The Bent Over Woman
The Bent Over Woman
Luke 13:10-17
Have you ever been in pain? Of course, the answer for all of us is that we have. We have all had accidents that led to an instant of acute pain. It may only last for a moment but it is such an overwhelming experience when it happens. I remember when I was playing a game of pickup basketball. I drove to the basket and was hit from behind in a spot that I never knew existed. That blow hurt so badly that I can remember it now, decades later, as if it just happened. That pain not only got my attention, it etched itself into my memory.
We also go through extended periods of pain that have beginnings and middles and ends. Anyone who has ever had orthopedic surgery knows what it is like to be in enough pain to be willing to sign up for new pain on the promise of eventually being able to live pain free. We have to surrender control to a trusted expert. We literally put ourselves in their hands. We have to get through the immediate surgical pain. Then we have to be willing to do the hard work of physical therapy and fight as hard as we can to rebuild our strength and flexibility.
The most terrifying pain that any of us go through is the pain that is undiagnosed. We have no trusted expert to guide us and heal us. No one promises us that one day this pain will get better. We can’t even fool ourselves with false hope. Instead, we grit our teeth and slowly feel our will and our bodies worn away.
I remember, before my knee replacements, being the guy who just limped more and more severely. I remember after the first surgery, I looked at all of my shoes and realized that they were all broken in and worn down by that guy who used to limp. Later, I remember thinking to myself that had it not been for the miracle of that surgery and physical therapy, I would have been the guy who eventually would have worn down and sat down and withered away. Eventually, chronic, severe pain will crush anyone.
Of course, crushing pain is not just about joint pain. Terrible things happen to us that cause us emotional pain: someone breaks our heart; we are unjustly fired; someone we love dies. As with physical pain, some emotional pains are fleeting. There can even be relief in having to feel something hard and then feeling that pain recede. (Isn’t this why we sometimes seek out a sad movie or book? Just to feel something and then feel relief?) We can have the intermediate emotional pain, too, the hard “chapters” where we have stuff to work on—homework to do—and we do the work and feel that same relief. However, the hardest emotional pain is the pain that “moves in and makes itself at home,” that announces to us, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
Honestly, if your pain comes from either side of that ledger—physical pain or emotional pain—people will probably feel empathy for you and respond with compassion: “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. How can I help?” Most of the time, people aren’t going to judge you. Instead, they’re going to draw near.
Two things change that empathy and compassion. First, if someone feels like they can look at your situation and feel like like you are getting what you deserve, they will distance themselves and seal off their concern.
Take addiction as an example. Addictions are super complicated phenomena. Are you the child of an addict? What was your home like? Did people profit by pushing you toward your addiction? You could be addicted to nicotine or alcohol or work or sex or exercise. A lot of people are relieved to have a reason to blame someone rather than feel for them.
The other thing that cuts off empathy and compassion is if your pain makes me uncomfortable. Imagine that your pain disfigures your appearance. Some diseases manifest themselves in tics. If you have Tourette’s, the tics are often vocal and sometimes profane. I worked with a man for a while who was covered in small tumors. Those tumors were benign but there was nothing benign about people’s reactions to him. Maybe your pain doesn’t manifest itself physically. Instead, your depressed and it manifests itself in an energy sucking affect that can rid any room of all the life energy that was in it a moment before.
When my task is to feel empathy and compassion for someone else and what’s there to feel is seemingly all positive, we love that work!. “Wow, I can really feel your joy!” “I think that today, you’re as happy as I’ve ever seen you.” “Gee, the meaning that you feel right now in this moment of achievement is just so palpable!” There’s never a shortage of folks who want to share those moments with us. However, how many times can someone ask us how we are doing and hear our honest answer, “Not great…” before they start to move away? How long are we, ourselves, willing to suffer with someone else?
People talk about “compassion fatigue.” I actually think that’s real. If you’re an evening news watcher, the bombardment of 30 and 60 second stories and visuals of people suffering are constant. Sometimes, the right thing to do is turn that stuff off, not because we don’t need to be aware of others’ sufferings but because we are overwhelmed with terrible things we can’t change. We can’t fix everything. We can’t even respond to everything. However, we can do something and that something might mean the world to someone. It’s just that that someone is far more likely to be nearby than to be contained on our television screens.
Suffering is very real. Alleviating suffering or at least doing what we can to temper it, it an essential mark of our humanity. It also happens to be one of the central callings for us if we have any intention of being followers of Christ. If we have any doubt about this, just take another look at the life that Christ chose to live.
In our text for this morning, Jesus is at a temple on the Sabbath. Let’s remember this truth: when the people had been slaves, the only value that their lives had was in producing as many bricks for Pharaoh as possible. Other than being good at making bricks, the world looked at them as worthless slaves. Everyone who has even been told something similar—that their only value was in producing something—knows the pain of living that kind of life. God sends Moses. Moses liberates the people on God’s behalf. And as they wander in the wilderness, God teaches them how to live. Built into the fabric of that life, individually and as a community, was the Sabbath, literally, one day a week in which people don’t have to work, in which they can rest, in which their intrinsic value is confirmed. You worshiped. You spent time with people you loved. You rested.
Imagine how radical that thought would be today! Imagine if we turned off the internet for one whole day a week. (My fantasy!) Imagine if we didn’t do chores that day. Imagine if there were no sports practices or travel games or special tutoring sessions for our youth. And, most radical thought of all, imagine if you could rely on that day being there, every single week.
Sabbath was a great thing, a life-affirming, life-giving force, until it became just one more set of rules. Instead of relaxing and enjoying life and loving the people around you, it was easy, instead, for the Sabbath to become just one more way to feel like you failed or just one more way to judge your neighbor and point out their failures. Instead of something to be enjoyed, Sabbath became something to be enforced.
One of the main things that got Jesus in trouble was that he didn’t always follow the Sabbath rules to the letter of the law. (Hear that: Jesus broke the rules!) When his disciples were hungry, they would gather food, whether it was the Sabbath or not. In our text, although it is the Sabbath, Jesus sees a woman who touches his heart and he doesn’t care that it’s the Sabbath and the rabbis will be angry if he helps her. That’s just too bad…
Who is the woman? She is someone who is in chronic, crushing, constant arthritic pain. That pain has twisted her body and bent her in half at the waist. Allow yourself, just for a second, to imagine how she must feel. The pain, itself must have been terrible. However, we learn that she has been in that pain for 18 years! That is the killer thought. She didn’t end up in this position all at once. Rather, she was bent, an inch at a time over all those years until pretty much all she sees is the ground and, perhaps, the feet of the people around her. How long has it been since she’s made eye contact with anyone? How long has it been since she’s seen another person smile? How alone must she feel?
Early on, I would think that some of the people around her would have had genuine concern for her. I bet they offered whatever limited advice they might have had, in a world largely devoid of medicine. Some of those well-meaning people might have suggested she get right with God, since in their world, that would have been the answer to why she was suffering: she was being punished. Over time, though, whatever meager concern and compassion she might have been offered would have given way to people just getting used to her pain and suffering: “Oh, her? She’s just the bent over woman. She’s been like that forever…”
It’s Jesus who cares. It is Jesus who reaches out in empathy and compassion. He calls her to him. He looks her in the eye and says, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Woman, you are free!” Then, he lays his hands on her and suddenly, she stands up tall and cries out, “Thank God!”
And the religious authorities on the scene? They are furious. Couldn’t Jesus have picked a different day? Couldn’t he just have rested like everyone else? The heart of their faith is a story of liberation. Jesus has just liberated this woman. However, all they can see is someone who is just not following the rules. (Again, Jesus was a rule breaker, not for the sake of breaking the rules, but for the sake of relieving human suffering.
This, of course, is the great danger for any religion and for us all—that for the sake of feeling comfortable, for the sake of control, for the sake of doing things decently and in order—we will entirely miss what always matters most. Jesus called us to love. When the opportunity arises, whether it’s the right time or not, whether it would involve breaking a few rules or not, we do whatever it takes to liberate someone from their pain, whatever that pain might be. We love like those people like our life and our faith depend on it…because, in the end, it does.