Sermon

Unbound

August 21, 2016
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 13:10-17; Psalm 71:1-6
Speaker:

I was at the pool the other night with my pool friends. Most of my pool friends do not attend church or synagogue so it always tickles me a just a bit when they ask, “So what are you preaching on this week?” Sometimes I give a general answer about a theme but this time, when my Jewish friend asked to hear about the sermon, I swallowed hard and plunged ahead. I told her this story about Jesus. Can the gospel be good news for everyone (or almost everyone)?

I have known this story of the ”bent over woman” for many years. More than twenty years ago I chose this story from Luke when I had to memorize scripture for a seminary class. I later recited it here at church. I remember bending over as I walked around on the platform, unfolding my body as the story progressed until at the end I stood upright.

At the time I am not sure I really understood what it means to be bent over for 18 years. My frame of reference was limited. Now I understand 18 years as the age of my second child; 18 is the number of years since my mother died; it has been 18 years since I worked as a soprano in choirs around town.

We each have our own frame of reference for what 18 years means. 18 years might be half your life or how long you have been partnered, or how long since you came out, or the number of years you have had the same job, or the age you will be when you finally graduate from high school. 18 years might even be the length of time you have lived with chronic pain or an invisible chronic illness. 18 years is a significant length of time. It is a very long time to look at the world sideways or through a lightly disguised grimace.

This woman, though she is unnamed, is not an outsider. Jesus recognizes her as a daughter of Abraham and Sarah. She is part of the community; she comes to the synagogue each week. People recognize her, make room for her stooped body, bent by a “spirit of weakness.” She can’t stand straight – but she does stand out even if she would rather blend in with the crowd.

On this Sabbath day, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. She listens intently to his teaching, bent over, ear cocked to get every word. Suddenly, Jesus calls out to her. “Madam, you are released from your sickness.” There she is, bent over, the only approach she has had to the world for 18 years. And this man, Jesus, says she is free. But how can that be? Then Jesus reaches out to touch her, and she stands, upright, unbound. She begins a prayer of gratitude to God, right there in the synagogue. (At this point my friend asks, “So, this is a story in the bible?”  Yes, in one of the gospels.)

What is it that draws such angry attention from the leader of the synagogue? Is it her spontaneous praise? Her new posture of freedom? Or is it that all eyes are now on Jesus and the woman?

The religious leader complains and keeps at it. He speaks to the whole crowd – telling them not to come to the synagogue for healing on the Sabbath. Healing is work – which is prohibited on the Sabbath. Though he speaks to the whole gathering, it is clear to whom the message is really directed. The woman, who now stands tall, eyes glistening with joy, does not respond.

Instead, the response comes from Jesus, who meets religious anger with righteous fury. Jesus goes right from teaching the people in the synagogue to instructing the religious leaders. Jesus directs his comments to the religious leader but speaks so that all can hear.

The “hypocrites,” as Jesus calls them, hear the case Jesus makes in terms of the law and work: if this were a useful work animal, you would untie it and lead it to water on the Sabbath without thinking twice. How is this any different, except that this is a woman in the faith family who has been bound not for a day but for 18 years. The congregation sees the daughter of Abraham and Sarah that used to be bound now standing tall. The  so-called “opponents” are humiliated by the way Jesus has schooled them in the law they know so well. The rest of the crowd is jubilant at all they are seeing Jesus do.

As I finish telling the story to my friend, I begin to understand it not only as one more story of Jesus’ amazing miracles but as a story of power.

The woman seems to have no power. She has no name, she can’t stand up, we do not hear the words she speaks. There are so many ways she is less than and yet she has been showing up for 18 years.

On the other hand, the religious leaders seem to have a lot of power. They walk upright. They have the religious law on their side. They have tradition, respectability, and a synagogue full of people.

At the synagogue this Sabbath morning, the woman with no power and the religious leader with all the power meet. It is like any other Sabbath – except this time, Jesus is there. This is where it gets tricky to tell this story to my Jewish friend. It is important to tell the story so that it is not a slam on Jewish leaders. I want my friend, and all of us, to understand that the religious leaders represent people of power, in any tradition, who are so committed to the letter of the law that the power it grants to them is more precious than the person in front of them. Almost all of us, religious or not, can be sucked into holding tightly to the power we believe is ours.

The woman, who has lived bent over for 18 years, has grown accustomed to approaching things at an angle. Here the religious leader does the same. Instead of speaking directly to the woman or to Jesus, he takes sort of a sideways approach, protesting to the whole crowd,. The leader of the synagogue, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured…” He uses this sideswipe because his first loyalty is to his position and the power structure. Better to blame the victim, the one with no power, than to risk his position or the system which keeps him in place.

Jesus does not let this “attack” on the victim go unchallenged. He does not speak sideways to the woman or the crowd. Jesus speaks directly to the infuriated leader. And he addresses the legal issues head on. Perhaps Jesus sees the leader as bent over as well, weighed down by the weight of a law that has become oppressive. Here is an opportunity for everyone to be unbound but it will not be easy. An 18 year illness is easy to remove compared to a system of laws built on religious tradition and power.

This sideways approach to blaming the victim is not a unique tactic of ancient Jewish leaders. This is often the response that the powerful have when they have been caught in an abuse of that power. Remember when Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri? It didn’t take long for details to be released about Mike Brown stealing cigarillos from the local store, some time that day before he was shot. Was this the reason he needed to be taken down? Unfortunately, Mike Brown is not the only victim of gun violence who has been blamed for his own death.

We might think of those who have been abused by powerful, famous men, inside or outside the church. Upon coming forward it is the trustworthiness of the abused one that is questioned, their past picked apart; the focus shifts from the abuses by the powerful to the morality of the abused.

Think of the Pink Menno folks interrupting the delegate session in Kansas City in 2015. The folks in power seemed to prefer the focus be on the inappropriateness of the disruption rather than the exclusion and unjust treatment of LGBTQ people in the Mennonite Church. I don’t know how many people asked me if I thought the Pink Menno action was “effective.” I think the underlying question was, “Do you, will you, condemn such transgressive behavior?”

It is a tried and true tactic: shift the focus from the injustice done by the powerful one to finding blame with the less powerful victim.

The amazing thing in this story from Luke is that Jesus gets away with calling the leader out on his abuse of power. And Jesus wins the crowd over, at least on that Sabbath. Of course we know that it does not take long for there to be a rare show of cooperation between the powerful Romans and the powerful religious leaders to get rid of Jesus once and for all.

It is not unusual in history. The “powers that be” often have the final say or at least write the story that way. As followers of Jesus, we claim that is not the end of the story. Every year on Easter, we celebrate that the abuse of power, that death, does not have the last word. This a truth we have to keep telling ourselves, especially in this outrageously, nasty political season.

Throughout Luke-Acts we are reminded over and over again that what looks like power is not necessarily all powerful. As if to reassure us that this challenge to power is no joke, after the Sabbath story, we are given two tiny parables – the mustard seed and yeast.

A common, tiny mustard seed, perhaps only tossed to the ground by the gardener. It looks small and inconsequential but without even much tending, it grows big enough to provide shelter for birds. And yeast, an insignificant amount, compared to the three measures of flour (47 pounds) it is mixed with, makes enough bread to feed more than 100 people. What looks powerless is not to be discounted. And it is not uncommon, it is with us every day. This is where we search for the reign of God. This is where we find the reign of God. Jesus says, this is what the kindom of God looks like.

So how do I explain this to my pool friend? It is all beginning to feel very Christian.

I have to remind myself again that Jesus is Jewish. It is not an original idea with Jesus that out of small things come great wonders. Remember the text from Jeremiah:

6 “But Sovereign God! I dont know how to speak! Im too young!” 7But God said, “Do not say, ‘I am too young. Now, go where I send you. And say whatever I command you. Look, I am putting my words in your mouth. This day I appoint you over nations and territories, to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Young Jeremiah, insignificant, powerless Jeremiah is now to be appointed over nations, overthrowing the powerful?

Or take the central story in the Jewish tradition. Moses, who seems to have little confidence because of some kind of speech impediment, becomes the one to speak for all the people – and lead them out of slavery.

Jesus may have learned about the powerful and the powerless in the synagogue as a young child. He may also have learned it at home from his mother. When Mary finds out as a young girl that she is unexpectedly pregnant, she sings a song about the lowly being raised up and the powerful being thrown down. It is not a new song; it is one passed down from Hannah, who sang it hundreds of years earlier when she was pregnant with Samuel.

The small will lead. The powerless will stand upright. The powerful will be silenced. It is a grand Jewish vision that we continue to hope and believe is true. May we continue to stand together with the bent over ones, pointing to signs of the reign of God, until we are all standing tall in God’s kindom.