August 25,
2013
© 2013
I went to Haiti for the first time in the early 80s
on a Habitat for Humanity mission trip. Port au Prince was filled with beggars,
many of whom were hunched-over women with crippled backs. I learned that they
had worked sewing baseballs. Sports equipment, including baseballs was a major
export for Haiti at the time. These women held the ball between bare feet as
they pulled the single red thread to stitch them – down and up, down and up
thousands of times a day. They were paid by the piece not the hour, so women
worked as fast as they could. After a few years, their backs could not take the
strain, and they were relegated to begging on the streets. I went back to Haiti
in the late 90s and saw none of the hunched over women among the beggars. When
I asked our host about this he told me that in the political turmoil and
embargos following the fall of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the sporting good
manufactures had pulled out of Haiti, and the women who had been crippled by
sewing baseballs had all since died. I think of these women when I read Luke
13:10-17.
Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the
synagogues on the sabbath. 11And
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. 12When
Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your
ailment.” 13When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight
and began praising God. 14But 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.” 15But 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? 16And 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?” 17When 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.
Verse 2 says that a spirit had crippled the woman,
and in verse 15 Jesus said that Satan had bound her. Yet, Jesus performed a
healing rather than casting out a demon. The woman did not ask for healing and
expressed no faith. Yet, Jesus called her a daughter of Abraham who deserved to
be set free of her ailment (v. 16). Rather than confronting
Jesus, the synagogue leader told the people not to come to be cured on the
Sabbath day.
The text suggests a boisterous uproar erupted in the
synagogue when the woman stood up and praised God. The synagogue leader had to
keep repeating his admonition to be heard over the din (v. 14). Jesus called them hypocrites (v. 15), and his opponents (v. 16) were put to shame, both
plural. Though they end up rejoicing, Luke called them a “crowd” (vv. 14, 17) indicating some hostility to Jesus.
Luke identified Jesus as “Lord” (v. 15) when he addressed the crowd and asserted that this woman deserved to
be healed even more than an ox or donkey deserved water on Sabbath. Just a note
about mangers you will want to remember at Christmas. The homes of many common
folk had a place just off the family living area to bring in a few animals for
warmth and security, not a barn. They threw kitchen scraps in the manger to
feed the animals.
Sabbath is the gateway through which Jesus leads us to
the freedom to accept God’s wild and wonderful embrace.
Sabbath has many layers of significance, starting
with creation when God rested on the seventh day, not because of being tired
but because that work was completed. In Israel, Sabbath was a sign that they
belonged to God and were in covenant with God. Sabbath taught them faith in the
wilderness by collecting manna on six days but not the seventh. When they
settled in the Land, Sabbath taught them to trust God even when a storm on
Sabbath might threaten their crops. Sabbath established a healthy rhythm of
labor and rest, work and worship.
In this incident, Jesus connected Sabbath with the
way the Ten Commandments are presented in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. Sabbath is the
sign that the Israelites were no longer slaves in Egypt. They could rest and do
no work one day a week with no fear of a task master cracking the whip on them.
Instead of being forbidden to cure on the Sabbath, Jesus said that the Sabbath
was the perfect day for this woman to be set free from her ailment, from being
bound.
Like many in positions of religious authority in
Jesus’ time, the synagogue leader understood Sabbath in terms of what you can’t
do. Some of the “blue laws” and Sunday practices of Christians in our time have
a similar focus. But when viewed as the gateway to freedom, Sabbath is about
what you don’t have to do.
The contrast between avoiding Mt. Sinai and
approaching Mt. Zion in Hebrews 12:18-29 gives us another way to see the gateway
through which Jesus leads us to the freedom to accept God’s wild and wonderful
embrace.
The God of Mt. Sinai and the God of Mt. Zion is
indeed the same consuming fire. This is the wild God who encountered Job in Job
38-41 whom God commended for speaking rightly of God (42:7). Now Jesus invites us to approach this wild God and receive the
kingdom that cannot be shaken and worship with reverence and awe.
The fans of great roller coasters seek the thrill of
feeling swept out of control while being securely harnessed and returning to
safety. Jesus invites us to the thrill of being embraced by the God who is a
consuming fire, and he personally promises to be our security and safety.
Uproar broke out during worship in the synagogue
when Jesus healed the crippled woman. Their disputes were transformed into
exuberant rejoicing. Hebrews 12:28 urges us to offer God acceptable worship
with reverence and awe. That cannot be restricted to quiet and calm. I
appreciate contemplative worship as much as anybody, but Jesus frees us for energetic
expression as well.
For a congregation between pastors, the interim
journey is also a gateway through which Jesus leads us to the freedom to accept
God’s wild and wonderful embrace.
In writing about moral development Lawrence Kohlberg
identified growing in periods of disequalibriation in which old ways of
understanding the world don’t fit any longer but the new ways are not clear
yet. Enjoy the thrill of God’s wild ride taking us somewhere we still can’t
see, confident that Jesus keeps us secure.
The Twelve Steps of AA have proven powerful in
addressing many addictions and bondages. Step Four calls us to make “a
searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” I encourage you as a congregation
to use this interim journey to make a searching and fearless inventory of the
bondages that keep this congregation bent over and quite unable to stand up
straight. This time of disequalibriation can also be an opportunity for each of
us as individuals to make a searching and fearless inventory of the personal
bondages that keep us bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.
Jesus set the woman in today’s Gospel free from her
bondage without being asked and without any expression of faith. I take comfort
that I am not dependent on myself to be freed from my bondages. But I also want
to know how to access Jesus’ freedom. AA’s fifth step points the way. “To admit
to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our
wrongs.” This is an exact match to James 5:16. “Confess your sins to one
another and pray for one another so you may be healed.” The Prayer Triads that
start up in September are not a program but an opportunity to do just this.
Wherever this interim journey takes us, the essential issues are spiritual, and
not about programs and policies.
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