Out
of the Shadow/Set Free
August 21, 2016
Written by Kathryn
Matthews
Sunday, August 21
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
Focus Theme
Out of the Shadow/Set Free
Weekly Prayer
Merciful God, as we pour out the wealth you have entrusted to us, the parched
places are watered; as we cease our evil talk, the rising light of peace dawns
in the darkness. So lead us into faithful living that your promises may unfold
in us as a woman's back, long bent, unfolds at Christ's command, to the praise
of your holy name. Amen.
Focus Scripture
Luke 13:10-17
Now he 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.
All Readings For This
Sunday
Jeremiah 1:4-10 with Psalm 71:1-6 or
Isaiah 58:9b-14 with Psalm 103:1-8 and
Hebrews 12:18-29 and
Luke 13:10-17
Focus Questions
1. What kinds of healing
might we offer to those we may or may not notice in our places of worship?
2. In what ways do we
hinder liberation and healing for the sake of rules and tradition?
3. Is the suffering of
some people easier to avoid than others, or to miss entirely?
4. Have you ever
experienced grace coming to you, even when you didn't have the strength or
confidence to ask for it?
5. How do you imagine
the bent-over woman's life was different, the day after she was healed?
Reflection by
Kate Matthews
It's a simple enough
story: on the way to Jerusalem, while Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, a
"bent-over" woman passing by evokes Jesus' compassion. Does the woman
ask for healing? No. Does Jesus seem to care that it's the Sabbath, when
healing non-life-threatening conditions is not permitted? No. Without being
asked, he calls her over to him, and sets her free from her longtime ailment by
placing his hands on her, just as one would in blessing. The woman is blessed
and freed and has sense enough to recognize the source of the freedom she's
been given at last, to look forward, at the world around her, and to move
through it with comfort and confidence.
Now, is everyone
amazed and grateful to witness such a thing? No, indeed. The leader of the
synagogue is instead upset by this breach of the Law and tells the crowd, which
undoubtedly includes many others in need of healing (aren't we all?), that they
should come back tomorrow, when the timing will be more appropriate for such
things as healing. The tension builds as Jesus heads toward Jerusalem and his
death, and the lessons for us as disciples continue.
A simple enough story,
it seems. But as in all biblical narratives, there is so much more to see: when
we consider the setting of the story and its parallels with other stories, we
begin to experience even more of its power and meaning. This isn't the only
time Jesus has healed on the Sabbath or healed while teaching in the synagogue
(or both). It isn't the first time he's provoked the religious leaders, and it
won't be the last.
A narrow line of
vision but the ability to see the truth
Sharon Ringe describes
the situation of the bent-over woman very well, this condition that could be
translated as "a spirit of weakness." She calls that weakness a kind
of power that kept her bent-over and captive in "a world defined by the
piece of ground around her own toes or looked at always on a slant."
Ironically, while this woman's line of vision has been severely affected by her
ailment these many years, she has no problem seeing that help is on the way,
standing right in front of her, in the person of Jesus, no problem recognizing
the source of her healing. The crowd is also able to see God's hand at work and
to appreciate Jesus' timing in spite of the objections of the religious leader.
In fact, it's the so-called religious experts in this small but powerful
incident who seem least able to see the truth right before their eyes.
Remember back in
chapter four of this Gospel when Jesus stood in another synagogue and began his
ministry with a statement of intent to proclaim release to the captives?
Remember the reaction of the crowd then, when they ran him out of town?
Remember just a few verses before this passage, in Chapter 12, when Jesus said
he had come to bring division (12:51)? The reaction to this healing is a good
illustration of division: the religious leaders may be clueless and outraged,
but the people are carried away with joy. Joy v. outrage - that is division.
What burdens do people
bear?
Woven into this story
are several threads: the healing of the woman who is pressed down, held bound
by Satan, as Jesus describes her, is the most obvious. Each Sunday, all sorts
of burdens are carried into our churches. Some, like the bent-over woman's
condition, are more visible than others. As you look around you in church, what
do you see? The weight of many years of suffering on one person's face, the
crushing hurt of a new and painful reality in another's eyes: divorce; the loss
of a loved one; financial worries; poor health; a child who has run away,
physically or emotionally. Perhaps there are people in your church who know the
pain and oppression of being marginalized and alone in the greater community,
if not within the church itself. Who are these people, and do we notice them,
the way Jesus noticed the bent-over woman, or are they and their suffering
invisible to us? Is the suffering of some people easier to avoid than others?
Just as important is
our response. Our hearts may be touched by the suffering of another, but there
is still another step, to compassion, and then to action in response to that
suffering. What kinds of healing might we offer to those we may or may not
notice in our places of worship? Then there is the question of
self-examination. Regrettably, in many ways the church itself may lay burdens
on the people; our commitment to accessibility is one response to a long
history of taking the easier way rather than meeting the challenge of making
our buildings, services, and ministries accessible to all of God's children,
regardless of physical and mental limitations. For example, how many of our
chancels are accessible for preachers and worship leaders who may have mobility
issues? Is there a word of judgment for us in this reading from the Gospel of
Luke? In what ways do we hinder liberation and healing for the sake of rules
and tradition? And how often is "tradition" simply mistaken for
"the way it's always been"?
All of us bear burdens
of one kind or another, and most of us know what it is to suffer physically,
mentally, spiritually. When have we experienced healing and/or liberation from
our own burdens? Have we, like the bent-over woman, had sense enough to
immediately praise God? How have we experienced grace as coming to us, even
when we may not have had the strength or the confidence to ask for it?
The burdens women
carry in every age
A second thread leads
to reflection on Jesus' ministry with women. We see the quiet humility of a
woman who has apparently come to the synagogue to pray, asking nothing for
herself, and, according to Sharon Ringe, we also see the restoration to the
community that Jesus offers in his healing, expressed by the unusual address
(the only time it's used in the Gospels), "daughter of Abraham."
Perhaps the condition of the woman is a metaphor for the experience of so many
women bearing heavy burdens in every culture and time, whether they are hauling
water for miles, caring for sick children without needed resources, enduring
physical abuse, or treated unjustly in the workplace.
Jesus repeatedly ignores
rules and customs that reinforce such marginalization and injustice, and this
story embodies his attitude toward all women, not just one "victim"
of "a spirit of weakness." If Jesus frees her with from the illness
that kept her captive, as Ringe says, aren't we called to free today's women
and girls from their captivity and burdens, not just to study the oppression of
women or to acknowledge it as an unfortunate sociological phenomenon, but to
actually deal with its causes? One good example of such a witness is the work
of the United Church of Christ and many other people of faith who are fighting
the good fight against human trafficking, which, tragically, touches most often
on the lives of women and young girls.
And then there is the
question of timing. This healing was a problem because of when it happened, not
to whom or by whom or how it was accomplished. Come back tomorrow, the
synagogue leader says, when it's alright for healings to be performed. Wait a
little longer. According to Richard Swanson, the tension here is between two
faithful Jewish men who are struggling with what it means to be faithful, so
the religious leader is not mean-spirited but trying to press his case for
obedient faithfulness. So is Jesus, of course, but both men believe they are
keeping Sabbath. (We note, however, that Jesus calls the religious leaders
"hypocrites.")
Were the Pharisees
really so terrible?
I don't know about
you, but I've spent most of my life thinking of the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the synagogue leaders back in Jesus' day as uptight, judgmental,
close-minded, harsh, moralistic, religious fanatics. (By the way, recent polls
show that many young people, alas, see people who claim to be Christians the
same way.) Jesus was the outsider, sort of a first-century Clint Eastwood, who
would come into town and stir things up by trying to set them right, because
obviously the religious types had it all wrong. It was so clear, so simple:
religious leaders were the bad guys, and Jesus was the good guyÖactually, the best
guy of all.
However, we can
approach these stories about Jesus' conflicts with the religious leaders of his
day from a different perspective. What if the arguments that they had ó over
the Sabbath (that was a big one, and it's at the heart of our story today), or
over which people are the proper ones to eat with, or who counts as your
neighbor, or whether a person can get divorced and remarry ó what if we saw
those conflicts as conversations within a community, among people who shared
common sacred ground, a long and holy history with a God who was always, always
faithful to them, even though these people called Israel didn't agree on
everything and every way to be faithful.
Trying to do the right
thing
That's the thing: the
religious leaders, bless their hearts, were trying in their own way to be
faithful. Sure, maybe things sometimes got out of hand with thinking that some
folks were somehow purer or more worthy than others, or that the way to please
God was through religious observance ó worship services, impressive buildings,
long prayers and fasting, focusing a lot of attention on the law, right down to
every technical detail. All this even though God often told them that wasn't
what mattered; what mattered most and matters even now to God is what's in our
hearts, and how we treat one another, and especially how we treat those in our
midst (whether we notice them or not) who are most vulnerable: as the Bible
says, "the poor, the lame, the widow and the orphan, the stranger in your
midst."
But still, these
religious leaders were folks who got up in the morning thinking about God and
how they might serve God better. They didn't always get it right, but they were
sincerely trying. If we think about that for a minute, don't they begin to
sound familiar? Don't they sound a lot like us?
There's more than one
way to keep the Sabbath
The story really
portrays Jesus as keeping the Sabbath because he sees it differently, and
because he has a different sense of timing. The time for God's grace and
healing is now, not later. This is an urgent matter. Jesus has just spent much
of the previous chapter speaking about "the hour" and about the
ability to see what is really important. This woman's ailment may not threaten
her life, but her life is so precious that each day is a gift and an
opportunity to praise God. According to Barbara Reid, this healing is even more
appropriate on the Sabbath, because it frees the woman to observe the Sabbath
in the fullest sense, that is, to praise God, and to do so on God's timing, which
is right now. So it's not unreasonable to suggest, as Sharon Ringe does, that
the point of all this is not keeping the Sabbath or not, but the way in which
we keep it holy.
This problem of proper
observance, of course, seems to be an ongoing one for the religious elites
throughout the Gospels, the ones who ought to be most attuned to God at work in
the world, the ones who should have a special sense of what it means to be
faithful. This problem still persists in our own time as well, and brings us to
our own questions and our own need for healing. We read this story in a world
that doesn't know the meaning of Sabbath (no matter how much we need it!) or
grasp the importance of timing.
Not one more day of
weekend activity
Richard Swanson does a
beautiful job of contrasting our modern approach to Sunday (our Sabbath day)
and the profound regard that the people of Jesus' time would have had for the
day of rest. Rather than one more day of activity on the weekend, our Sabbath
observance would be enriched by Swanson's description of our ancient ancestors'
practice and understanding of Sabbath as "a day of promiseÖa glimpse of
God's dominion, a little slice of the messianic age dropped into the midst of
regular time," and "a symbol of resistance God's people offer to
tyrants of every sort and every time."
What are
"tyrants" in our lives that demand our attention, our energy, our
spirits? What would it require in our lives to escape such oppression, even for
just one day a week? Many of us actually feel anxiety if our time and attention
are not fully taken up in an activity or in some type of electronic media. What
would it require for our souls to be at rest in God, here, on earth? Is it any
wonder, as Swanson writes, that "Sabbath is welcomed into the house as a
queen would be welcomed"? After all, it "offers a remembrance of
God's promise of peace and freedom for all of creation. It is a good thing, a
gift from God."
Finding the time of
peace and rest that God provides
We are fortunate in
many ways in our culture, but we are burdened, too. For example, many children
in our society are as pressed down as the bent-over woman with schedules that
leave them no time to play or to just "be" with their families,
friends, and nature. We adults are the same way. Our health and the well-being
of our families, our churches, and our communities are affected. Perhaps we
could just begin with Sunday as a time of peace and rest, but as even more, as
a time to immerse ourselves in the promises of God, the promises that sustain
us each day, during "regular" time, too. As the bent-over woman's
gaze was "lifted up" to God in praise, perhaps our perspective, too,
will be raised and will lead us to new and deeper faithfulness and praise.
For further reflection
Alice Walker, 21st
century
"Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest
of the week."
Anita Diamant, 21st
century
"The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my
family, in my heart."
Marva Dawn, 21st
century
"Sabbath ceasing [means] to cease not only from work itself, but also from
the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that
accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control
of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation,
and finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is
pursued without the Lord at the center of it all."
Barbara Brown Taylor,
21st century
"The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth wrote, "A being is free only
when it can determine and limit its activity." By that definition, I have
a hard time counting many free beings among my acquaintance. I know people who
can do five things at once who are incapable of doing nothing....Since I have
been one of these people, I know that saying no is a more difficult spiritual
practice than tithing, praying on a cold stone floor, or visiting a prisoner on
death row."
Henry Ward Beecher,
19th century
"A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like
summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the most
joyous day of the week."
Weekly Seeds is a source for Bible study based on the readings of the
"Lectionary," a plan for weekly Bible readings in public worship used
in Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. When
we pray with and study the Bible using the Lectionary, we are praying and
studying with millions of others.
You're welcome to
reprint this resource and use in your congregation's Bible-study groups.
Weekly Seeds is a
service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts
are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United
States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Revised Common
Lectionary is © 1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.
Uwe Siemon-Netto
Founder, Center for Lutheran Theology and League of Faithful Masks
The Hidden Church
Uwe Siemon-Netto
Founder, Center for Lutheran Theology and League of Faithful Masks