stop and help, and one reason we came
up with was: they were scared. So, Wednesday’s theme was, “Fear not!” The song
we sang was, “Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you!” and while
we sang, we stood like this [demonstrate]: head up, back straight, a posture of
boldness and courage to face the world and whatever troubles it may bring, to
us or to our neighbors. We started doing it sort of on a whim, but the more we
did it, the more I liked it. Because, tempting as it may be to revert to that
curved in position that we think offers us comfort and protection, putting our
heads up like this is really the only way to walk forward through our own pain,
and certainly the only way to see the needs of the world. It is the only way
for us to step out and into our call to love and serve the world as God has
loved us.
Speaking of
walking forward through pain… it wasn’t all that long ago that Michael and I
were teaching babies how to walk. Do you remember teaching someone to walk? How
they first stand, clutching a piece of furniture with dimpled knuckles, their
head hanging down to look at their feet, trying to understand this new posture
that is so different from sitting or crawling. Eventually, the head comes up,
and they start to look where they are going – and their face bursts into a grin
as they begin to understand this new way of travel that has so much more to
offer than crawling. The child’s loving adult stands before them with
outstretched arms, smiling and encouraging, and ready to catch them when they
tumble. Eventually, the child learns to trust those arms, let go of the
furniture, and toddle with uncertain steps that grow stronger and more
confident each day. Eventually, they are no longer captive to their hands and
knees and the furniture. Eventually, they are free.
Friends, Jesus holds these trustworthy
arms out to us, beckoning us into freedom. Jesus sees us, even when we don’t
see him, even 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, not through our captivities, but through the
eyes of our freedom.
One touching moment sticks in my mind
from when Grace was learning to walk, when she first discovered this freedom.
One day, I was very upset about something that had happened, and 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 baby
gibberish, 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, praise God, and be the servants that God
has called us to be, loving and serving the world. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray… Freeing
God, it is so tempting for us to curl into ourselves, even though we know this
is not a posture of freedom and service. Help us to lift up our heads and put
our trust in you, so that we might live into the freedom you offer us. In the
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
