A little over a decade ago, still somewhat early in our marriage, I was in seminary – we didn’t have any kids, Scott was working – life was simple, carefree! But we were first-time homeowners…and had had some recent plumbing work done on our 1940s Decatur, Georgia home. The contractor wanted to show Scott the details of the work and invited him into the crawl space beneath the home so he’d know how the system was supposed to work, going forward.
Clearly, the gentleman had overestimated the both of us, assuming that either one of us had any knowledge or desire to see what lay beneath our home. I mean, truly, if anything went wrong in the future, we’d just be calling him to come out again. Scott, however, obliged – probably to affirm and appreciate the difficult work this man had done – and off they both disappeared into the crawlspace. I watched until their feet were out of sight, then retreated to my study, seminary papers to write.
Not long after the contractor left, I noticed Scott sort of hobbling around the house, not quite standing at his usual height. Over the course of the next few hours, his back seized up to the point that he was confined to the sofa or bed, unable to move at all.
Now, I know about man-colds…and the legendary variance in pain threshholds between men and women…and I have given him appropriate grief about this on other occasions. But this time was real. He was in a lot of pain. He truly was immobilized for the entire weekend. Any time he’d get up to wander into the kitchen or bathroom he’d walk, completely doubled over unable to straighten his spine and stand up.
It was excruciating to watch, and at the ripe old age of 27 I saw my distant future unfolding before my eyes much sooner than I had bargained for and began to panic! He made a doctor’s appointment for Monday, and of course couldn’t drive himself. We also shared one car at the time, so I somehow folded him in to our 1998 Honda Accord (not a spacious vehicle) and drove him the 2 miles to the doctor, listening to the groans at every turn.
Here’s the real gem of the story. We pulled into a parking spot at the doctor’s office and I said, “Here you go, hon! I’m going to that nail spa over there for a pedicure. Just text me when you’re done!” I opened his door, unfolded him out in his crumpled over state, and hopped back in the driver’s seat. I watched him hobble, bent at a 90 degree angle, all the way to the door – made sure he got in – then drove off to the nail salon until he called to say he was done.
This is a story, first, of what a TERRIBLE wife – really what a terribly HUMAN – I am. (I mean, I just LET him walk himself in – “You’re on your own man. Good luck!”) I guess I wasn’t ready for that whole ‘sickness and health’ thing quite so soon! But I’ve gotten better. A little.
But secondly it’s a real life story that makes me consider what those 18 years must have been like for the woman we meet in the Gospel of Luke today.
As Pastor Choongho read, Luke 13:11 says for 18 years she was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 18 years! Think about that for a moment – think back 18 years in your own life. You were probably younger and a little more spry than you are now. Maybe you were still working and now retired. Maybe you were just starting a career or family? Maybe you were in high school, or a newborn – or not even born! For me, I had just graduated college and was living and working in Mozambique. Basically 18 years is my entire professional life.
Think about all that time in between 18 years ago and now. And imagine if you had spent it with your body entirely bent over. Actually, we’re going to get a little crazy here. I’m going to ask you to physically get in that position. Wherever you are – at home, at the breakfast table, in bed, out walking a trail – if you are physically capable of doing so, stand up and bend your body over 90 degrees…as if you’d thrown your back out like Scott. Go ahead, do it. If people laugh at you, that’s even better. If you’re driving – maybe wait until you get home. But everybody else, go ahead.
Hold that position for a minute. I want you to feel your body bent over like the woman. And then just try doing a few ordinary things like this. What is it like for you to actually move and see where you’re going? What does it take for you to make eye contact with someone? What’s at eye level – what are you seeing most of the time? How high could you reach if you needed to buy something from a merchant’s stand at the market?
18 years of a bent-over life.
After 18 years, would you expect anything to ever change?
And yet, on this Sabbath Day, everything changed for this bent-over woman.
Much like the miracle story from last week, we find ourselves in the same kind of room where it happened. Jesus is in a synagogue, teaching – as he is now quite accustomed to doing. He draws a crowd wherever he goes, and on this particular day this woman ventures in to hear what he has to say. She doesn’t expect to attract attention. After all, everyone in town is used to her by now. Some are kind and help to care for her. Others dismiss her and pretend not to even notice her. But Jesus sees her, and calls her over.
Who knows what she must’ve thought as she looked out of the corner of her eye to make her way down the aisle toward him. Was her heart racing? Her face flushed from the unwanted attention? Did she have hope? Or fear? Was he going to use her as an example in his teaching of the sin in her life that must have caused her affliction – that’s what other teachers and Pharisees had said?
She didn’t have long for these thoughts to rush her mind. As soon as she was within reach Jesus pronounced, “Woman you are set free from your ailment,” and touched her crooked, crumpled back. And just like that, she stood. Tall, straight, released.
In the blink of an eye, Jesus unbends and unbinds this woman’s body and spirit, crooked and crushed for so long. That, of course, is the miracle and sends her into fits of rejoicing. And so I was all set to preach a sermon about Jesus’ power to free us from all that bends and binds us – and it would’ve sounded very similar to last week’s sermon about the casting out of the demon. Because the essence of Jesus’ healing miracles is always the same – they’re all about his power to set people free and restore them to self and to community. He’s repetitive for a reason. He wants us to get it!
But something about the rest of the story kept nagging at me. It doesn’t end with the woman standing up straight and rejoicing, though it could have. Miracle accomplished!
Another character enters the scene. It’s the leader of the synagogue. He’s furious at what has just happened. He immediately starts yelling above the noise, trying to get the crowd to realize that Jesus has just broken the law. He has healed on the Sabbath!! That counted as ‘work’ in some religious leaders’ minds, and work was forbidden on the Sabbath, the day of rest. Of course, what constituted work was widely debated – as we see right away because Jesus enters into that debate.
“Wait a minute,” he argues, “You all have animals. What do you do with them on the Sabbath?? You don’t leave them bound up in the manger for an entire day without water. You untie them (notice that image of freedom again) and lead them to water (which of course gives them life).”
Then he gestures to the woman again, to embarrass the leader with his comparison. Basically to say, “you’ll unbind your animals on the Sabbath to lead them to fresh water. But you won’t allow this woman, bound for 18 years, to be set free?” And he says one more vitally important thing here. Jesus names the woman. “Daughter of Abraham.”
This is a pretty sharp jab at the synagogue leader. Jesus invokes the name of Abraham. Every religious leader worth his salt would take great pride in his lineage – all of them descended from Abraham. It was certainly part of the way the synagogue leader thought of himself. But I think Jesus uses “Daughter of Abraham” here to point out very sharply that the leader was not thinking of the woman with such esteem. Even though she shared his lineage, his religious family, his claim to spiritual pedigree – the leader had long stopped seeing her that way…if he ever had.
When Jesus takes the stand that this woman should not only be set free from the prison of her own body and spirit on this day, BUT ALSO that she is a cherished and beloved Daughter of Abraham – he is in essence asking the synagogue leader and everyone gathered there that day to check and challenge their own hearts…and the way they had come to see her. He restores not just her posture, but her dignity.
So as I think about what transpired in the room right after the miracle happened, I can’t help but wonder if this miracle is first about freedom – yes – but is it just as miraculous and powerful that Jesus changed the perspective of everyone in the room that day?
Think about that for a minute. Think about the tremendous amount of power it takes to change someone’s perspective in our day and age! We live in virtual echo chambers. We build our lives to be surrounded by people who think and talk and act like us. Sometimes that happens unconsciously, but sometimes it is by choice. Our social media is intentionally designed to feed us more and more things that reinforce whatever perspective we already hold. The way we see the world is the right way. Right? How could there be another?
There is no power other than God’s, it seems, that might shift or bend or unbind our perspectives!
And yet, Jesus shows us here that God does indeed have that power and is not afraid to use it.
There are 2 big perspective shifts in this story as I read it. First, of course, is the woman’s! Quite physically her perspective changed. Her vantage point on the world was now about 2 feet higher, meaning she could look people directly in the eye with ease. She could scan a whole room without turning her body. She could see out the window. The floor was no longer her focal point.
So if we take the woman’s place in the story, we might ask ourselves these kinds of questions:
• What is the posture from which I see the world? (Where and how am I situated?)
• What am I missing because of it?
• What are my eyes fixed on?
Our perspectives and our postures toward the world aren’t always something we consciously choose – although they can be, the older we get. They are most often the result of our particular set of life circumstances. Think about all the things that shape our perspective on the world around us:
• Where we were born. Where we live now. How old we are.
• What color our skin is. How much money we make. What education we have.
• How much pain we’ve experienced. How much love we’ve experienced.
The list could go on and on. Our perspective helps us see some things very clearly, but, leaves us blind to others.
Would we rejoice if Jesus unbent and unbound us to see something different?
Then there’s the perspective of the synagogue leader, the guy who got all bent out of shape about Jesus working on the Sabbath. We can put ourselves in his shoes too…probably more easily than any of us would like to admit.
As I mentioned before, the Synagogue leader forgot WHO the woman was. His position and his education, his status and years of experience gave him the perspective of the Law. And in his mind, Jesus had just broken it. Justice could not be overlooked – it must be addressed. His focus, his fixation, THE MOST important thing in his purview was the thing that he knew had to be right - the preservation of the Sabbath. To the disregard of the woman, now standing at her full height before him.
I’d like to think that I would NEVER be so caught up in my own conviction, my own certainty, my own perspective that I’d look right past another human’s dignity. I’d like to think that my perspective from comfort would never callous me to seeing pain and suffering in my world. I’d like to believe that I’d never forget that she who suffers has a name, “Child of God.” But I know I have. And I know I still do.
Stepping into the synagogue leader’s shoes makes me ask these kinds of questions:
• What suffering do I overlook? (because it has become part of the scenery)?
• Who do I discount? (because they are of no value to me?)
• When have I valued an ideal over someone else’s identity as a Child of God?
Can you imagine the miracles that might unfold all around us if Jesus unbent and unbound our perspectives? I think he’s still at work doing this in so many ways and we are only ever steps away from the miracle!
A wealthy, busy businessman gives up one hour a week to be a mentor for a student struggling to read. Suddenly his world of work fades away and the life of that little boy – the shortage of food in his household, the lack of internet access, the kids who bully him at school – become the most important thing in the man’s world. His perspective shifts into full focus on this child of God sitting right next to him and his world changes too.
A white mom who used to jog across to the other side of the street if she saw a black man walking her way joins a book club. There she hears a black father break down as he talks about what he has to teach his sons to survive in this world, because of the fears of people like her. Her perspective no longer looks away to avoid this man, but unbends, and sees his full identity as a child of God, and her world changes too.
An ambitious, well-educated, English-speaking American, born and raised in the Midwest makes a visit to a migrant farmhouse – just 40 miles from where I stand today. He sees the scores of people, overcrowded in the house provided for them to sleep, relying on meals from churches and Kansas City nonprofits. His perspective shifts from the relative ease of his paycheck which feeds his family, very likely with the food these workers pick. His eyes now open to the strenuous work in front of him, for these children of God to send $10/hour back to their families in Mexico. His world changes too.
These miracles are all around us, Jesus seeing us, calling to us across a room – touching us and changing the vantage point we have on the world around us - Challenging us when we have put our blinders on. If he calls out to you – will you be ready to see?
We meet you, Lord Jesus, on this your Sabbath day, in the heart of your synagogue.
By your hands we receive healing, wholeness and release from the trials of life that bend our spirits.
Even as we experience your freedom and rejoice in God’s name, we call to mind others we may overlook who are bent by the weight of their worlds, and we offer to you our prayers on their behalf.
We pray for people of this congregation, from whom we are apart today –
We pray for people in our community –
who struggle to make ends meet
who don’t have enough food
who are bound by addiction
We pray for children –
who live in fear of violence or neglect
We pray for prisoners and their families–
Who are separated from one another.
We pray for places in the world where disaster has crippled people’s lives.
We pray for men and women throughout the world
Who carry heavy loads
Who work for unjust wages
We pray for our church family across the world
Struggling in places of violence and war.
For all these, we ask you to call them out of the shadows on this Sabbath day. Touch them with your healing hands, and help them to stand and praise you. And give us eyes to see.
We offer our hearts to you, Lord Jesus, as you taught us to pray, Our Father…
