Sermon Title: "Good News For Women "
Date: August 22, 2010
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Luke 13:10-17

When I looked over the suggested scripture readings for today, I found that I last preached on the Luke passage 12 years ago.  Of the sermon resources I use going back 18 years, all but two ignored this text.  Most of the rest either covered the Jeremiah text about the call of the prophet, or continued after last Sunday’s passage from Hebrews with the foundations of the New Jerusalem.

So what drew me to this text about the unnamed woman who is cured of being bent over after 18 years?  First, it was about a woman, and Jesus seemed to be unusually compassionate toward women.  While he selected a dozen men to be his followers, the Gospels frequently mention his encounters with women:  the sisters Mary and Martha, the Samaritan woman at the well, Mary Magdalene from whom he cast out demons, the woman caught in adultery whom he saved from being stoned to death.  In an era and culture which did not grant very much status at all to women, Jesus took their concerns to heart.

Second, I am surrounded by women in my family life.  I have two sisters.  My wife has a sister.  We have two daughters.  No brothers or sons on either side, except for me.

Third, there is a dramatic increase in the role of women today in professional life.  When I entered seminary 40 years ago, only ten percent of the students were women.  For the past decade or more, half of the students in the majority of Protestant seminaries across the country have been women.  My two colleagues as associate ministers here for the past 16 years have been women.  And experienced women are moving into a number of pulpits as senior ministers in the United States.  Look also at the growing number of doctors, lawyers, professors and college presidents who are women.

So what about the woman in today’s lesson, found only in Luke?  The text begins with two characters:  Jesus teaching in one of the synagogues, and “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.  She was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.” (13:11)  Upon seeing her, Jesus called her over and tells her she is cured of her ailment, without her ever asking.  Perhaps she was so used to her condition that it never occurred to her that it could be corrected after nearly two decades.  One commentator describes the situation of the bent-over woman very well, this condition that could be translated as “a spirit of weakness”:  “Her weakness itself is regarded as the power that holds her captive to restricted movement, to the inability to meet another person face-to-face, and to a world defined by the piece of ground around her own toes or looked at always on a slant.  The words that effect the healing deal with what has enslaved her.”

Jesus’ recognition of her speaks to women who were demeaned, denied their proper status, and oppressed by religious and social restrictions.  The story of the stooped woman is, in fact, the story of many women.

Each Sunday, all sorts of burdens are carried into church by women as well as men.  Some, like the bent-over woman’s condition, are more visible than others.  What do you see in our congregation today?  The weight of many years of suffering on one person’s face, the crushing hurt of a new and painful reality in another’s eyes:  divorce; the loss of a loved one; financial worries; poor health; a child who is distant, either physically or emotionally.  Perhaps there are people in our church who know the pain and oppression of being marginalized and alone in the greater community, if not within the church itself.  Who are these people, and do we notice them the way Jesus noticed the bent-over woman?  Is the suffering of some people easier to avoid, or to miss?  Just as important is our response.  Our hearts may be touched by the suffering of another, but are we moved to compassion, enough to reach out and do something?  What kinds of healing might we offer to those we may or may not notice in church, where we work, in our neighborhoods?

A third character enters our story when it comes to the timing of Jesus’ healing.  He does it on the Sabbath, and there is always someone who is a stickler for details.  “The leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath,” addresses not Jesus—why not?—but rather appeals to the sentiments of the crowd.  A devout Jew is to do no work on the Sabbath.  Come back tomorrow when it is okay to heal.  There is a tension here between two faithful Jewish men who are both struggling with what it means to be faithful.  The religious leader may not be mean-spirited but merely trying to press his case for obedient faithfulness.  So is Jesus, of course, but both men believe they are keeping the Sabbath.

Jesus points out that even faithful Jews will feed and water their ox or donkey on the Sabbath.  Why should any less be done for this woman?  The time is now for God’s grace and healing, not later.  Jesus believes this is an urgent matter.

The pew Bibles entitle today’s passage as “Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman.”  No name.  Just another woman, a bent-over, crippled woman.  Not a woman of any value, not even worth a name . . . until Jesus gives her one.  “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?”

“A daughter of Abraham ”—an unusual address, the only time it’s used in the Gospels.  By elevating her status as a descendant of Abraham, considered the father of the Jewish religion—and in whom both Christians and Muslims also find their origin—Jesus is asking should they not do more for her than they would do for an animal?  Perhaps the condition of the woman is a metaphor for the experience of so many women bearing heavy burdens in every culture and time, whether they are hauling water for miles, caring for sick children without needed resources, enduring physical abuse, or treated unjustly in the workplace.  Jesus repeatedly ignores rules and customs that reinforce such marginalization and injustice, and this story embodies his attitude toward all women, not just one “victim” of “a spirit of weakness.”  It is good news for women, indeed.

I met last week with a Cub Scout from our church.  As part of his advancement through Webelos, he was to discuss with his religious leader how to use his faith in his everyday life.  He brought me his Sunday School lesson about the Ten Commandments, and asked what the fourth commandment meant:  “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”  I explained to him how Sabbath, or our Sunday, used to be observed, and what its real intent is.

Jesus’ healing of the woman and the synagogue leader’s quarrel about the day on which it was done seem so foreign to us for we hear this text in a world that doesn’t know the meaning of Sabbath or grasp the importance of timing.  Commentator Richard Swanson does a beautiful job of contrasting our modern approach to our Sabbath day of Sunday and the profound regard that the people of Jesus’ time would have had for the day of rest:  

“This scene comes out of a world that remembered that Sabbath is different.  Sabbath is not just a day of rest.  It is a day of promise….Sabbath is welcomed into the house as a queen would be welcomed.  Sabbath provides a foretaste of the culmination of all things, a glimpse of God’s dominion, a little slice of the messianic age dropped into the midst of regular time.  Sabbath offers a remembrance of God’s promise of peace and freedom for all of creation.  It is a good thing, a gift from God….Sabbath had become a symbol of the resistance God’s people offered to tyrants of every sort and every time…Sabbath is a day that lifts people’s eyes to God’s promise in the midst of the most unpromising circumstances.”  What better day in which to heal this “daughter of Abraham?”

Today’s gospel lesson poses two questions for us to consider as we leave this Sunday: 1)  Who are the “bent over” people, the marginalized, the ignored or forgotten people, those not granted equal status around us on whom we might have compassion?  Do we see them, or do we look the other way?  And 2)  How do we choose to honor God on the Sabbath?  Do we observe it religiously, or ignore it?