August 26, 2007

Krista Atwood

Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71,

Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17

 

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.

 

Well, he’s at it again. Jesus that is…. breaking all the rules. It’s one of his favorite pastimes, really, so we shouldn’t be surprised. Touching lepers, talking with Samaritan women, raising people from the dead. Not that he gets away with it, mind you…. the proper police are always out in full force. Yet still, he keeps at it. So today we find Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Now, that may not sound so bad, but you have to remember that healing was work. And everyone knew it wasn’t right to work on the Sabbath. So there he was… flagrantly breaking the rules. 

 

Earlier this week Pastor Mark called me a goodie-two-shoes. Can you believe that?? A goodie-two-shoes! Okay, I suppose he was probably right. There aren’t too many times that I knowingly and blatantly break the rules. I pretty much (pretty much) stick to the speed limit.   I file my taxes. I license my dog. Even if my shoes are fabulously red, I guess I have to admit that I am a goodie-two-shoes. 

 

But no one could ever accuse Jesus of being a goodie-two-shoes… or a goodie-two-sandals, as the case may be. In the synagogue on this particular day Jesus catches sight of a woman with a terrible aliment… bent over for eighteen years, she was not able to stand up straight. Not able to see the world in front of her… Not able to look her friends in the eye. Jesus summons her over (which is breach number one ~ talking to a woman during worship), lays hands on her (breach number two) and heals her (breach number three). And the woman can’t believe what has happened. Standing up straight, she begins to praise God. 

 

Now, as I mentioned before, the proper police are never very far away… in this case in the form of the synagogue leader. It’s as if he’s put up a sign, “Only Scheduled Miracles Allowed.” He isn’t about to let this free-spirit get in the way of his observance of Sabbath. In fact, it’s his job to keep things in order. So he keeps reminding 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." You wouldn’t want people thinking they could come to worship and be healed. 

 

But there is part of me that is sympathetic to the synagogue leader.   Maybe the goodie-two-shoes in you can sympathize with him as well. He had a certain position and it was of significant responsibility. It was his job to make sure the people were allowed to worship and observe the Sabbath as they were commanded. It was (still is) the fourth commandment. “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God…” He was just trying to enforce the rules as he understood them.

 

But Jesus understood something different about the Sabbath. For Jesus, Sabbath was not so much about right or wrong, rules or regulations, but about freedom and wholeness and thanksgiving. Maybe Jesus took his cue from the teachings in Deuteronomy on keeping the Sabbath. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” Jesus understood that it isn’t only overzealous pharaohs that can enslave us. That mighty hand is stretched out to all God’s children who find themselves enslaved in some way or another. 

 

And ‘enslaved’ would be one way to describe the experience of the bent over woman. She was trapped. The Greek word for bent actually meant bent in, she was bent in on herself. As Sharon Ringe put it in her commentary, she was “…captive to restricted movement, to the inability to meet another person face to face, and to a world defined by the piece of ground around her toes...” Yet this bent over women did not come to Jesus asking to be healed. She knew better than that ~ she knew what day it was and that healing wasn’t for the Sabbath. She had waited eighteen years; she could’ve waited one more day. So it wasn’t the woman…  it was Jesus who took the initiative. Who set her free. 

 

And it is not just the bent over woman who needs to be set free, is it? We may not find ourselves literally stooped, but we all know what it is to bend under a heavy load, whether it be anxiety, guilt, fear or whatever else is weighing you down. And when we find ourselves in such a place, we are not unlike the bent over women. Isolated, turned inward, seeing only what is right before us. Even the synagogue leader was enslaved, in a sense… enslaved to tradition, to a set of unbending rules that he felt obligated to enforce. Interestingly, C.S. Lewis understood our experience of sin as being bent. In Lewis’ Space Trilogy his character Dr. Ransom, a Christian, describes humankind saying, “We are all a bent race.” 

 

Yet in his bold rule breaking, Jesus tells us that it doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, the goodie-two-shoes out there try to stop him, but Jesus doesn’t let them. This was about healing and, for Jesus, Sabbath was a healing time. By the end of the story it is not just the woman who is standing up straight praising God, but the whole crowd as well. If there’s a better way to spend the Sabbath, I can’t think of it. This healing qualifies as good news.  Good news indeed!  Amen!

 

And speaking of Spirit Sunday….. we ourselves are embracing a new understanding of Sabbath this fall ~ in just a couple of weeks, actually. Some may even say we are breaking some rules of our own. Children in church every Sunday? Adults going to Sunday School at the same time as the kids? And this is happening at South Church? Yes! Yes! And yes! It is almost hard to believe. Who knows what surprises are in store for us.

 

Yet it seems to me that we are being handed a wonderful opportunity (if we take it) to live out more and more Jesus’ understanding of Sabbath ~ freedom, wholeness and thanksgiving.  For who doesn’t come to church on Sunday to be made whole? Who doesn’t want to be set free?   Sabbath is an opportunity to restore our brokenness… to honestly look at how we are bent. Through worship and study, within our community of faith, we too can (and do) accept Jesus’ invitation. Just as with the bent over woman, Jesus takes the initiative with us…. and bids us to stand up straight… to come and be set free.