Luke 13:10-17
The last two weeks I preached on the most familiar parables in the Bible. But this week’s story—though less familiar—is even more vivid in my mind. I can see this woman. I can see the top of her head as she walks along, bent over. I can imagine her view—nothing but dusty robes and dirty feet. I can see conversations taking place over her head. I can feel her pain in my back and I stand up straighter. I can see this woman so clearly, I feel like I have met her. Maybe that’s why I think this is the most haunting miracle story.
The story also reminds me of Mike Kasputes. Many of you know Mike—he joined this church in 2008. He moved to northern Maine within the last year, so we don’t see much of him anymore, but he gave me permission to talk about him this morning. Mike has Post Polio Syndrome. Sometimes he will wake up in the morning to discover that he has lost the function of another muscle, and he has to retrain his body to make up for that muscle. That means that one day you will see him walking unassisted, though perhaps with a distinct limp or an awkward gait. The next time you see him, he could be using a cane or forearm crutches or maybe even be in a wheelchair.
I asked him once about his experiences with his disability, and how others relate to him because of it. He told me that he will do anything to avoid using the wheelchair. He said that people will come up behind him and grab the handles of his chair and shake it in what they think is a fun greeting, but which feels to him like an invasion of his personal space. People don’t always sit or kneel but instead will talk down to him, both physically and intellectually, as if his mind is as weak as his legs. But the worst, he said, is when people carry on a conversation over him, as if—in his words—he is little more than a dog at their feet. When he uses the crutches, his hands aren’t free—he can’t even get himself a cup of coffee at work. But when he uses the chair, he feels so easily dismissed.
I think this must have been how the woman in our story felt as people undoubtedly talked over her bent frame, rendering her invisible. I wonder if they more readily said cruel things because they couldn’t see her face. Of course, she didn’t have Post Polio Syndrome. Contemporary scholars say she probably suffered from a disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease that often affects the spine. It begins with a pain in the back that is relieved if the person bends over a little. As the problem grows and the pain increases, the person bends a little more and a little more to try to relieve the pain. Ultimately the bones fuse and the person is unable to stand upright. But it happens one small pain at a time.
Sound familiar? That is often how our burdens come to weigh us down—one small pain at a time. Sure, for some of us, it is the one-time crisis or tragedy that forces us down—the death, the illness, the attack. But for others of us, it’s not a single injury that leaves us bent over, but a never-ending accumulation of pain.
Maybe it started when we were young. A sharp word or an insult from an angry parent, and our shoulders curve. An unkind word, a thoughtless comment, and our back bends. A betrayal of trust, a dashed dream, and we struggle beneath the weight. Over the years the burdens add up. Sorrow, loss, and unshed tears. Shame, anger, and unforgiven hurts. Fear, betrayal, and unanswered prayers. We keep bending forward, trying to ease the pain, until we can no longer stand up straight. But unlike the woman in our Gospel, some of us don’t even know it. We’re so accustomed to being bent-over that we’ve forgotten how it feels to stand up. We’re so used to seeing only dusty roads and dirty feet that we’ve forgotten about blue skies and birds in flight. We’re so used to carrying our burdens that we’ve forgotten what it means to be set free.
See what I mean? I know this “bent-over woman” as we call her. I have known her as a woman and as a man and as a child and as a senior. I have known her and him.
Of course, she isn’t the only character in this story. There is also the leader of the synagogue to consider. Now, it would be easy for us to cast blame and make harsh judgments. What kind of ogre was he, to deny her the healing she so desperately needed? Why would he say she should have come back another day, when obviously getting around wasn’t exactly easy for her? Wasn’t 18 years long enough to suffer?
But according to the law of the time, the leader was right. He was offering “a clear and compelling reading of the law…. You are not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath.”[1] “Keep in mind that the law — including laws about the Sabbath – was given to the Israelites after their Exodus from Egypt. You remember Egypt — where the Israelites were slaves and worked whenever their masters commanded them, likely never getting a day off. And so when they received a command to rest – to actually set aside one day of the week to rest their bodies and their livestock and retreat for a time of renewal and prayer – trust me, they heard this only as good news.”[2]
So what is this religious leader’s problem? He is concerned about the exceptions. Sure, this one case might be a valid exception. But once you start making exceptions, when will it stop? Once you say “It’s OK to break the law for this reason,” what’s to stop you from saying “It’s OK to break the law for any good reason.” And then what does the law mean? It becomes useless.
So the religious leader wasn’t wrong. Not in theory, anyway. Just in application. You see, the bent-over woman couldn’t stand up straight, but the religious leader couldn’t bend. He was too rigid. He was so concerned about following the letter of the law that he missed the essence of the law. He was so concerned with what was prohibited that he neglected what was needed.
We are rigid sometimes, too . . . whether it’s in our political perspectives, or our household rules; our view of who deserves mercy, or who deserves bailouts; our interpretation of the Bible, or our interpretation of the second amendment.
A pastor tells of what he describes as “an excruciating Deacons meeting. The proposal on the agenda was to have a baby shower for a 16 year-old girl who was pregnant. Alice (not her real name) had been through a series of mishaps in her young life, and her family was barely making ends meet. The father of the baby dumped her and she was going to live at home with her parents. The start up costs for having a baby were daunting for them. To make the issue really complicated her mother was the chair of the Board of Deacons. As the planning for the shower unfolded, the Deacons were divided by where to have the shower. One group felt strongly that the event should not take place at church. Their rationale was that if it was in the building it was an official church event and then they would be obligated to hold a shower for everyone who was going to have a baby.” The pastor added, “You can imagine the flood of pregnancies in a congregation where two-thirds of the women are over 50. . . . Of course, the real issue was never spoken. Some Deacons were concerned that having the shower at church would send ‘the wrong message’ to the young girls in the youth group that the church condoned out-of-wedlock pregnancies.”
The pastor wrote, “As the debate ground on into the night I could see the chair of the board gradually shrinking away in shame…. I felt that if the ‘non-church shower crowd’ were to win out, we were going to lose our very able and dedicated chair from the church. I began to feel angry and said, ‘This reminds me of the controversy of healing on the Sabbath. It’s OK to heal, just make sure you don’t do it during the church service and get prior approval from the Board of Deacons and Church Council. So in this case we need to decide if we want to publicly bless this family or do it quietly somewhere else so no one gets upset.’ [The pastor said] Fortunately the motion then passed unanimously that we have the shower at the church, the Head Deacon stayed with the church and I did not get fired.”[3]
But we recognize the tendency, don’t we? The tendency, the temptation, of rigidity? Some of us are bent-over double from the shame and pain of our lives. Others of us are so ram-rod straight we can’t even bend to say grace . . . or give it. And in the process, we add to the burdens of others, weighing them down.
How many times have we made a thoughtless comment that added to another’s burden? How many times have we used our anger not to empower but to divide? How many times have we been so caught up in our own struggles that we have failed to see the pain in the pew right next to us? How many times have we refused to walk in someone else’s shoes, or sit in someone else’s wheelchair? How many times have we added to the burdens others carry by saying—or even thinking—things like:
They just want a hand-out.
Old people can’t be useful.
Fat people are lazy.
Cancer? Were you a smoker?
It only happened once. Stop whining and get over it.
God demands submission.
Too often we extend judgment instead of grace. But these are not the messages of Jesus. Jesus said, “You are set free.” You are set free from the definitions and expectations of others. You are set free from shame and self-loathing. You are set free from hatred and bigotry, from the burden of always being right, from the anger that controls you and the fear that inhibits you. You are set free from the need to control others. Jesus said, “You are set free.
When you came into worship this morning, I hope you were given a small strip of colored paper. I invite you now to take that out, and I want you to write on it. I want you to name something that keeps you bent over, or something that keeps you rigid; something that binds you—and you need to break free. There are pens on both ends of the pews; please share with your neighbors. Again, name something that keeps you bent over, or something that keeps you rigid; something that binds you—and you need to break free. I’ll give you a minute or two.
[Time for writing.]
Jesus sets us free, invites us to stand up tall and see the sky, or to bend just enough to see another’s pain. But it’s up to us, whether we want to break free.
[1] Lose, David. “The Law of Love.” Workingpreacher.com.
[2] Ibid.
[3] bloomingcactus.typepad.com/bloomingcactus/2010/08/luke-131017-following-the-unwritten-rules.html