Grace or Law?
August 25, 2019
Luke 13:10-17
When we’re young we don’t think about bending over for things, do we? We just do it, we react. But, as we age, we tend to get a little more cautious. We realize if we pick up that package the wrong way, if we trip over that crack in the sidewalk, even sneeze the wrong way . . . we know there are possible consequences. It’s instantaneous. We feel it, we may even hear it. Boom!
I have to admit it happened to me about 1 year ago. On occasion, I take a break and shoot baskets in the FLC. I was shooting and kicked the basketball off the wall so I would not have to bend down. Bad move!! I kicked and I went down as quickly as I kicked it. The pain ripped through my leg. I wasn’t sure if I broke it, or what, no bones were sticking out. I felt for it. Finally I got up and hobbled back to my office, looked at my leg and nothing was out of place.
But my leg was in pain for a few days. Eventually I went to the doctor and they told me I pulled my quad muscle and it would heal. There were no tears, just a bad pull. I kicked a basketball. My leg never fully healed. It’s still messed up, but there’s no pain, so I guess I’m good, but no more kickball or soccer. I had to drop out of tryouts to be the Bears field goal kicker, too!
When pain hits, it can be agonizing. It doesn’t matter how old you are, pain is no fun. Yet, it’s necessary in our lives, because it alerts us that something is wrong with our body. Yet, let me say it again, pain is no fun.
I’ve had a bad back for almost 40 years. I try to stretch and do some exercising to help. But in my early 20's I was in the hospital, in traction for 9 days. Living with pain is no fun. Have I said that already? I guess so.
In the scripture we’re looking at today, we meet a woman who’s been bent over for 18 agonizing years. Jesus is in the synagogue teaching, and let’s see what happens in this story from Luke 13.
10 Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
11 And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”
13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people,
“There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”
15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites!
Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom satan bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
17 As He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.
It’s really a pretty simple story, but it becomes in my unnecessarily complex. Jesus saw a woman in the synagogue, she may not have seen him, remember, she’s bent over. She didn’t seek out Jesus, either. Luke doesn’t tell us anything else about this woman. We don’t know if she was rich or poor, a family matriarch or homeless, someone who was respected or ostracized. All we know is that she had endured “a spirit” that had crippled her, bent her in half, for the past 18 years.
What I love about this woman whom we don’t know anything about - - - is where was she? She was at worship!! How excellent is that! Maybe she didn’t have pain. Maybe she just lived as a hunchback, but imagine going through life like that. Bent over, not able to enjoy a beautiful sunset. Not able to reach for something over your head. Not able to look someone in the eye.
Also, know that in that day, the people looked at you with disdain if you had some sickness, especially a debilitating one. Jesus challenged the ancient belief that her illness was a direct punishment from God for sin. Remember in that day, and sometimes even today we think it, that there’s a direct correlation between health and sickness and your standing before God. The sicker you were, the greater the sinner you were believed to be. The more prosperous and healthy you were, the greater your standing before God.
So, she wasn’t in the inner circle of the social world of the temple. She sat in the back row, she was quiet, she came, she worshiped, she went back home and did her best to honor and glorify God.
Yet, Jesus let’s us know this woman is not ill because God was punishing her, but because there’s evil in the world. In other words, bad things happen to good people. We’d like to think we’re immune from those bad things, but we’re not. We’re reminded, as Jesus said, ‘she was bound by satan.’
We all know life is hard. It’s not always fair in the ways we think. I’m sure after awhile she was certain this was never going away, but she lived with it, and was still worshiping God.
How about us?! When the bad things are happening, are we in God’s house? Or do we stay away? When our kids do those things which we find unconscionable, do we still attend worship and ask for prayer? Or do we just hope it goes away and nobody will notice? When we do something wrong, when we sin, do we stay away or come here with my fervency to repent and experience God’s healing?
What do we do when we find ourselves in the difficult moments of life?
Still, this lady was worshiping God. What if she thought, ‘this is garbage. This God and this worship stuff is for the birds. I’ve had 18 years of Sabbath’s, 936 Sabbaths and I’m not going anymore. God hasn’t answered my prayer for healing.
So, she skips worship, it’s not worth it. Some of us might say, we don’t blame her. And she ends up an old bitter crippled lady. But she didn’t give up on God. What if she did give up on God and didn’t attend that Sabbath?
How many of you have family, brothers, sisters, parents, children, friends who don’t know Jesus, and you want them to have that relationship, because you know it will change them in this life and give them hope in the life that’s yet to come. Will you just quit praying for them because nothing has changed? Or will you keep praying? I would hope you’d be like this lady, and keep the faith.
Some other events which occur in this story shows Jesus publically talking to this woman. In Jewish society, Jewish men didn’t speak to women in public places like this. Remember the story in John 4 where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. She was shocked because a Jew would speak to a Samaritan. And when the disciples returned, the Bible tells us - "The disciples were astonished that Jesus was speaking with a woman." In speaking to her, Jesus breaks the stranglehold on this type of communication.
And as Jesus spoke to her, did you see what He did? He called her to the center of the synagogue. By placing her in the geographic middle, he challenged the men in the worship to take notice that women also had access to God. In worship, it was only the men who counted. The men sat up front, the women in the back. The men spoke, the women were silent. Jesus was challenging their system of belief.
After she came forward and Jesus said “you are free from this infirmity,” He touched her, which of course goes straight against the holiness code of the Jews where they wouldn’t touch those who were sick, or that person would also become impure. That holiness code from the book of Leviticus never bothered Jesus.
As Jesus condemned the ruler and leaders in the temple, He calls her "daughter of Abraham.” I can imagine the gasps and tearing of robes. Women weren’t children of Abraham. Not to the legalistic rulers. This term wasn’t found in Jewish literature.
This was revolutionary ~ to call her a daughter of Abraham is to make her a full-fledged member of the nation of Israel with equal standing before God. In that day, women were actually made righteous through their husbands, not on their own standing. So, this was revolutionary. It was unheard of that she would be called a daughter of Abraham. Jesus was really treading on thin water.
Add to the fact that Jesus healed her on the Sabbath. Jesus loved to mess with the establishment. That’s why Jesus was so much of a radical and rebel in the eyes of the righteous rulers of the temple. He healed her on the Sabbath. The holiest day of the week. By healing her on the Sabbath, he was demonstrating God's compassion for people over the legalism. The Sabbath was intended as a celebration of God’s goodness. In some ways, there was no better day to bring healing.
Her response was instantaneous. She began glorifying God. Here was worship like this synagogue probably hadn’t seen in years. Many of the crowd joined her in rejoicing at her healing. But not all.
The ruler of the synagogue and some others (15, 17) weren’t happy. Unlike Jesus, they had no compassion on the woman, nor did they rejoice in her healing. In contrast to the joy, the ruler of the synagogue was angry. But he didn’t confront Jesus. Instead, he was rebuking the people, demanding that if they wanted to be healed there were six days in the week, but not the Sabbath.
Jesus called the leader and his followers – – hypocrites. A hypocrite is a fake. Someone who pretends to be someone but isn’t. There was much about this ruler’s objections which were hypocritical. There are 6 days on which people can be healed. Do you think this woman could have come back on the following day and been healed? Not if Jesus was gone.
I suspect this woman was a “regular” at this synagogue, but she hadn’t found healing (let alone sympathy) in 18 years. How could the ruler of the synagogue dare to even suggest that healing would be available at some other time?
The greatest hypocrisy however was what Jesus chose to highlight. Jesus accused the religious leaders of hypocrisy because they would routinely sanction “breaking the Sabbath” for the benefit of one of their animals, but not for the benefit of this woman, a daughter of Abraham. They would set loose their donkey on the Sabbath, and let it drink, but they would prohibit healing from Jesus to release this woman from her bondage. Their compassion was selective, self-centered, and hypocritical. They held their animals and the law in higher esteem, than the grace of God.
What was the difference in perspective, in the thinking of the Jewish religious leaders, which brought about this totally opposite response to the healing of this woman? How could they be indignant when the people were ecstatic?
Your perspective makes all the difference. To most of us, a car that is “sick” or “dead” has no appeal. If you own it, you want to get rid of it. On the other hand, when a junk yard looks at your car, they can count the money they will make off the parts of the car.
The son of a farmer looks at cow manure as something which he must endlessly shovel out of the barn. On the other hand, the gardener looks at manure as fertilizer. They delight to get the stuff and shovel it around the flower beds with joy. It’s a matter of perspective.
Our perspective is very much a reflection of who we are. Our perspective becomes our reality. It’s all about what we perceive. If it’s important, we’ll do it, if it’s not important, we hold off on it.
In the end, this woman endured for 18 long torturous years, yet she remained faithful to God. And sometimes it will take 18 or more long years for us to navigate through the storms of life, but we must trust, just like this woman, that God is faithful and He will not let us down.
We can’t be like the synagogue leaders who were stuck on legalism and their needs at the expense of others.
We always need to choose grace over legalism. Sometimes it’s not easy. Grace pushes us beyond where we sometimes want to go. Grace calls us to view one another in a way which can be uncomfortable. We struggle with placing others before ourselves, as Paul calls us to do.
Yet, that’s where grace leads us. It calls us to look at one another and see Jesus Christ in that person, even if they claim no affiliation with Jesus. That makes grace difficult! That’s why these Jewish leaders were so stuck to the legalism of their day. They didn’t have to deal with those who were less than, those who were not like them.
They could use the repressive law and man-made rules to avoid that which made them uncomfortable. There are many themes in this scripture, but as we leave today, let’s consider the work of grace in our lives and how we can demonstrate that same grace to the world.
After all, if Jesus were going to be legalistic, He would have rejected us on the basis that we were and are too stuck in sin. But He gave Himself up for us - - - exactly so we could experience the power and joy of His love and grace!
May we be open to receive Jesus and give Him to the world.
