August 25, 2013 Proper 16 Luke 13:10-17 The Rev. John Reese. You may be familiar with Jamestown, VA, the first permanent English settlement in the

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1 August 25, 2013 Proper 16 Luke 13:10-17 The Rev. John Reese You may be familiar with Jamestown, VA, the first permanent English settlement in the new world. The settlers were members of the Church of England, the spiritual antecedent of our own Episcopal Church. Some of their religious practices were rather interesting. For instance, services were held fourteen times a week, with a morning and evening service every day. Everybody had to attend. Missing church was considered a sin and was dealt with severely. The penalty for missing a service was the loss of food rations for a whole day. A second absence resulted in a public whipping. And the penalty for missing three times was to be placed in the stocks daily for six months. Historians tell us that research has not revealed anyone in Jamestown Colony ever missing church three times. What if we started something like that here at St. Andrew s? But hey, I m preaching to the choir about being in church on Sunday. You believe in worship or you wouldn t be here today. And nobody forced you to be here. Well, maybe a spouse or a parent... Attendance at Sunday worship is a witness to our faith in Christ. Gathering for worship encourages others. And remember: God is waiting in this place to bless you, to heal you, to strengthen you. The crippled woman in today s Gospel would have missed the healing touch of Jesus if she had not been in the synagogue on that Sabbath day. Notice how Luke describes her condition: 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 (Luke 13:10-11). What does it mean to be crippled by a spirit? 1

2 In pre-scientific times, of course, it was quite common for people to attribute all disease to the presence of demons. This may be the simple explanation for this wording. Demon possession is certainly a recognized condition in the scriptures. Or, in modern terms, maybe Luke is saying to us that this woman s problem was caused by something that was troubling her mentally or spiritually. Psychological problems can cause us to feel bowed down. We see someone who is deeply troubled and we say, He seems to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders... Before long we even start to see it in his posture. Not as badly as this woman, of course, but we see the shoulders slump and the back bend. Low self-esteem can cause a person to shrink into himself or herself. We tell our children, Pull your shoulders back and stand up straight... But some children seem incapable of doing that and so a kind of life-long deformity of slumping shoulders and, even more tragically, a slumping spirit begins forming. We don t know if this applied to this poor woman. Maybe her problem was genetic. Or perhaps it was bacterial. All we know is that she was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, Woman, you are set free from your ailment. Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. It is a powerful thought: Jesus can heal those who are bowed down, whatever the reason is for their condition. What is weighing you down today? Is it physical pain, some chronic disease? Is it crippling financial debt? Is it depression? Maybe it s a family in crisis? Maybe it s a family far 2

3 and away and unknowing? Maybe it s challenging school demands? Maybe it s worry over your children s welfare? We are all bent people. Life bends us all. In fact, life can provide an endless supply of weights to place upon our backs. Those weights bend our body and they bend our souls. If there is some burden that is weighing you down, take it to Jesus. You don t have to carry it alone. Jesus is here to heal and make whole. Unfortunately today s Gospel does not end with the healing of the crippled woman. For there is another character in the story, a man with a different kind of spirit, a spirit of legalism and condemnation. Immediately after saying that this woman straightened up and praised God, Luke tells us about this second character. 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 (13:14). Where do people like this come from? They throw cold water on every good event. And for some reason they seem to be drawn to the church and synagogue. As many of you know, I am a big fan of The Simpsons. In one episode, Homer Simpson asks his fundamentalist neighbors, Ned Flanders and sons, Rod and Todd, where they d been: We went away to a Christian camp, they said, We were learning how to be more judgmental. This man who criticized Jesus must have attended one of those camps. He was the leader of the synagogue. God had done a great work in his presence. Wouldn t you think that he would be jumping up and down, giving God praise? But all he can do is criticize. 3

4 Someone has noted that this was the last time it is recorded that Jesus was ever in a synagogue. For one thing, from this point on he was such a controversial figure that no synagogue would allow him in the pulpit. But you have to wonder if the legalism of this synagogue leader drove him away. If so, he wouldn t be the first or the last person to have been driven away from a religious assembly by a legalistic spirit. It reminds me of the story of a knight who returned to the castle at twilight. He was a mess. His armor was dented, his helmet skewed, his face was bloody, his horse was limping, he was listing to one side in the saddle. The lord of the castle saw him coming and went out to meet him, asking, What hath befallen you, Sir Knight? Straightening himself up as best he could, the bedraggled knight replied, Oh, Sire, I have been laboring in your service, robbing and burning and pillaging your enemies to the west. west! You ve been WHAT? cried the startled nobleman, but I haven t any enemies to the Oh! said the knight. Well, I think you do now. I am convinced that many Christians with the spirit of legalism and condemnation have created enemies for God where previously there had not been any. St. Andrew s is a place where people still come today for healing and acceptance. This a place where people come to find help for their hurting hearts. This is a place where persons with a need seek the healing of Christ. Every week someone will come through the doors of St. Andrew s, a person who is bent over either figuratively or literally like the poor woman in today s Gospel. Will she encounter the 4

5 spirit of Jesus or the spirit of the synagogue leader? The answer to that question is up to each of us every one of us. Will they discover here a spirit that heals or a spirit that hurts? I pray that if they are sick, we will, through Christ, heal them. If they are down on their luck, we will assist them. If they are not up to a task, we will teach them. If they have a burden, we will lift it. If they have failed, we will encourage them. Let s make certain that we are a church family that seeks to heal, a church family that surrounds people with the love and grace of Jesus Christ a place of hope, healing, and hospitality. Amen. 5