Psalm 71:1-6
In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me. 3 Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress,[a] to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. 4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel. 5 For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. 6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
Luke 13:10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And 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?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
The psalm that Nancy read so beautifully is a wonderful prayer for both protection and help. Psalms scholar Pat Miller wrote of this psalm, [Ps 71] “…is a prayer for help by an aged person in distress.” And the verses that Nancy read, specifically, are “pleas for help interspersed with expressions of trust as a basis for hope in God's action”. What a great way to tee up this text in Luke. There's a lot of tension in the Luke passage. Jesus is making a very bold move, against growing consequences with a backdrop of an already tense, uptight society of devout Jews that are struggling to maintain their devotion to the law in spite of this new rabbi and his progressive ways.
This woman, in first century Palestine, is part of the outcast, the downtrodden, and, if she's divorced or single with no children, it's even worse. And then on top of it she has an 18-year malady so that she literally can't even stand up straight. She is perceived as almost worthless. She has come for an unknown reason. Perhaps just to ‘get out of the house’. Perhaps to overhear Jesus’ voice, let alone his teaching and messages of hope. Or maybe just to be in/near her home synagogue.
In this passage this woman is crippled with what the text says is a “spirit of infirmity.” She's literally unable to stand up straight. She's held by some form of deep and dark weakness. Scholars debate the genesis of her malady. Some say it is curvature of the spine. Some say she really has an evil spirit and so she's unable to stand up. I don't think it really matters what the genesis or the diagnosis of it is, but to recognize that she is bound by something, bound up by something that is almost unbearable. She's tied up in knots, maybe even obsessed by something or deeply wounded by something, for many things. And so are we. These things manifest in our lives in many ways when we endure stressors beyond what we can bear. It impacts our health, our movement, our minds, what we get preoccupied in thinking, the choices that we make, the feelings that we perseverate about in our heads, especially in the middle of the night. It impacts our sleep, our relationships, our work, our family, even simple hobbies fall by the wayside. And, most likely, it impacts our faith to a lesser or greater degree.
The leader of the synagogue and, at least, some of his pupils were also bound. They thought they were being faithful by calling out Jesus and Jesus’ healing of the woman. But Jesus’ intention and his role was not to defy the scribes and the Pharisees, but to release her and all of us of what binds, while also, at the same time, upholding the law and fulfilling it. Jesus is teaching in the temple. He’s not there to intentionally heal a woman on the Sabbath from an evil spirit, just to trump the local rabbis. He's demonstrating his power to uphold and heal the downtrodden, to overcome evil spirits of one woman’s body AND of men's hearts.
So, this brings me back to the woman. She had been bound in bondage by something for 18 years. It may have just been chronic fear, deep anxiety, enduring hostility from a former spouse, perhaps the loss of a child or a sister. Maybe she was being judged by others or had a compulsive nature of harsh self-judgment. Maybe just the ongoing bitterness from being a chronic outcast or broken from her poverty. She showed up at the synagogue, because she knew that the only thing she could do, was to praise God. I imagine she carried this psalm with her and she was praying it, having no intention of even being seen by Jesus, just coming to the synagogue to pray. I imagine her saying, “In you, oh Lord, I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, deliver me. Rescue me. Incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock a refuge, a strong fortress to save me. For you are my rock. Rescue me, oh God, from the hand of the wicked and the grasp of the unjust and the cruel. For you, oh Lord, are my hope, You are my trust. From my youth upon you I have learned from my birth and it was you who took me from my mother's womb and so my praise is continually of you.”
So God heard her praise. She shouldn't have been seen. In fact, she should have been upstairs--not even in the back of the sanctuary. She wasn't eligible to be taught by the scholars, but I know she came to find some strength from God. Maybe she was hoping to be seen by Jesus, as we are all secretly hoping to be seen by Jesus when others can't see us, because we're bent over on the inside.
We all need Jesus to see us; to see us and notice our pain, the places where we're bound; to heal us from our embarrassments, our shame. our compulsions, our weak egos; to defend us from the self-righteous and the pious and the bullies and the insensitive. When we get separated out between the haves and the have-nots; to free us to right the tables of equality, to see the Gospel upheld and use that to serve those who need protection: the outcasts, the abused, the forgotten, the poor, the brokenhearted, the lonely, the dying and the grieving. Because in that place then everyone can finally stand up straight and feel proud.
I heard recently from a friend that people who tend to have bad posture--this is one theory
(and I have bad posture) - is because we're so busy trying to protect our heart from things that are going on, that seem unbearable in our present, the fear of the future or what's unhealed from the past. I don't know about you, but I find myself in public places where I see someone whose posture is not great and then I check my own. Have you ever done that? And it lasts for about three or four seconds and then I'm back to my old posture. But we all get bent over when we just can't bear things any longer.
Last week after worship I had a lot of administrative work to do in the church. Everyone was long gone. And so, as usual I leave and lock up the church in quiet and I go up the street to my car. One of our neighbors, who is known to this church, and has received care from this church in a variety of ways, was out front of his house. I look for him every week and this particular week he was on his porch, leaning over his balcony like this (leans over pulpit) and he was looking down. I'll call him Nick.
I said, “Hey Nick, how you doing?”
He said, “Hey Rev.”
I said, “How are things going?”
“Meh, they're okay.”
“How's your daughter doing?”
“Well, she's not that great.” He had fought for custody of her many years ago (four or five years ago) and got custody of her in Florida and brought her up here, but she's just miserable and he said, “We've got to go back to Florida, because that's where she wants to be and I can't let her go by herself.” (I think she's in her late teens, maybe pushing 18.)
He said, “But I don't want to go. I don't know anybody there. I don't have a faith system down there. I don't have any support down there. I don’t know what God is up to, I really don’t”.
I said, “Yeah, but Jesus is already down there, waiting to receive you.”
And his whole face lit up and he giggled and he said, “You know, Rev, that's why I love you.”
And I said, “That's because Jesus loves you and that's all that matters.”
Jesus loves all of us in our places of bent-overness and His goal is not to call out other people who don't quite get it. It's to bring US healing and hope when we can't heal ourselves and when we can't have hope for others, in the past, in our present or in our future. So friends, every time you see someone who's struggling with their posture, check yours as well and open up your heart to Jesus’ healing again. Amen.