Stand Up Straight
Stand Up Straight
Luke13:10-17
One of the earliest experiences of our ancestors in faith was the movement from being slaves to being free. As slaves, there were many securities. The people were valuable brick makers. As such, the Egyptians had a stake in feeding them and housing them and generally keeping them healthy. This was what it took to get the bricks that the Egyptians wanted. For generations, there was a certain security to our ancestors’ life: “we can’t go where we want; we can’t do whatever we want to do; but our basic needs are met.”
Over generations, this is what people got used to, so used to it, in fact, that no one was more shocked than they were when some guy named Moses showed up to liberate them. Sure…freedom sounded great. It was just that no one had really ever thought about that for generations. No one expected anything to change and then the whole thing changed, all at once.
Almost as soon as the people left Egypt and fled through the parted Red Sea, they had to figure out how to be a free people. How should we worship this God who brought us out of slavery? How will we meet our needs? How will we live in community with one another now that we have all these choices. The story is told that God, by way of Moses, laid out the rules for the people in ten commandments, straighforward rules about how to worship and how to live their lives, rules that seem so simple but turned out to be impossible for human beings to fully follow.
One of those rules concerned keeping the Sabbath. At it’s heart, this was a really revolutionary thought. The message was that human beings have inherent value. Yes, you should work and provide for your families and care for one another. However, as a weekly reminder of your value, you should take one day off a week—and by off, God means totally off. You should love your children and your spouse and your extended family. You should revel in the fact that you’re alive. You should remember the God who brought you out of slavery. And when you do that, you will remember the lie that the Egyptians sold you, that your only value was in working constantly, in making brick after brick after brick.
I could stop this morning’s sermon here and the message might be powerful enough. It remains a radical notion in our world that we are not defined by what we do. Of course, what’s changed is where we do that work (often at home instead of an office.) Still, it’s almost easier when we’re working from home to feel like we are always at work, right? Work is complicated, particularly if we are good at our work and we like our work. It is so easy for work to define us. Inevitably, if we choose not to be defined by our work or we choose to officially shut down—totally—one day a week, we are going to pay a price: “What do you mean you don’t check your emails on Sundays?” “What do you mean that your kid won’t be at the Sunday morning practice?” “What do you mean that you get together with you family every Sunday for dinner?”
Keeping the Sabbath is a really good thing. Everyone gets time to enjoy life and be grateful to God for the gift of life together. Of course, like every other good thing, keeping the Sabbath can become problematic. Over time, the emphasis was less on enjoying a day together than it was worrying about rigidly keeping all the rules, or, if you broke the rules, worrying that the enforcers of those rules would catch you. A day that was supposed to be about grace became all about rules and law enforcement.
From Friday at sundown until Saturday at sundown there were two places to be: at the syngagogue worshiping or at home. If you kept animals, there were allowances for feeding and watering them. If your animal fell in a hole, you could get it out. Of course, for the folks working at the temple, the Sabbath was a working day. Other than those few exceptions, the Sabbath was a day of rest.
Our text happens on the Sabbath. Jesus is at a synagogue. Luke keeps establishing that Jesus is a faithful Jewish person. He is following the law and keeping the Sabbath. He is worshiping, along with everyone else. He is doing what you do when you’re Jewish.
One of the things that I think about in life is “situational awareness.” How much of what’s going on around you do you really take in? I’ve had friends who were police officers who were very good at this awareness, who would quiz each other after leaving somewhere about whether the others had noticed what the man in the back of the room had on his baseball cap or what color the woman on the right’s dress was. Most of us walk through life distracted—by the thoughts in our heads or by thoughts of what’s coming next. As a result, we miss a lot of things—some of which might be amusing, some of which might be enriching, and, if you’re a cop, some of which might save your life or someone else’s life.
I won’t belabor the point. I just want to say to you that after a lifetime of living with stories about Jesus, one of the things that I’ve come to believe is that he was incredibly aware of everything that was happening around him. He was present—awake and aware and available. Unlike the police officers, though, he wasn’t present in order to head off danger. I think he was present in order to not miss the person who was most overlooked in the room: “Who’s suffering here? Where are they? How can I help them?”
On this day, that person was a tiny little bent-over woman who, whether she was walking or standing still, never stopped looking at the ground. For eighteen years, she had been bent-over farther and farther and had continued just staring at that same spot in front of her toes. In order to see anyone, she had to turn her head to the side and then up. Even then, she would only see someone from the very corner of her eye. Worse though, if she made even that little effort, the pain which was bad all the time became excruciating. For eighteen years, this woman had been in misery. There was no day off—no sabbath— when it came to pain.
Chronic pain and chronic illnesses still enslave us, still bind us to the daily task of just trying to get by. I remember when I lived with daily pain with my knees. You do your best to adjust, to get used to it. You just keep going. That burden, though, can be pretty crushing. After a while, maybe we become like those ancestors in faith, in slavery in Egypt, having all together forgotten that liberation was even possible…until the day they were liberated.
My day of liberation took place in an operating room. I woke up in recovery and for the first time in years, felt no pain. Of course, there would be plenty of pain and hard work to go through to recover from that surgery and reclaim full use of my knee. However, that pain was in the service of getting better. It was never the deadend, hopeless experience of being trapped. There came a day when I threw away all my shoes—not because they were worn out but because they had been worn-in by a guy who had a terrible limp and I no longer did. My surgeon and my physical therapists were healers—liberators—who gave me my life back.
That’s what you need to know about this poor woman. People had probably cared for her over the years at the synagogue. After all, she had made it through eighteen years of suffering. You don’t do that without people helping you, without people doing what it took to make sure you were okay. On this day, though,—her day of liberation—her whole world was about to change.
Luke doesn’t go into great detail but I like to imagine the scene. Jesus, the guy who was 100 percent aware of the room, hones in on this woman who might have gone unnoticed by many. I like to think he approaches her and does what every great communicator does, namely, whatever it takes to connect. If you’re going to talk to children, you sit down on the floor. If you’re going to talk to a bunch of adults, you mirror their body language. And, if you’re going to talk to a bent over woman…you bend over and turn your head until you can look her in the eye.
Imagine how shocking that would have been! You’ve seen pretty much nothing but dirt and an occasional rug for 18 years. All of a sudden, a whole face pops into view. It’s a friendly face—not one of those children giving you a hard time. There’s a sparkle in the eyes and a bright smile and just the right amount of wrinkles around his eyes. This man is not just caring about you. He has joined you. And, undoubtedly, the cost for him is that he’s probably already feeling a bit of your pain.
Then, this man who appears out of nowhere, says the most amazing thing: “Woman, you are free!” Like Moses in Pharoah’s court (but without the plauges) the moment of liberation is announced. “Say goodbye to your pain! Lay down the burden that has bent you in half. Get ready to see the world again!” Jesus lays his hands on her and suddenly she is standing straight and tall. Luke tells us that she began praising God. I like to think she also started dancing. What I like to think most is that Jesus took her hands in his and together, they cut a “mean rug.”
Before we go any further, I want to say this. There are so many people who carry great burdens in life, who have been bent over in spirit if not at the waist, who have grown bone weary and worn down by the daily grind. You’ve let go of hope and adjusted to a world that is “less than” to the point where “liberation” from that burden is just a foreign concept. Jesus hasn’t cut across the room to you. You wonder if God cares at all. However, here’s what I want you to know: God inspires healers still. God was at work through my surgeon’s hands and the nurse’s care and my physical therapist’s encouragements. Healing still happens and when it does lives are transformed. Even if it happens in an office, people dance!
You have to know this, too, though. Even in this super straightforward, “here’s Jesus laying on hands and healing this poor woman” moment, there was someone just waiting to find the worst possible take on a great moment. “You know, Jesus…this is the Sabbath. Healing is work and work can be done the other six days. What are you doing healing today and why are the people who need to be healed showing up today?” When you’re the person in charge of the rules, it’s easy to forget why the rules exist in the first place. Jesus points out that even cows get watered and fed on the Sabbath. Doesn’t this woman matter more than a cow?
I’ll simply point out this. The rules existed to remind people that God had liberated them and that they had dignity. What Jesus did with this woman wasn’t work. Rather, it was the re-creation of that original liberation, in this woman’s life, in this synagogue. This woman had been a slave to her pain. Now, she was free. And the most faithul expression of the day was the look on her face and the joy in her step as she danced her way around the synangogue. What was lost has been found. What was dead has come back to life. What was bound has now been set free.
Those who were charged with remembering the original story of God liberating the people couldn’t see what was happening right in front of them: a particular person being set free. The rules blinded them to the joy.