Straighten Up

Straighten Up – Luke 13: 10 - 17

Intro: As I was preparing reading the text for this message, a phrase came to mind. On those RARE occasions when I was doing something I shouldn’t or when I annoyed my mother for some minor infraction, she would look at me with those piercing blue eyes and say, “Young man you better straighten up and fly right.” I had no idea what the expression meant except I knew to stop whatever it was that I was doing. Perhaps you remember hearing that phrase.

It was surprising that I remembered that phrase considering how infrequently I heard it as a child. So, I did some research learning that Nat “King” Cole wrote the music and lyrics in a hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska in the winter or 1943. Here are the opening lines of the song:

“A buzzard took a monkey for a ride in the air. The monkey thought that everything was on the square. The buzzard tried to toss the monkey off of his back. But the monkey grabbed his neck and said, “Now listen, Jack. Straighten up and fly right.”

The definition of straighten-up-and-fly-right is “to start behaving properly; or to get one’s act together.”

I In the passage of scripture for today we see two people who were bent out of shape. One was a woman who was physically bent out of shape and the other was a religious man who was spiritually bent out of shape. Both needed to “straighten up and fly right.”

A VS. 11 “and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.” The woman did not ask to be healed or even express faith that Jesus could heal her. She is just there when Jesus notices her and calls her forward.

B VS. 12 “ . . . Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” The GK. word for infirmity is ?s???e? /asthenia refers to a weakness / sickness / or a special form of bodily weakness. This infirmity caused her to have a distorted perception of her world. Mostly she saw feet.

C VS. 13 – Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. After Jesus touched her, he not only did away with her infirmity; but, he also changed the way she saw the world. She now had a different perspective.

II VS. 14 “Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “’There are 6 days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.’”

A Notice two items here: 1) the synagogue leader addresses the people and not Jesus, 2) the synagogue leader says nothing negative about healing.

B The synagogue leader is “bent out of shape” not because Jesus has done a healing miracle in the synagogue. He fusses because it is done on the Sabbath.

C For Hasidic Jews, the Sabbath lasts from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Even today, they do not drive, work, exercise, cook or even turn on a night switch. What Jesus did was considered work, causing the synagogue leader to be “bent out of shape.”

III As Jesus changed the way the woman viewed things, in verses 15 & 16 Jesus attempts to change the perception of the synagogue leader who is upset or “bent out of shape,” because Jesus has technically worked on the Sabbath by healing the woman.

A This man and those like him whom we may know are more concerned about systems, customs, traditions and petty little laws that cripple people physically, spiritually, emotionally, and legally.

B Jesus teaches that concern over the suffering of our fellow human beings should take precedence over obligations related to petty or unreasonable circumstances.

C The question for us is this: who are those in our community in need of healing who cannot look up because they are “held down” or whose backs are “bent” from taking care of others or are struggling just to merely exist?

Concl: The woman was bound by her physical infirmity. The synagogue ruler was wound to his legalism. Their knowledge of the world was directly related to their perspective. The woman only saw easily the ground. The synagogue ruler was easily on the way of the law. Both were “bent out of shape” and needed to be straightened up so they could fly right seeing the world as it really was. It took an encounter with Christ Jesus for both to see things clearly. The same is true for us. We must filter our understanding of the world through the eyes of Christ, seeing things from His perspective instead of our own.