Freed by Christ

(Scriptures: Isaiah 58:9b-14, Psalm 103, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17)

Did this ever happen to you? You’re in a bad mood – and it shows on your face - and a friend (or your mom) tells you “You know, if you keep frowning all the time, your face will get stuck like that.” I was a moody kid, especially as a teenager, and so I frowned a lot. I knew mom was joking, but I always wondered in the back of my mind if that could really happen….if my face could get stuck in a frown. So I’d try to force a smile now and then, just to be sure I still could.

Our Gospel reading this morning is about Jesus healing a woman who got stuck. No, she didn’t get stuck with a frown on her face. Rather, we’re told that she was bent over – some translations say she was bent almost double – unable to stand up straight for 18 years. We don’t know exactly what happened to her – Luke’s gospel tells us she had a spirit of weakness, that she was bound by Satan so that she couldn’t straighten up. Maybe she had some sort of degenerative problem in her spine. Maybe she had muscle spasms that contorted her body. Or maybe, in a society in which women were treated as little more than property, valued for little more than producing sons to carry on the family line, she just became so overburdened by misfortune and abuse and oppression that over the years she slouched until she slumped, slumped until she stooped, stooped until she just couldn’t straighten herself up.

I’d like us to imagine what it was like living inside her body for all those 18 long years. When you’re bent over as badly as she was, it’s hard to walk. It’s hard to breathe. Sun, blue skies, rainbows, birds, moonlight, stars, all these are out of your visual range, unless you’re lying down looking up. And you have to strain to see the face of the person you’re talking to. When you’re standing and walking, all you see is….your feet…and the ground around them. And on a sunny day, like the groundhog, you see your shadow – your bent-over back blocks out the light of the sun. So when Jesus tells her, “Daughter, you are healed from your weakness,” the woman’s world just widened, expanded. She could stand up straight, could take a good deep breath of fresh air, could see the sky, the sun. She could look Jesus in the eye, and see the compassion in his face.

Of course, as often happens, no good deed goes unpunished. You’d think the leader of the congregation would be happy for the woman, happy to see her finally standing tall after 18 years of misery. Yep, you’d be happy and so would I, and you’d think the leader of the woman’s congregation would be happy too. And you’d be wrong. It was the Sabbath, the day of rest, you see, and as far as the leader of the congregation was concerned, the main issue at hand was not that Jesus healed the woman, but that Jesus healed her on the wrong day. “There are six other days when Jesus can heal people to his heart’s content,” the leader of the congregation said. “Come back on one of those days. The Sabbath is a day of rest, not a day of healing.” For his part, Jesus is about to jump out of his skin with frustration at this purported faith leader who just utterly missed the point of the miracle that had happened. “You’d untie your donkey on the Sabbath to give him a drink, wouldn’t you. And I’m not supposed to free this woman, who’s been tied up in a knot for 18 years, because it’s the Sabbath? Hello?” And the woman’s fellow congregation members praised God for all they had just seen.

From 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 6: “The letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Recent events at our sister congregation, Hope Outreach UCC in Kensington, and their dispute with Philadelphia L&I provide a perfect illustration of how rigid adherence to the letter of the law can kill. Some city officials think it’s better for people to be kicked to the curb or to be forced to go to larger shelters, facing threat of robbery and even physical attack, than for them to sleep in a church building that doesn’t comply in every detail to the building code. But churches, too, can read Scripture in ways that are death-dealing rather than life-giving. Many churches make the same effect as the congregation leader did – interpreting Scripture from a perspective from a principal that what God most urgently requires is purity, following all the rules. And in a quest to maintain purity, churches have read Scripture to promote slavery and segregation, to exclude women from positions of leadership, pastoral and otherwise, and to proclaim some groups - immigrants, lgbt persons, others -in our society beyond the limits of God’s grace...as if God's arms can't reach far enough to embrace them. It’s important to note that Jesus was not about throwing out Scripture – but rather, Jesus interpreted scripture from a perspective that the God’s most urgent requirement is not purity, but love – love of God, love of neighbor. I’m reminded of some lines from a poem by Edwin Markham:
"He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in."
The congregation leader from Luke’s gospel drew a circle that shut both the woman and Jesus out. But love and Jesus had a wit to win; they drew a circle that took everybody in.

I suspect that we all, in one way or another, at one time or another, maybe even now, have been like that bent over woman. By our own choices or by circumstances beyond our control, by our own attitudes or by the attitudes of others, we find not only our bodies, but our minds and our spirits, bent over, twisted out of shape. By the attitudes of others – perhaps by our own attitudes, our view of the sun, of the stars, of the heavens, of God’s grace, is blocked. All we can see is the ground immediately in front of us. We stand in our own shadow, or are forced to stand in the shadow of others; we feel that somehow we are blocked from the life-giving light of God’s love. And yet, somehow, we still find our way to worship, still show up in some forlorn hope that maybe, just maybe, today will be the day God heals us. Maybe, just maybe, today will be the day God enables us to overcome our spirit of weakness, enables us to stand tall.

From Psalm 103:
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

May it be so with you, and with me, and with all who pass through the doors of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ as we worship God each Sunday at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org