Do you know, I think the person in
today’s Gospel with whom I sympathize the most is the leader of the synagogue.
I have plenty of sympathy available for the woman who was bent over for
eighteen years. Who wouldn’t? And I can appreciate the position Jesus was in,
caught between breaking the Sabbath law or relieving long time suffering when
it came to healing on the Sabbath. But the character with whom I really identify
with is that poor leader of the synagogue.
Talk about being trapped. No matter
what the synagogue leader did or said, someone wasn’t going to like it. I can
just imagine him saying things like this. “Look, I’m supposed to maintain order
for our faith. All I was trying to do was point out what scripture says! I was
as overwhelmed as anyone by Jesus healing that woman, but an institution has to
have some kind of order. We have to
have some rules.”
Maybe he said, in a whiny voice, “Couldn’t
Jesus have waited until sundown and saved us all a lot of trouble?” I’m sure he
would be astounded to learn he has become an example of someone who held to law
rather than grace. Really, all he was trying to do was stick to the rules about
keeping the Sabbath properly. And after all, the Sabbath was created to bring
God’s people closer to God. Just like today, people weren’t observing the Sabbath
the way the way it was intended.
Most of us think we agree with this
synagogue leader. Maybe we don’t agree about keeping the Sabbath any more, but
we agree about some version of order or rules. Most of us have a few internal
rules we think the world would be better off if everyone followed. But you
know, when you are called to something, sticking to your core purpose is what
counts. Stray too far and people begin to wonder why you’re there.
So that’s the position the leader of
the synagogue was in that day. It’s important to note that he did not critique
Jesus’ healing in any way. He saw, and no doubt believed. What he did critique
was when it happened. And so I also
believe that during any time when something new happens, most of us have a
tendency to question not so much whether the new thing is okay or not, but the
“when” of its happening. And this makes me have great empathy for both the
leader of the synagogue and leaders in the church today.
New things are hard because they are
new. Even if we want them, new things mean different ways of doing things; they
mean adapting ourselves to a different way of seeing. That idea of a different
way of seeing brings us to the bent over woman in today’s story.
Just imagine for a moment what she
must have spent the last eighteen years seeing. Feet! Ground! Dirt and sandals!
And knowing what roads and sanitation were like in 1st century
Palestine, she probably saw a lot of well…I’ll let you imagine what else she
saw. Just imagine, though, spending eighteen years of your life looking down.
And when you could lift your head up, you only saw a little bit at a time.
For human beings, that is a metaphor
for how we see all the time, and the reason behind the attitude of the
synagogue leader and perhaps even how difficult it might have been for the
woman to adjust to her healing. Something she had wanted, no doubt craved, for
eighteen years, and yet suddenly her view was different. Yes, it was probably
joyful for her, but oh so different to find herself suddenly looking people full
in the face instead of looking down.
That’s what Jesus does for us,
though. Instead of looking down all the time, down at our own feet, and the
dirt and whatever else is lying about, we can look up to Christ. The healing
and revelation of Jesus Christ is what opens us to the ability to see Jesus full
on, to look up instead of down. Bent over by whatever weighs us down, whatever
we bring in here on Sundays, and whatever we carry out there, always looking
down is what separates each of us from our own calling. When the woman was
finally able to straighten up, she was able to look full on, to see Christ
fully and to see as he sees.
In this morning’s Gospel the original
language used to describe what happened to the woman who was bent over is,
“being loosed.” The meaning is to be loosed or set free from bondage. Jesus sets
her free or looses her from her bonds. Previously, the woman was described as
being “unable to bend up into all fullness.”
When we allow Jesus to loose whatever
pulls us down, he pulls us up to look him in the face. And to see in his face
the love and compassion and strength that waits in him for us. Jesus looses us
to “bend up into all fullness,” to see him fully and to see things as he sees.
What will happen here when the weight
of the old flies off and we “bend up into all fullness” looking into the face
of Jesus and seeing as he sees. Christ
Jesus will come among us and loose our bonds and we will bend up into all
fullness of Christ to become who we are called to be by him and with him. AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2016
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