A Controversial Cure

Scriptures:       Isaiah 58:9b-14   Psalm 71:1-6         Hebrews 12:18-29        Luke 12:49-56, Luke 13:10-17

At my day job, people are constantly bringing in food – bagels, donuts, cake, you name it.  Some days it feels like we go there to eat, and try to fit in work between snacks.  It explains a few things why I buy my shirts in Omar the Tentmaker size.  One former co-worker in particular – she found another position a year or so ago – was always bringing in something to eat.  Often it was Girl Scout cookies – her daughter was in Girl Scouts, and so this co-worker would pull up to the building with what seemed like a U-Haul full of boxes of S’mores and Samoas and Thin Mints and Thanks-A-Lots, and of course if you didn’t buy a box or several boxes, you felt like a jerk.  But every now and then she’d bring in a box of crackers and a plate of wasabi.  Has anyone here eaten wasabi?  For those who haven’t, it’s green, and probably the closest thing I can compare the taste to might be horseradish mixed with jalapeno peppers – but spicier.  Much spicier. At least ten times spicier.  The first time she brought in wasabi and crackers, I had no idea what wasabi tasted like, and so I got a cracker and I looked at the wasabi…..well, it was green, I thought how strong could it be?….so I slathered it on my cracker, and took a great big bite.  And for a second or two, I tasted it, and I thought, well, this tastes odd; I’m not sure whether I like it or not….and then my mouth practically caught fire and I went lunging for the water fountain, almost knocking an older coworker to the floor in the process! My mouth was burning….my eyes were watering….my nose was running……and my mind is just going “this hurts, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop….”  I learned quickly that, when it comes to wasabi, a little goes a really long way.  It’s hard to be neutral about wasabi; you either love it or you hate it.   I count myself in the latter category….if someone ever starts a club for Wasabi Haters of America, sign me up!  On future occasions when my coworker brought in her crackers and wasabi and my coworkers were gathered around scarfing it down, I was perfectly happy sticking to something safe like cheese spread, thank you very much.  And now this coworker works elsewhere, and is inflicting her vile wasabi concoction on a whole new batch of coworkers.  Lucky them.

For today’s service I decided to include both the reading that was supposed to be for last week’s service along with the reading for today’s service.  Because of the baptism last week over at the Presbyterian church, I didn’t think the Baby Christopher’s parents and extended family from Costa Rico wanted to hear about Jesus’ coming to set the earth on fire and coming basically to stir up trouble....it’s one of those “hard sayings” of Jesus that just doesn’t sit well with our ideas of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”   But I felt it was too important to ignore, so we heard it today – especially since it goes so well with the text for today, about Jesus healing the bent-over woman, and the controversy that ensued.

“I have come to set fire to the earth…I have come to bring, not peace, but rather division!”  I don’t think Jesus necessarily wanted to cause division.  But, unlike our politicians, who are trained to stay on message and won’t open their mouths without commissioning a poll and a focus group first – Jesus was real, authentic, vivid, intense even, called things as he saw them, often said things that offended people in power, and was willing to catch flack for it.  Maybe the message of Jesus was like wasabi in a culture that was used to religious leaders whose words were like the taste of mayonnaise or maybe Velveeta if they were really feeling adventurous.   The message of Jesus for them, like the taste of wasabi for me, was way outside their comfort zones, or even their zones of tolerable discomfort.  Jesus’ listeners either loved what he had to say, or hated it.  And so those who “got” what Jesus was saying hung on his every word, while those who didn’t went running for the exits, like I went lunging for the water fountain after my wasabi misadventure.

In his healing of the bent-over woman, we see what Jesus meant about causing division.  We’re told that Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. As he was teaching, in walked a woman with a spirit that had kept her bent over for eighteen years.  When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”  Jesus laid his hands on her, and then she stood up straight – for the first time in 18 years, remember - and began praising God!  And you’d think everyone there would have praised God as well, and you’d be wrong.  The synagogue leader freaked out and said, “There are six days on which work can be done; come back and be cured on one of those days, and not on the Sabbath day.”  So instead of being happy that the woman was cured, the synagogue leader was furious, livid, because the woman was cured on what he considered to be the wrong day.  And Jesus basically called BS on the synagogue leader, saying, “You hypocrite!  Do you force your animals to go without food and water so that you can avoid working on the Sabbath, or do you untie them and lead them to food and water on the Sabbath? Of course you untie them and lead them to food and water on the Sabbath.  And shouldn’t this woman, this daughter of Abraham, this member of your community, whom Satan had kept tied up for eighteen years, be set free on the Sabbath?”  The synagogue leader was put to shame, and the crowd rejoiced. 

The woman was bent over for eighteen years.  Think of what that would have meant, living like that.  It’s hard to walk when you’re bent over.  It’s hard to carry anything bent over, because you’re always off balance.  It’s hard even to breathe when you’re bent over – you can’t really fill your lungs all the way with air when you’re bent over - which makes walking distances even harder.  Your back hurts all the time.   It would be a major struggle to turn your head enough to see the sun or the sky.  Mostly what you see is your own shoes, and the ground for a few feet in front of you.   For eighteen years, this woman’s field of vision was mostly restricted to her shoes and the ground for a few feet in front of her.  We here at Emanuel know of Alyssa’s struggle with scoliosis, and all that Alyssa’s family has done and is doing and will be doing to save Alyssa from ending up like this bent over woman in our gospel reading – and we need to support Alyssa and her family in this struggle.

The woman had a spirit that kept her bent over for eighteen years.  There are many people, and maybe some of us, whose spirits are bent over, even if their bodies – our bodies - can walk straight.  If we’re bent over, it’s hard to see the sun.  If we’re bent over, it’s nearly impossible to reach for the stars.  Instead, all we see is our immediate surroundings, what’s right in front of us.  Circumstances can, if we let them, take away our hopes for anything better.    We stop dreaming, and start settling.  And, like the synagogue leader, there are people in power who are perfectly happy for us to stay bent over, to live our whole lives bent over, like the verse in the carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Remember the words?  “O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow.”   We’re no threat to their power if we’re bent over in our own struggles.  But if we “Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing” – or, having looked and listened and rested, we can stand up straight and look the powers that be in the eye...well, that might force change.  What would it look like for Christ to heal our bent-over spirits?  What would it look like to be released from that bondage?

Not only people, but whole neighborhoods, whole communities living in poverty and stress and fear can have bent-over spirits.  Churches can have bent-over spirits.  Pastors can have bent-over spirits. It might be that this church and this pastor live with a bent-over spirit, finding it hard to move, hard to breathe, finding it less exhausting to stay in one place.  It may be that we at Emanuel Church – including me - need to stop settling, and start dreaming again.  As the little photo in the bulletin says, “Too many churches die of small thinking.” What would it look like not to be focused just on the ground in front of us – not just focused on hobbling through to the next Sunday, hobbling through the next grass cutting or repair bill, through the next season, to the next auction – and start reaching for the stars again, as those who started this church did?  What would it look like to be setting Bridesburg on fire for Jesus, as the founders of this church did?  Some of you were here two weeks ago when Harry ____ a long-ago member connected somehow with the _______ family, now living in Florida, stopped by to see the church and the cemetery just as worship was ending.  And I talked to him, and I know some of you did as well.  And he was telling me about the days he remembered, when this place used to have over 200 people here on a Sunday morning, when you had to get here early even to get a seat up in the balcony.  I honestly can’t even imagine what that would look like.  Shame on me for my lack of ability to imagine such a thing.

One thing that’s different.  Back in the ‘50’s, going to church was the culturally accepted thing to do – especially with blue laws keeping everything else closed on Sunday – and so if a church opened its doors and led a reasonably engaging worship service, folks showed up.  Nowadays, the culture won’t bring people here – indeed, the wider culture offers a hundred competing priorities every Sunday morning - so we need to go out there, out of this building, into the neighborhood.  We need to hit the streets.  Yesterday I was at a workshop by the Conference on Building Stronger Churches.  A few highlights from what I wrote down:  they started with the story in the book of Acts of the coming of the Holy Spirit – remember? people from all over everywhere in Jerusalem in one place, and the Spirit coming, and people understanding the word in their own language – and some hecklers saying they were drunk – and Peter speaking up to interpret what had just happened.  Three thousand were added to the Lord that day.  And then they didn’t just huddle together, but instead went out, back to their communities.  At the workshop we were asked questions like, “Who is in your community?  What problems do they have?  What can your church do to help with those problems? What neighborhood needs can your church meet?”  And here’s a really challenging question, a really painful question: “If your church closed tomorrow, would anyone in your neighborhood notice?”  Ouch!  Kind of like a church version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”…. In the movie, what would Bedford Falls have been like if George Bailey had never been born?  The question for us is, “If  Emanuel Church closed its doors, would Bridesburg be any different?”  I’m seriously asking you to consider these questions on your own, to discuss amongst yourselves.  What is God calling us to be? What need is God calling us to fill?  What difference are we making? What difference do we have the potential to make?

I pass all this along, actually not to be a downer, but instead to liberate us, to ask us to consider what it might be like as a congregation not only to stand up straight, but to reach for the stars, to dream big dreams for God, and then work to make those dreams realities.  Yes, the week-to-week nuts and bolts have to be taken care of, but we also need to ask God to help us dream – to quote from Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  We need a vision. Visions and dreams need to be part of the nuts and bolts of running this church. We won’t make it if we’re bent over and just staring at the ground in front of our shoes.  Churches die of small thinking.  We need to stand tall, and stretch, and ask God to help us reach for the stars.  And yes, standing tall and reaching for the stars could not only shake us up, but could shake up the neighborhood.  Our neighbors are used to an Emanuel Church that’s struggling to keep the lights on and the doors open on Sunday morning.  How would they respond to an Emanuel Church drawing so many people that there’s no parking, so many people that there are programs going on here seven days a week and the church doors open for people to come and go every day of the week.

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  Where we’re used to being mayonnaise, God is calling us to be wasabi!  “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’  Ought not this neighborhood, ought not this church, be set free to stand tall, and stretch, and dream?  May God grant, as on the day of Pentecost, for our young men and women to see visions and our old men and women to dream dreams, so that all who call upon the name of the Lord here in Bridesburg and beyond may be saved. Amen.