Imagine
A Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 21, 2022
The Rev. Robin Teasley
Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. Luke 13:10-17
There is something about the woman in today’s Gospel that draws me into her story. I’ve looked at it from many angles, put myself in the place of the various characters and tried to imagine what it would have been like to be there that day, either observing the story as it unfolded or being one of the characters in the story.
Imagine being the woman, bent over for 18 years due to a spirit that had crippled her – we don’t know the details of this woman’s ailment. Luke says it was a spirit that had crippled her. Jesus says she had been bound by Satan. This suggests to me that perhaps it was a physical problem caused by spiritual or emotional distress. In any case, it had been a long struggle. She must have been weary and resigned to her plight, yet she appeared in the synagogue on the Sabbath. I wonder what hope or meaning or solace the weekly ritual gave her, if any. I wonder what sort of life she limped home to afterwards. I wonder if we can relate to feeling that kind of weight for so long in our lives. Some of us suffer the effects of a past trauma. Others have experienced a tragic loss, prolonged unemployment, a prodigal child, addiction, or chronic depression. All of us know something about carrying a weight that hinders us in some way.
It does not appear that anyone noticed her, except Jesus. He noticed this woman. Jesus saw her. He stopped teaching, called out to her, and said the thing Jesus so often says in the Gospels when he encounters the sick, the broken, the dying, the dead: “You are set free from your ailment.” Then Jesus laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
That sounds like a miracle, doesn’t it? I wonder if we think of the Church as a place where people who are crippled in spirit, who are exhausted from carrying the weight of their world, are invited, encouraged, and freed to stand up straight. I wonder if we notice the bent over people who are all around us, if we see the people who are marginalized by those who hold power and authority both inside and outside the Church. There are so many who have been bent over by life throughout time – slaves, women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, the poor, the mentally ill, the differently abled, those who are grieving a great loss, the spiritually broken. Surely, we have all been the bent back woman at least once in our lives. I know I have been.
Maybe we don’t see the Church as a place to encourage the bent over people to stand up straight. Our all too human nature is to hide our brokenness, and what is just as damaging, is that we choose not to see those around us who are bent over due to the weight of shame, judgment, invisibility, or whatever their burden. Maybe we choose not to see because it’s too painful, or too guilt-inducing, too hard to know the right words to say, or because the brokenness in others reminds us that we are broken too. Sadly, there are those who cannot see brokenness because their vision is clouded with power and lacking in love. The Gospel story clearly illustrates our human nature in the reaction of the synagogue leader. When Jesus heals the woman, takes away her brokenness, he is indignant. But perhaps not for the reason we think.
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Imagine being the synagogue leader who cares deeply about following the laws of the Torah, good worship, study of scripture, and the deepening faith of the people. Imagine the responsibility he has to ensure that every person in the community is protected from harm; brought closer to God through teaching, and service, and pastoral care. What is he supposed to do when someone interrupts the liturgy as Jesus did, to heal a woman, and on the Sabbath of all days! There were laws forbidding work on the Sabbath and healing was considered work! People wandering into worship interrupting the routine might be dangerous. The synagogue leader’s concerns may have been genuine, but they were misguided. Surely, we have experienced times when we were so certain of our truth that we could not see that we were wounding others.
Imagine being one of the worshipers in the crowd that day, observing all of this as it played out. Certainly, some in the crowd were annoyed that the service was interrupted. Others likely felt some compassion for the woman with the bent back and were filled with joy at her healing. And when Jesus asked them all why in the world they would not want to receive healing on the Sabbath day, the entire crowd responded with joy to all the wonderful things Jesus was doing. Surely, we have experienced this kind of joy in our lives when the load was lifted and the tears stopped; when justice was done, when healing happened, when wrong was made right.
Imagine being Jesus, poking at the politics of religious tradition, doing something so out of the ordinary, risking the angry reaction, even rejection from the synagogue leader, so that he can help this woman in her brokenness. Why would Jesus do this? Perhaps Jesus knows that the synagogue leader means well, but he has missed the true meaning of the Sabbath. Perhaps the synagogue leader was himself bearing too heavy a load, a crippling spirit, holding tradition and his own pride over God’s greater plans. Surely, we are called to respond as Jesus does.
Now, imagine this healing story playing out in your own lives. Most of us know what it’s like to be weighed down and bent over by circumstances that diminish and wound us. We have known the loss of mobility, youth, dignity, independence, or good health. We have known suffering and grief of every kind. Even our children, heading off to school for the first time or the twelfth time, are burdened with ridiculously heavy backpacks, daunting course loads, and sometimes the anxiety of a new school or having no friends in any of their classes. Peer pressure can be harmfully powerful.
The truth is, we are a community always in need of some kind of healing. Jesus surprised everyone in the Gospel story that day. Can we leave room for Jesus to show up and surprise us? How can we be sure we’re not so stuck in our own theological, cultural, political, or traditional points of view that we fear and resist the surprising hope, the miraculous healing, the new life Jesus offers? How can we be the Church as God intends, the Body of Christ, open to seeing those among us who are bent over and in need of God’s grace – grace that we have been given by God to share.
Perhaps that’s what Jesus was trying to get the leader of the synagogue, indeed all the people there that day to understand; that when you are able to see as Jesus sees, healing begins to happen.
Imagine seeing as Jesus sees, in the year 2022 in your personal life, at Immanuel, Old Church, in Hanover County, in our nation, and in the world. What would we see? How would we then be open to God’s healing? The miracle of the Gospel story is not only a physical healing, but also a communal seeing. The miracle is the same for us today. Jesus sees us. Will we see one another so that healing can begin? Let us pray to see as Jesus sees, because this world needs healing. Jesus sees us and invites us to see all of God’s children with compassion and love.
Title Image:Jesus Heals a Woman, Caruconwy Daily Reflection
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