Sermon: Set Free

Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Church, UCC        

Luke 13:10-17

Set free!

              Have you ever driven through thick fog, focused on the headlights ahead of you as the only clue as to where your car should be on the road?  Or have you driven on icy roads through a blizzard, with snow filling your vision?  Did you grip the steering wheel?  Was your speed taken down to a crawl?  Did you finally pull over and wait out the fog or the storm?  Losing visibility can bind us to fear, caution, worry, and leave us at a standstill, unable to go any further.  

Sometimes we are in a fog of a different sort: a lack of joy, a feeling of helplessness, or hopelessness.  Our bodies and our spirits can cripple us.  We don’t see ourselves as God sees us.  At times we may find ourselves in a blizzard of agnosis – of not knowing, not understanding. Our own assumptions and perceptions cloud our vision as we try to see God. Feeling clouded binds us, imprisons us, keeps us from living the abundant life that Jesus has in mind for us.

The story of Jesus healing a woman who was bent over is about being bound by body and spirit, by assumptions and rules.  Both the woman and the synagogue leader had clouded vision that imprisoned them.  The woman had trouble seeing physically.  She was bent over, and had spent the last 18 years looking at the ground.  She was also bound by the rule that deemed her ritually unclean because of her physical circumstances, which would have bound her spirit as well.  The text says, 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. Theologian Jane Childers wrote, “This is a woman who is bent in on herself. It’s a picture of someone who has not only born the yoke but bought it. She is not just a woman with an infirmity but, as Luke says, with the spirit of an infirmity. Whatever it was that had bent her, whatever emotional or physical burden she had born, Luke suggests, ultimately became part of her until her very body was conformed to its image. There is nothing she can do now to help herself out of the spiritual pretzel her life has become.”

The synagogue leader had trouble seeing as well.  He was bound by the tendency to conform God to his own image.  He was clouded by the tradition of making the day of rest into a day of rules.  We read, “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.’” The scholars and rabbis and faithful people were receiving mixed up messages because their vision was so clouded by their own assumptions of Jesus.  They witnessed a healing with profound ramifications.  On one level, the message is that Jesus sees our pain and trouble and has come to bring healing and wholeness.  On another level, by the occurrence of the miracle on the Sabbath, the message is that Jesus breathes new life into the old law. There were two messages in that moment.  Many of those that witnessed the event missed them both. 

Jesus said to them, “You hypocrites! You do the basic things that you need to do for survival, you exert enough energy to take care of your family's needs on the Sabbath. You release your animals to give them water.  Why then, shouldn't I release a human being from bondage – bringing healing and wholeness to a woman who has been bent over in agony for 18 years!”

The synagogue leader was not seeing the woman who was bent over.  She was deemed ritually unclean by society.  People would have looked the other way – or stared at her, thinking of her in terms of her ailment alone, forgetting that she was a precious child of God.  The leader was keeping her bound by laws.  Jesus had healed on the Sabbath before.  But still the teachers of the law were bound by the view that the Sabbath was about a set of rules.  They were clouded by deep-seated assumptions about who Jesus should be. If he did what they expected, he would confirm their view of him as a political hero and military leader. He intentionally performed the miracle on the Sabbath to remind them that he was bringing a new take on the law.  It was an illustration to his teaching.  They weren't listening, so he showed them by setting a woman free from her burden, by setting her free to stand straight.  In doing so, he hoped to set them free too.  He wanted to set them free from rules that bound, by assumptions that clouded them, so that they could live abundant lives.

How do we see Jesus?  What are our assumptions about him—about the person of Christ, about God?  I wonder if we ever settle in with a concept of Jesus that is too comfortable.  I wonder if we ever try to conform Jesus to our worldview, tucking Jesus into our neat and tidy belief systems instead of being completely transformed by the life he offers.  Do we see Jesus as one who brings about radical change?  Do we hear him calling us to see people as he sees them?

Are we open to the healing and wholeness that Jesus offers?  Jesus challenges our society to love and justice.  He challenges us individually to follow him as disciples.  Do we see him breathing new life into old ways of doing things?  Are we looking through fog?  Do we see him?

Jesus sees us as needing healing.  The text says, When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.  She was someone who most people looked at from afar.  They didn’t want to get close to her.  They didn’t want her to exist.  Jesus sees her, calls her near, and lays his hands upon her.  One of the striking features of this story is that this woman did not ask for healing. She may not have even been able to see Jesus. 

Jane Childers points out that Jesus would have had to make some effort to look into the woman’s face, and the likely place for him to touch her would have been her feet.  He would have put himself in the place of a servant.  “I’m thinking he had no choice but to get down on his knees—way down on his knees, down in the dirt on his knees—and crane his neck up to look into her face.” Spirituality isn't so much about us.  It is everything about God. 

God sees us, and is waiting for us to return her gaze.  God isn't watching us from a distance as Bette Midler sang, but is right here with us.  God sees us, calls us over, and is ready and waiting to heal us.  It often isn't the kind of healing we are expecting.  It often isn’t the way we would have done it, or the timing we think would be appropriate, but may just leave us more complete and whole than we thought we could be.

We find ourselves bent over from time to time.  We worry ourselves into a spiritual pretzel now and then.  Jesus sees us.  Not from a distance, but right alongside us. Are we returning his gaze?  Jesus calls us over.  Are we listening?  If not, maybe he takes our chin and turns it to look at him. Jesus lays his hands upon us, before we even ask to be healed.  The grace is always there.  Like the synagogue leader, we find ourselves at times bogged down by rules, traditions, and by our own assumptions.  We may even catch ourselves at hypocrisy. We may talk ourselves out of doing what Jesus would have done. We may forget that Jesus came to set us free. Maybe you have experienced ways that tradition trumps people’s needs. When we live set free to love God and others, people are released from what binds them.  We are given eyes to see the one that society ignores.  We are challenged to take the time to talk with someone who is lonely, to reach out to one who usually goes unnoticed.  When we love someone who may not seem lovable, we may find that we become blessed by them.

Jesus sees us when we are in a fog, grasping for wholeness, understanding, and connection with the Holy.  On the Sabbath, Jesus set a woman free to stand up straight. The text says, “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that Jesus was doing.” Can you hear people talking amongst themselves in the Synagogue?  He did it again – healed on the Sabbath!  What a strange Rabbi.  What does this mean?  Do you think this man is the Messiah?  Can you believe that he touched that woman—she was unclean!  Can you sense the tension?  The excitement? Jesus offered vision to a woman and a synagogue leader. He offered a new way of seeing to all in that house of worship.  But the effects of that day reach much farther than that moment.   

Two thousand years later, we are still wrestling with the effects of that day, that moment, when Jesus saw a bent over woman, called her over, and laid his hands upon her.  All this time later we see that we are in this story.  Sometimes we are the synagogue leader, misunderstanding Jesus, forgetting that faith calls us to love above all else.  At other times we are the crowd, wondering who Jesus is, full of questions, a mix of faith and doubt.  At some point all of us have been the woman, folded over by our burdens. No matter how you see yourself this day, Jesus sees you.  Jesus calls you over.  Jesus lays his hands upon you, and says, “You, child, are set free.”

Jane Childers.  “The Kyphotic Woman” 30 Good Minutes. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/childers_4816.htm