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Borders and boundaries can make us feel safe. They make us feel comfortable. They let us know our limits and help define us. But Jesus frequently pushes beyond those boundaries in ways that made the people of his time uncomfortable and in ways that can still make us uncomfortable today.
We started off almost two months ago with a story of God healing a general in an army in conflict with Israel. Then Jesus tells us that our neighbors are not limited to those who live near us, look like us, think like us, act like us. We have talked about the assumptions we bring into our readings of the texts and the effect of these assumptions on the message we hear, especially when we hear familiar stories.
Jesus has challenged our notions of hospitality. He has offered direct relationship with God, a God who is as close to us as family is meant to be. He has challenged us to consider ourselves citizens of the kingdom of God first, a kingdom in which we share the same love and mercy God has shown us out to others. And he has told us that even though we are meant to love each other, this way of living will sometimes create division with others.
Last week, as we looked at Jesus speaking about division, we touched on the setting of the story. Jesus was teaching a group of people following him in some undefined period after leaving a meal with Pharisees where he was berated for not following the Law. Namely he did not wash his hands before the meal as the Law requires.
Now, we might point out today that washing our hands before we eat is a good thing. But today, we do it because we know that it literally cleans our hands; we don’t do it because it is a law, or even because it is contained in the Law. We do it to hopefully clean the germs and other things off our hands so we won’t get sick.
But this was not the reason the Pharisees had gotten mad at Jesus. They got mad at him for not following the religious laws. This helps to give us a little background for today’s text. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. In fact, it begins to happen more and more frequently as Jesus continues to teach and heal his way toward Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish religious world.
Today, we find Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath day. This is the most holy day of the week for the Jews, a day that would find many of them going to synagogues to praise God and to learn more about God. So Jesus is there with the others, continuing to teach.
As he was teaching, he noticed a woman who was hunched over and unable to stand up straight. It is revealed that she has a crippling spirit that has tormented her for eighteen years. Jesus called her over.
Now this is important for how we understand this story. We are not told that she approached him. We are not told that she sought Jesus out or that she asked him for anything. We are told that Jesus saw her and called her over. Then he says to her, “Woman, you are set free…” After he places his hands on her, she is immediately able to stand up straight.
Now, we could simply stop here with this story. I did an online lectio divina this week that stopped at this point in the text. For those that do not know, lectio divina is a way of prayerfully reading a bit of scripture a few times in a row to listen to how God is speaking to you in the present day through the text. My mind was drawn each time to Jesus saying, “you are set free.” I imagine we all long to hear Jesus speak to us like this. And as I listened to the recorded voices repeating this bit of scripture as I listened to God’s prompting, I began to feel like Jesus was saying that to me as well.
This is part of that good news we are about, the gospel we are called on to spread to others. Jesus comes to set us free from that which afflicts us. He heals, he leads us back into relationship with God, he calls us into relationship with each other. Through Jesus we are set free from those things that torment us. Sometimes this happens in a physical way such as divine healing. Sometimes it happens in a spiritual way as we let go of those things that hold us back. Sometimes it happens in an emotional way as we find ourselves able to love others again after heartache or betrayal.
Jesus calls this woman over, as he calls to each of us, and he offers her freedom from that which troubles her. He offers her healing and wholeness. And it is not because the woman sought him out. It is not because she asked Jesus to heal her. Jesus healed her because that is who he is. Even today, healing and a change of heart happen through the action of Jesus. We can ask Jesus for healing, as others have in other stories, but today’s story helps us to see that it is not a necessary part of healing. Jesus can and does at times heal those who have not sought him out or asked for it.
And this is part of the reason the synagogue leader gets so upset. As with the Pharisees we touched on last week, the leader of the synagogue turns to the Law to denounce this healing. And of course he lays blame on both Jesus and the woman. Healing is work and Jesus should not be working on the Sabbath. As well, the woman should have sought out healing on one of the other days of the week.
Of course, as someone afflicted for eighteen years, it is likely she had sought out healing before. Likely she had followed the guidance of the religious laws to seek healing for her affliction. At some point she had surely become resigned to her affliction. Chances are after all this time, she did not show up at the synagogue on that particular Sabbath seeking healing. So this blame on the one who was healed is at best misplaced and at worst intentionally mean-spirited.
But Jesus is having none of it. He turns it around on this leader (and presumably others) as he calls them all hypocrites. Who among you doesn’t untie your cattle and lead them to drink on the Sabbath? Who among you doesn’t do what is necessary to life on the Sabbath, even if it is labeled work? Surely healing one that is suffering is necessary to life. Surely she deserves freedom on the Sabbath just as much as the ox or donkey.
Jesus calls them out. Is not this woman, this daughter of Abraham, this neighbor, of more importance than someone’s ox or donkey? They were put to shame by his words. But the rest of the crowds continued to rejoice at the power of his healing and teaching.
Now I will say, lest I appear to condemn the synagogue leader or the Pharisees, that what they did they did out of a desire to honor God. At least to a point. God had given them the Ten Commandments. All the religious laws that came later are out of a desire to make sure they are honoring those commandments appropriately. In this case, if we are commanded to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, what does that mean? And so they took every situation they could think of and parsed out whether or not committing that act constituted keeping the Sabbath holy. This is where the prohibition of work comes from. God rested on the Sabbath and so we should as well. Therefore any work on the Sabbath is forbidden. So for the Pharisees and other religious leaders, the intent at first was certainly to honor God.
But this is not the attitude that Jesus is responding to. Jesus is not condemning them for wanting to follow the Law. Jesus is responding to the hypocrisy of using the laws as a reason not to help someone in need. This is the same thing he was doing with the parable of the good neighbor (the "Good Samaritan") we talked about last month. And so we look back to that story to help us understand what Jesus is doing today.
Jesus tells that parable after being questioned about eternal life. When he turns the question around on the legal expert and asks him what it says in the Law, the man says, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27, CEB). If we think about that summary in relation to Jesus’ response today, things become a little more clear. Jesus is not calling them hypocrites for wanting to follow the Law, he is calling them hypocrites for failing to understand the Law, for failing to fulfill the Law. If the sum of the Law is to love God and love our neighbor, how is our commitment to the Law leading us to that?
The point of the Law is not simply to give us a checklist of rights and wrongs to use to judge ourselves and others. If that is all the Law has become, we have failed to understand it. At that point, we have placed the Law higher than God's grace. Instead, Jesus is making it clear that it is not merely the absence of the bad, but it is the presence of the good, that marks the holy. I was reminded of this a few years ago in a comic strip in the newspaper. The strip is called "Maintaining" and is written by Nate Creekmore. In the particular strip I am remembering one of the main characters is bragging to his best friend that he never cusses. To which his friend responds something along the lines of, "does avoiding what is bad make you good?"
I aw also reminded today of John Wesley's General rules for Methodist classes. These were the rules by which thhose in the classes were supposed to grow in holiness. There are only three rules. The first is summarized as "Do No Harm." First we are reminded not to do that which is bad, that which would cause harm to ourselves or others. These include many typical vices. But the second of the two rules is summarized as "Do Good." It is not enough simply to avoid that which is wrong or bad, but we must also actively do that which is good.
Looking back to today's text, the act of avoiding work on the Sabbath by itself does not lead one to grow closer to God; rather we should consider how we can put work aside to grow closer to God. This is the reason for the laws. To help us know what loving God and loving neighbor look like. But when the laws are used to deny love to our neighbors, we have failed to understand the Law and we have failed to honor God.
Jesus stretches our understanding of what it means to be holy, to follow the religious rules that we have created. He is not condemning the rules themselves, but he is pointing out that the rules are meant to lead us into loving relationship with God and with each other. When the Law fails to do that, Jesus has no problem ignoring them or pointing out the hypocrisy of those that allow people to suffer in the name of holding blindly to the Law.
When we look to our religious laws, how do they lead us to love God and each other more? When I wash my hands before a meal, I don’t do it simply because the Law tells me to do so. However, I do frequently sing through a simple Gloria in my head as I do. It not only helps assure I am washing my hands long enough to get them clean but also is a way of recognizing God in the midst of something as mundane as hand washing.
When we look to the Laws, how do they lead us to love God and each other more?
This is the question that Jesus is asking.
This is the reason he has so much scorn for the religious leaders that try to put a stop to what he is doing.
They had let the Laws become more important that God’s love and mercy.
And without God’s love and mercy, what chance do any of us have?
We all fall short.
We are all imperfect under the Law.
At the end of the day, Jesus is the one that reaches out to us and heals us. He is constantly reaching out to us, whether we know it or not. He is constantly offering us healing and relationship whether we ask or not.
So we continue to love God and each other.
We continue to do our best to show our love for God and others.
And then we trust in God’s mercy for the healing that is promised.
May it be so.