Luke 13.10-17

THE CRIPPLED WOMAN

(Luke 13.10-17)

'When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman you are free from your ailment”’ Luke 13.12.

At a first glance, the story of the crippled woman, which is recorded only in St Luke's Gospel, appears to be about the breaking of the law concerning the observance of the Sabbath.

It reminds us also of Jesus healing the man with a withered hand, healing a blind man and a crippled man, besides the man with dropsy. All these healings took place on the Sabbath, the observance of which prohibited any form of work. No wonder the leader of the synagogue was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. But Jesus describes the leader, and those who thought like him, as 'hypocrites'. After all, these people would not think twice before taking an ox or donkey from a manger in order to lead them to water on the Sabbath!

Jesus could heal on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but not on a Saturday since it was the Sabbath.

However, to focus upon the Sabbath law-breaking of Jesus is to miss the wider significance of the action of Jesus healing that crippled woman.

The woman lived on the margins of society, like the leper, the Samaritans, the tax collectors, the paralysed and the unclean. The miracle of Jesus is not just about this particular woman, but about all those who are excluded from society. To all, Jesus brings healing, and thereby restores them to fullness of life.

There are a number of features in the story which pinpoint different aspects of social and religious liberation.

Firstly, Jesus calls the woman out from the margins of the synagogue, to stand in the middle - as if to demonstrate that she was equal in standing with the men.

Secondly, Jesus lays his hands on her head, thereby overthrowing both the rules of social propriety, and levitical rules, which forbade a man, and especially a rabbi, from risking possible contamination from menstrual impurity.

Thirdly, Jesus addresses the crippled woman as 'daughter of Abraham', which implies equality with the ‘sons of Abraham' and therefore also a member of God's people.

And finally, the crippled woman is able to stand up and hold her head up high, unburdened by the weight of cultural and spiritual oppression. Now at last, women can play their part as equal members with men, with dignity, in the new social and religious order inaugurated by Jesus.

As Jeffrey John has observed, 'This tiny drama takes on world historic proportions. In freeing the woman from Satan's power, Jesus simultaneously released her from the encompassing network of patriarchy, male religious elitism, and taboos fashioned to disadvantage some, in order to preserve the advantage of others. Her physical ailment was symbolic of a system that literally bent women over. For her to stand erect in a male religious space represents far more than healing. It reveals the dawn of a new world order'.

And there are clear signs of this 'new world order' in Paul's letter to the Galatians when he writes: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus’. Here he encapsulates our Lord's teaching. However, it is questionable as to what extent this policy was reflected in the real life of the church.

After all Jesus chose only men to accompany him. Also, Paul limited the participation of women in worship. They had to wear a head veil and acknowledge their subordination to men. He also expected women to be silent in church, and, if there is anything they desire to know, to learn it from their husbands at home.

Thus our Lord's revolutionary teaching, demonstrated by the healing of the bent over woman, namely that women are equal to men, is still being worked out some two thousand years later.

But we should not be too surprised that it has taken so long. After all, it took the church over three hundred years to accept both Jews and Gentiles. Also, it was not until the eighteenth century that the church began to see that the notion of slavery itself is fundamentally incompatible with Jesus' teaching and attitudes. And when Christian prophets point this out it is worth remembering that his most vehement opponents were 'traditionalist' and biblical Christians - above all the Anglican bishops in the House of Lords! They could point out, quite correctly, that tradition and Scripture itself had always countenanced slavery. It was much harder to argue, as Wilberforce had to, that although the institution of slavery is literally accepted in scripture, nevertheless it stands against the essence of scripture and against the whole tenor of Christ's character and attitudes, and should be overthrown.

This same charge of obeying the words of scripture was, of course, the charge of the Scribes who opposed Jesus' healing of the crippled woman.

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Now to the God who challenges our beliefs and prejudices, be all honour and glory, today and for ever. Amen.