A Time to Heal -- Lectionary (RCL) Reflection for Pentecost 11C/Proper 16 (Luke 13)

 




Luke 13:10-17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
10 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.

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                I doubt many Christians concern themselves with Sabbath-keeping, at least not Christians in the United States. Sunday is just another day of the week, except that maybe we will spend an hour at church. The rest of the day is just as busy as any other day. How do I know, well, I'm just like everyone else. For over two decades Sundays were workdays for me, but even on my day off I rarely rested. Hey, even in retirement I rarely take a sabbath rest. That's just not the American way! Could it be, however, that we would benefit from a bit of sabbath-keeping? Of course, in the Gospels, the question of sabbath-keeping takes on a different sensibility. There was a strictness here that is foreign to us (though perhaps not to an earlier era of Christians---remember the Puritans?). 

           Here in Luke 13, Jesus is visiting a synagogue on the Sabbath. Luke doesn't tell us where; just that he is visiting the synagogue. The leaders of this community, where Jesus happens to be teaching, are rather strict in their observance of the Sabbath. Thus, they are committed to the principle that sabbath-keeping means one does not work (except for teaching). The question that gets raised here concerns the definition of Sabbath.  

          Our reading from Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching in a synagogue. While he teaches the gathered community, a woman who has been plagued by a physical disability for eighteen years enters the room. This disability is so severe that it has prevented her from standing upright. While we don't know how old she is, she has been suffering for many years without any form of relief. Therefore, all she can do is put up with her suffering. 

             We're not told why this unnamed woman entered the synagogue, but when Jesus saw her he stopped teaching and asked her to come to him. Thus, it doesn't appear that she was seeking him out, but when he saw her he reached out with compassion. Luke tells us that the woman's disability was caused by a spirit because Jesus told her that she had been set free. After he told her that she was free, Jesus laid hands on her and immediately she straightened up. With that, the woman broke out in praise to God. What else could she do? What would you do in her situation? With a word and a touch, her eighteen years of pain and suffering were lifted. How can this not be good news?

              Now, everyone in the room shared her joy, right? No! You see, there are rules when it comes to things like this. While teaching on the sabbath wasn't considered work, healing was. So, when Jesus reached out to heal her, his action offended the leader of the synagogue. Believing that Jesus had done something not permitted by God on the sabbath, he felt the need to defend God's honor. Do you ever feel the need to defend God's honor? So, he condemned Jesus' act of mercy. In his mind, and as he understood the religious rules, there are times and places for such things and this wasn't one of them. He told Jesus that there are six days to do work, and one day to rest. This was the day of rest not work, and healing was work. Besides, one more day shouldn't really matter. After all, she'd been suffering for eighteen years, so why not wait one more day and not break the rules? The leader did make sense, but not to Jesus. Probably the woman wouldn't have agreed either. Why wait a day when freedom could come on that day?
 
              Jesus responded to the offended leader's complaint by pointing out his hypocrisy. He asked the leader what he would do if he had a donkey and the donkey needed to get access to water. Wouldn't he do whatever he could (work) to make sure the donkey had water to drink? Wouldn't that be the humane thing to do? Besides, is the donkey more valuable than this daughter of Abraham and Sarah? When he posed that question the discussion came to an end. How could anyone answer that question? 

           As is true of the reading from Hebrews 12, we need to be careful how we read a text like this. It’s easy to make the Pharisees out to be uncaring legalists. In fact, I hear Christians regularly refer to legalistic folks as Pharisees. We've bought into the stereotype that is found in the Gospels. While Pharisees could be legalistic and are often portrayed that way in the Gospels, Pharisees could be strict but that doesn't mean they were all legalists bent on doing away with Jesus. In fact, Jesus and Paul both embraced elements of the Pharisaic vision, and Paul was from a family that embraced the Pharisaic vision for Israel. The problem with feeding this narrative is that there is a narrow chasm between criticizing a group for hypocrisy, something Jesus could do as a Jew, and embracing the stereotype. That stereotype can easily lead to anti-Judaism. When we buy into the stereotypes, Christianity is portrayed as a religion of Grace and Judaism is one of rules and regulations. Let us remember that when Jesus criticized Jews, he was speaking as a Jew. He did, however, interpret things differently than many fellow Jews, including those who identify as Pharisees. 

           Now, in this story, Jesus is not portrayed arguing with a Pharisee, but the attitude of the synagogue leader mirrors that seen in other portrayals of the Pharisees in Luke. It’s important to remember that the Pharisees were concerned about the spiritual life of the people. They believed that Torah was the proper guide. Jesus agreed, only he seems to have interpreted it a bit differently.

              So what is the message of this story when it comes to us? What is it saying to you and to me?  What are our responsibilities to each other? Is there a proper time for everything, or do we address the situations as they come our way? Rules are important. They give a framework for life. I might not always follow the rules, but I'm no libertarian or anarchist. While I believe in freedom, I also recognize that humanity is prone to take actions that are detrimental to ourselves and to others. I may not embrace the doctrine of total depravity, but neither do I embrace the idea that we humans can reach full perfection in this life. Although there need to be rules, sometimes we need to bend them so we can achieve a more just outcome for this world of ours. We probably need some rules about work. The government of the United States assumes that a forty-hour work week is about right. There are safety rules in place as well. But sometimes life requires us to bend the rule. That was the case here.

                As I read the story, Jesus saw the woman suffering from this disability. He felt compassion for her. He released her from her condition. It seems rather simple. From the way that Luke tells the story, it doesn’t appear that she came to Jesus seeking healing. She was just coming to worship, and Jesus happened to be there, and he was willing to change her life. So, she praised God. That should be our marker. Acts of love lead to acts of praise to God. And, because the next story in Luke is the parable of the mustard seed, a parable that answers the question about the nature of God’s realm, is this act of healing not one of those mustard seeds that reveals the presence of this realm of God? (Luke 13:18-19).

 Tissot, James, 1836-1902. Woman with an Infirmity of Eighteen Years, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57031 [retrieved August 12, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HealWomanSabbath.jpg.

Comments

I have been trying to figure out how it came about that some Christians blurred the Lord's Day (Sunday) into the Sabbath (Saturday) and began referring to the former as though it were the latter. Since you do that in this post, I wonder whether you can shed some light on this!
Robert Cornwall said…
James, that's a good question. That would require a bit of historical digging. I think it sort of got transferred, but I'm not sure when. I will have to check that out.
Robert Cornwall said…
James, I did a quick google search, and at least up through Gregory the Great there was no big interest in the Sabbath. Maybe that's a Puritan thing. I know that James I published the Book of Sports to push back against the Puritan demand that the Sabbath be kept.

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