August 21, 2022, Pentecost 11
The Reverend Gary Hamblin

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.

In our gospel reading this morning, the leader of the synagogue in which Jesus is teaching, is being true to a rule that was kept in the Hebrew culture for several centuries. The rule was written in the Book of Genesis.

But Jesus answered the leader by saying those present in the synagogue, that day, water their animals on the sabbath, so how can they deny a crippled woman to be healed on the sabbath? 

Once again, the gospel conveys the truth that ‘the Sabbath was made for people’ and not ‘people were made for the Sabbath’. 

I did a little research on the role of rules in the Hebrew culture two millennia ago and here’s what I found out.

In the Book of Genesis, The Hebrew people’s concept of the Sabbath encourages the people of Israel to rest from all work because God crowned creation with a holy day of rest. God rests from the work of creation in order to bless and consecrate the Sabbath and therefore the people of Israel shall not work on the Sabbath. That seems straightforward, doesn’t it?

Some of you will remember the impact of the ‘Lord’s Day Act’ from several decades ago which, in most cities and municipalities in Canada restricted the time that stores and other merchants could be open on a Sunday. In those days, unlike today, you couldn’t find an open Walmart or a Safeway store, let alone a corner market on a Sunday. Especially, for example, when you desperately needed some butter or some fishing line or mosquito lotion. Thanks to our very temperate forefathers, who formed the city and town councils in those years, this rule of no work on Sunday and other Christian religious holidays was enforced with fines.

I can remember one Sunday, in 1970, when we lived, with our three small children, in St. Boniface, Manitoba, looking, in vain, all over that suburb of Winnipeg, for an open store that would sell me some milk! Finally, I found a farmer with milk cows who spared some milk for me.

But, as with most things in the bible, there are passages that are sometimes complimentary and others that are sometimes contradictory. In today’s reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus seems to follow an alternate, but valid, passage from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy (Deut 5). That passage commands the people of Israel to observe the sabbath and to keep it holy in recognition of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. This command emphasizes the practice of holiness, – of undertaking only ‘holy’ work on the Sabbath. And, of course, wrapped up in holy work is giving mercy, compassion, and justice to our neighbour. That was emphasized by the Old Testament Prophets including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, among others. 

The Pharisees as we know were rigorous in enforcing the word of the Law with no exceptions. They exercised considerable power and control over the Jewish people. It’s the Pharisees along with this leader of the synagogue, who questioned Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath. Jesus was criticized for talking with women, eating with tax collectors associating with prostitutes. 

This rigorous application of what you are not to do, of course, holds people in bondage – just as the unnamed woman’s illness held her in bondage. It restricts people’s independence and freedom to live their lives, fully. In this morning’s passage, Jesus issues a double blow to rigorous rules. On the one hand, a blow to the power and control of a group of people- the Pharisees, over others; and a blow to the notion that people need to be restricted and held in bondage forever to rules that were prescribed several centuries earlier. It’s a blow to being held in bondage to ill health, even if there is a way for people to be freed.

Just as Jesus changed the crippled woman’s stature from being bent over for life, to standing straight, we also need to look beyond ourselves being crippled by manmade rules and illness. To put it another way, we need to stand straight and live beyond the past, beyond our illnesses, beyond our sin, which holds us back.

We have some help to do this. It’s no coincidence the author of Luke’s gospel has bracketed this story of healing with parables that inspire us to look beyond ourselves to God—parables that draw a link between healing and our calling as Christians to enable others to heal and to make others aware of God’s healing power.

In Luke’s gospel, just before the story of this unnamed woman’s healing, is the story of the parable of the fig tree. You’ll remember in that story the owner of a vineyard is disappointed that a fig tree has not borne fruit for three years. So, he orders the manager of the vineyard to cut the fig tree down. But the manager pleads with the owner to wait for another year, while he waters and nurtures the fig tree—to allow it more time to mature and bear fruit. This is a pastoral story which, like the crippled woman’s story, says, let’s care for the tree and enable it to heal—to give it some hope and a better life. The parable, of course, is a metaphor with the underlying meaning if you give people time, and some healing, they may live as God wants them to live.

In Luke’s gospel, immediately following today’s story of Jesus and the crippled woman, there are two more short parables about what life could be like if people lived as God wants them to live. Jesus calls it living in God’s Kingdom.

One story is the parable of the mustard seed. Its underlying message is the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that, if it is nurtured, will become a tree which will nurture others. A message that is very important for us today.

This is followed the parable of the leavened bread, where a woman adds yeast to flour and kneads it and lets it rise—so it will rise and be cooked to make bread to nurture people. It’s underlying meaning is very simple, and it applies to us today.

The important message of today’s gospel reading, and these three parables is why they were recorded by a scribe, so long ago, and why they have endured to our time and place.

The gospel encourages us to be free from our own personal and corporate bondages, whether they are ones of rules or ones of illness. In the context of the story of the crippled woman the parable of the fig tree, the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leavened bread, we are called by God to go further in our exploration of healing, and the release that it gives from our various bondages. They help us realize we are both witnesses to this healing, and the enablers of healing for others. While today’s story is a one of healing, the actual physical healing is but one aspect of the story.

As Emilie Townes writes: “We are inheritors of the gift of healing of the bent-over woman who stood up straight and began praising God.”

I want to end with this story written by and American author, Beth Ashley. It’s a story that encourages us to release ourselves from a bondage that negates the inner lives of people, especially those who are old. It’s entitled, “When We’re Alone, We Can Dance.”

The little cruise ship was crowded with people, many of them retired, all of them off for three days of pleasure. Ahead of me in the carpeted passageway was a tiny woman in brown polyester slacks, her shoulders hunched, her white hair cut in a short, straight bob. From the ship’s intercom came a familiar tune–“Begin the Beguine,” by Artie Shaw. And suddenly, a wonderful thing happened. The woman, unaware that anyone was behind her, began to shimmy and shake. She snapped her fingers. She swiveled her hips. She did a quick and graceful dance step we called the ‘Lindy’— and did a quick back, shuffle, and slide.  Then, as she reached the door to the dining salon, she paused, assembled her dignity, and stepped soberly through. She became a hunched old lady again.

That visual fragment has returned to mind many times. I think of it now as I approach another birthday -and an age where most people would not believe that I still shimmy, too. Younger people think folks of my years are beyond music, romance, dancing, or dreams. They see us as age has shaped us: camouflaged by wrinkles, with thick waists and greying hair. They don’t see all the other people who live inside. We present a certain face to the world because custom shows it. We are the wise old codgers, the dignified matrons. We have no leeway to act our other selves—or use our other selves.

No one would ever know, for instance, that I am still the skinny girl who grew up in a leafy suburb of Boston. Inside, I still think of myself as the youngest of four children in a vivacious family, headed by a mother of great beauty and a dad of unfailing good cheer. It doesn’t matter that my parents are long gone, and that the four children are now three. I am still the faintly snobbish child accustomed to long cars and maids – though my dad lost his money in the Depression, and I live, these days from paycheck to paycheck.”

That’s a story written by Beth Ashley.

The gospel reading this morning is a story of healing. It’s a story of freedom from bondage: the bondage of rules, the bondage of being oppressed, and, as in this story from Beth Ashley, the bondage of how we are perceived by others.
Sources: Emilie M. Townes, in Feasting on the Word; William Bausch, A World of Stories.