13th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 16
Lectionary 21
August 26, 2007
Luke 13:10-17
"My Grace is Sufficient for you"
"Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity." And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, said to the people, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day." Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him." Luke 13:10-17, RSV.
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
In a recent issue of his Tuesday Mornings newsletter, Tom Barnard recalls hearing a minister-and-wife team talk about the pain they suffered when their beautiful daughter died of cancer nearly a year earlier. "During the months of failed treatments they had been constant in their confidence that God would heal their daughter. Hundreds of their friends joined them in faith, believing God for healing. Healing did not happen.
Putting their lives together again was not easy. They kept busy in their ministry. They traveled to places around the world, preaching and teaching to thousands. But they struggled to be positive in the wake of such a disappointing loss.
Then God led them to the following passage of Scripture:
"And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ’My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Cor. 12:7-9 NKJV)
The New Living Translation renders that key verse this way: "My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness." The Greek word for sufficient means "to be content . . . to raise a barrier . . . to ward off that which pushes us to one side." Basically, "sufficient" means grace that is enough, but not super abundant, fantastic, huge, or incredible.
Sufficient does not say to us, "Grow up." It doesn’t say, "Get over it." It doesn’t say, "You’ll understand it better by and by." It just says, "My grace is sufficient for you." It says, "I am standing with you in this situation." That’s really all we need to know." (1)
Jesus showed the woman in the temple in our gospel lesson this morning that he was standing with her in her situation. Jesus could see beyond the law to the power of grace, kindness, caring and compassionate for those people suffering around him.
A little background. The synagogue was a place for men to worship. There was a place off to the side for the women and the two did not mix.
So this lady should not of even been in the same room with Jesus and the other men, but she was.
My her thought process went something like this.
"I have been ill for many years. This new rabbi is not like the others. He seems to care. The other people accuse me of having a sin or something that caused this condition, but I have heard that Jesus does not accuse, but heals. Blind men, another women who was bleeding all were healed, so maybe if I very quietly walk over the the other side, he might see me and heal me. I am going to give it a try."
She very quietly walks over to the other side. Stays in the shadows. But Jesus sees her and says: "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity." 13 And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God.
Can you imagine her delight, her excitement at this event.
Her thoughts might of been these:
"He did it, he made me free! He healed me! He did not yell at me or accuse me of having a sin or my family of having sinned, no He just healed me. Period. I am free, praise God."
And I would imagine that she walked over to the other side, showed the other women what happened, and then worshiped God praising Him for this freedom.
I received an e-mail for a lady this week who uses a wheelchair for mobility. She preached a lay sermon at a church in Washington DC awhile back and she shared it with me.
As usual if you want to keep something you loose it. I lost the original e-mail so I don’t even remember the lady’s name, but i do remember her thoughts.
"She wondered why Jesus only healed a few people in the Bible, why not everyone? This turned her off to religion as she wondered why after much prayer she herself was not healed. But then she learned that healing comes in many ways.
Maybe her healing was letting go of the hurt, the shame, the not accepting her situation of the wheelchair and allowing the healing peace of Christ to enter her live. After she did that, she came to realize that the stories of Jesus were more than a few miracle for a few people, but a way of life, a relationship with Christ that daily allows her to accept and to be free and comfortable in her own skin."
Healing come in many ways. If could be like the lady at the temple, or it can be like the lady in the e-mail, accepting her situation in life. I believe that Jesus is present in both kinds of healing.
"We pray for healing. The answer is often, "We’ll see." Sometimes our prayers may result in healing, perhaps miraculously or through the human knowledge and skills of the doctor, nurses, and medicines. Sometimes the best efforts of the medical team and our prayers aren’t enough and the "we’ll see" becomes a "no". (2)
"I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who coined the phrase "growing strong in the broken places." When a bone is broken, for example, the calcium buildup that "welds" the bone together makes that the strongest part of the bone.
When our life is committed to God and we bring our broken parts to him for healing, we, too, become strong in the broken places.
Another aspect on being broken is in the words of Vance Havner who said, "God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume . . . it is Peter, weeping bitterly [after his failure of denying Jesus], who returns to greater power than ever." (3)
God can use our brokenness to heal us either by a miracle, or the art of medicine. He can also use our brokenness to heal our spirit if not our bodies so that we can be given the strength to live life to the fullest in our own skins.
When I was young maybe in 5th grade our teacher asked up to write a short easy about if I had a wish what would I ask for.
I wrote:
I wish that when i wake up in the morning that the first thing I could do was to get dressed in no certain order. For with wearing a long left brace, I always had to put my socks on first, then my leg brace with the shoe attached to it, then lace up all the straps on the brace, pull my pants over the leg brace, etc. A very tedious affair.
But in my dream, my wish, I would run out of the room with one shoe on one shoe off down the stairs without hanging onto the rail, outside, skipping and hoping trying to get the other shoe on. I would run as fast as I could and let the breeze flow through my hair.
I would jump as I high as I could just to feel what it was like to be off the ground.
I think from looking back on the situation, i surprised the teacher with my wish because most kids asked for things or the ability to go places, I wished for what others had taken for granted.
All of us at one point or another wish to be free from something. We pray, we beg, we try any thing, but then reality sinks in and we know our wish will not be answered. So we pray for the strength to live each day to the fullest with the peace, comfort and strength of Jesus Christ to lead the way!
Healing comes in many forms, and it just might be the ability to live with the reality of life and then to be comfortable in our own skins.
My grace is sufficient for you.
Then the leaders of that synagogue turned their attention to Jesus. They accused him of working on the Sabbath.
But Jesus counters that with a statement about untying an animal on the Sabbath to lead it to water and then saying or implying that if you can water an animal on the Sabbath, can’t I, Jesus, do about the same thing. Let a lady be freed her bonds of this infliction.
Jesus had a passion for people not rules and regulations. Yes some rules are needed, but Jesus saw through all those artificial rules to the most basic rule that being kind to people and helping them is the most important rule.
Jesus gave only two commandments in the New Testament. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love our neighbor as our selves.
That is it.
Loving God means for one thing to come to worship to praise Him and listen to his word in the Bible and relive God’s actions on earth through the live of His Son, Jesus.
Loving our neighbor means we are to reach out with the compassion of Christ that is in us to those around us who are hurting.
My grace is sufficient for you!
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale August 20, 2007
(1)(to subscribe to Tuesday Mornings, send an email to barnard22@cox.net)
from PreachingNow Magazine
(2) from the newsletter of Pastor Arnold Flater Holy Trinity Lutheran Dubuque, IA
(3) author unknown
