Luke 13:10-17
Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 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. 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. 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." 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? 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?" 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.
Last Sunday my wife Cindy and I went
to see the children’s movie Planes with our grandson William, and his parents
Derek and Joy. The story is about Dusty
Crophopper, who is a crop duster. Dusty
wants to fly in the Wings across the World race. He appears to be a longshot at best against the
sleek racing planes. His boss Leadbottom
and his forklift/mechanic friend Dottie scorn him, but Dusty trains with his
fuel truck friend Chug and qualifies after one of his rivals Fonzarreli is
disqualified for using a banned fuel additive. Despite
his fear of heights, the dirty tricks of his main rival Ripslinger, and
repeatedly being told he was made to be a crop duster rather than a racer, Dusty
wins. His romantic interest, a plane
named Ishani, tells him that he was not made to be a crop duster; he was made
to be a racing plane.
Dusty Crop Hopper and the crippled
woman in today’s Gospel might seem to have little in common, but both must
overcome negative stereotypes. The
Gospel reveals that God treasures each person regardless of how others see her
or him. Jesus calls us to treat those on
the margins of society with respect.
The story of the crippled woman is found
only in Luke’s Gospel. At first, it
seems like another instance of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, but on closer
examination the seemingly insignificant parts of the story have greater meaning. Numbers were important in the Ancient
World. They often had a symbolic
meaning. Jesus chose 12 disciples, for
example, to represent the 12 tribes of the new Israel. According to biblical scholar Alan Culpepper,
the number 18 ties the woman’s years of affliction to the 18 killed by the
collapse of the Tower of Siloam.[1] Only a few verses before today’s Gospel,
Jesus asks, “Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on
them-- do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living
in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:4 NRSV). The implicit
connection is that the woman likewise suffered through no fault of her own.
Essential to understanding this
lesson is the status of the woman. Jesus
never addresses her by name. He first simply
calls her “woman.” According to
Culpepper, she represents all women.
Later in the story, Jesus compares her to animals – an ox and a donkey. He bluntly says that they are treated better
than the woman. In the Ancient World, we
know women were second class citizens, but Jesus challenges this status when he
lays his hands on her and raises her up not only physically but also socially. Jesus next calls her “daughter of
Abraham.”
The term “Daughter of Abraham”
is only used this one time in the Old and New Testaments. Nonetheless, it is filled with significance,
because it is used in the Apocrypha, the books written between the Old and New
Testaments, for Salamonia, who stood steadfastly while the Seleucids tortured
and killed her seven sons during the Jewish revolt for independence from
167-160 BC. 4 Maccabees says about
Salamonia, “O more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than
men in endurance! Just as Noah's ark, carrying the world in the universal
flood, stoutly endured the waves, so you, O guardian of the law, overwhelmed
from every side by the flood of your emotions and the violent winds, the
torture of your sons, endured nobly and withstood the wintry storms that assail
religion” (4Ma 15:29-32 NRSV). 4
Maccabees says Salamonia is more noble and courageous than men. It also calls her a “guardian of the
law.” This is an amazing statement, because
in the Temple men were allowed closer to the Holy of Holies than women. Jesus bestows a high honor when he calls the
woman “Daughter of Abraham.” He raises
her from a status below the animals to above men, from the lowest to the
highest societal and religious status.
The ruler of the synagogue reacts
indignantly. He is unconcerned about the
woman’s suffering. He wants to uphold
the prohibition against work on the Sabbath but he also in so doing implicitly
wants to keep the woman subservient – a faceless, nameless cripple.
Jesus constantly over turns the
social order in Luke’s Gospel. He allows
Mary to sit at his feet, to take the position of a disciple, at a time when
rabbis did not have female disciples. He
extolls the Samaritan, who was a member of a detested people, in the story of
the Good Samaritan. And Jesus says that
the poor man Lazarus goes to heaven while the rich man goes to Hades.
We have heard these stories so many
times we do not realize how shocking they would have been to someone in the
First Century AD. It would have seemed
like the entire social order had been turned upside down. And indeed it had. As Mary says in her Magnificat, “He has
brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Luke
1:52 NRSV).
Today’s Gospel calls on us to value those
who are on the margins of our society.
My Dad and I will have lunch today at the Village of Brookwood. Many of the people who work in dining services
have mental or physical challenges. The
former director made a point to hire them, and the residents treat them with
respect and affection.
Jesus also tells us today to take
heart when we feel limited by others expectations or, perhaps, more
difficultly, our own. I am working
part-time at the Cary Family YMCA. One of
the things I enjoy most is giving one on one middle school orientations. Middle Schoolers may use the cardio and
weight machines only after they go through an orientation. I always ask the young people to calculate
the total weight they have moved in their workout. The other day an eighth grade girl pushed two
tons of weight for her whole work out.
When I asked her if she had thought before that she could move that much
weight, she replied, “No.” I told her
that there are many things in life that she thinks she can’t do but that she
can.
St. Andrew’s is going through an
unanticipated time of transition, as I am, and, perhaps, as some of you are. Such times generate a range of feelings –
disappointment, anger, anxiety and more.
Jesus offers us hope during these times.
For Christians, the cross is not the end but the beginning of the
resurrection, the beginning of being raised to new life. I remember when Father Griswold left St.
Andrew’s. Some wondered what the little
congregation would do. In the time
since, you are one of the few congregations to receive the Bishop’s Award for
your work with those in need.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus does more
than raise one woman. He raises us
all! He frees us from crippling stereotypes. He straightens us again into the image of
God. He proclaims that each of us is a
Daughter and Son of Abraham.
(The sermon was preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Haw River NC on August 25, 2013. St. Andrew's vicar left the Sunday before to become a chaplain at Elon College.)
[1] R. Alan Culpepper, “The
Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary and Reflections,” The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, V. IX
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 273-274.
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