August 21, 2022

She stood up straight and let God’s glory touch her face! This was a line I saw written somewhere decades ago – describing how the woman in today’s gospel might feel when Jesus cures her of whatever chronic condition had kept her bent over and unable to stand up for 18 years. I love this story, which is unique to Luke’s gospel, because it shows the depth of compassion Jesus has for all who suffer. In this unusual case he does not even wait for her to ask for healing – perhaps she’d grown so hopelessly accustomed to being bent over that she could not imagine a different way of living. Nor does Jesus ask her if she wants to be healed, as he often does with others. Here's a helpful paragraph from Carolyn J. Sharp, an Episcopal priest and Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School:

Jesus heals a woman who has suffered for eighteen years from severe forward flexion of her spine, as occurs with orthopedic conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis … [with] the challenges to wellbeing that could result from her debilitating condition: neck and back pain, fatigue, difficulty breathing, heart problems related to inflammation of the aorta, and, potentially, feelings of frustration, vulnerability, or isolation. Exploring what this woman has endured over years of what Jesus terms Satanic bondage …

Or as a former nurse in our parish suggested, she may have had a severe form of scoliosis. And if she was born with that, she may have only been 18 years old when Jesus sees her at the synagogue. That sounds like a reasonable possibility since otherwise – how would he have known that she’d suffered for 18 years with this condition? We can’t know for sure, but I like what Carolyn Sharp says about the ‘satanic bondage’ potentially being more about what the woman had endured, rather than the source of the disease. And it's also always dangerous to have too rigid a view of God’s ‘will’ -- I’m convinced that God never wishes anyone ill. Instead, God’s will is always for our wellbeing, but nature and biology follow their own trajectories and happenstances. Whatever she had, Jesus wasted no time in freeing her from her many years of bondage, regardless of silly sabbath rules made by humans.

Again, today we also heard from the great prophet called Isaiah, although there are at least three different authors or groups of authors in the Book of Isaiah. Today we’re in Third Isaiah which is roughly chapters 56 to 66 or the end of the book – this section addresses the community returning from the Babylonian exile. In looking up commentaries for today’s Isaiah 58 reading I was intrigued to learn that two chapters earlier, in Isaiah 56 (3-8) both foreigners and gender nonbinary people are to be included within this new returning community. In the NRSV bible the nonbinary people are eunuchs – and God embraces them all if they follow God’s covenant of seeking righteousness or justice for all. Yes, that theme persists even in this last part of Isaiah, written about three centuries after the beginning of the book – with today’s reading beginning by speaking of removing the yoke, offering food to the hungry, and satisfying the needs of the afflicted. It’s in those kinds of actions that we become like a watered garden – a good image for our dry summer season. God promises to guide us continually (v 11) and satisfy our needs in parched places. Like much of scripture, that should be understood symbolically as well, so here’s one good question for us to reflect on in that sense: what or which are the ‘parched places’ in our lives – not just the outdoor dry gardens, but what is there in our spiritual and/or emotional life that feels dry or parched. What are we thirsting for, besides fluids for our bodies?

God cares about our needs – the places or situations where we might feel lonely or isolated or in pain, or longing for the companionship of others. Many of us would like to see more of our grandchildren or other family members, for example. Or perhaps we’re thirsting or wishing for a life of more meaningful activity – wishing we could be more useful in our world. I’m reminded here of a much beloved idea of the recently deceased great theologian Frederick Buechner: ‘The place God calls you to (or your vocation) is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.’ There are different versions of this quote since he said it often in differing ways, but fundamentally Buechner is saying that our God-given gifts and talents are meant to serve the needs of God’s world. This can be seen as quite counter-cultural in a society that encourages so much focus on me-me-me … instead of the wider community.

Self-centeredness, or being a slave to the ego, has not brought people any real happiness, and has greatly harmed the world, rather than helped it. I don’t know about you, but I hate all those Facebook memes about the so-called importance of being yourself. A wise neighbourhood bumper sticker says: Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else. After healing the woman bent double on the sabbath day, Jesus gets in trouble for breaking the rule about not working on the sabbath. He rightly replies that people even take care of the basic needs of their animals on the sabbath, so why not do the crucially necessary work of freeing people from their yokes and constrictions? As I may have mentioned before, my poor father suffered so much from the idea of not being allowed to work on Sunday. His passion was woodworking, but all week he had to be a manual labourer at the railroad, so he HATED sitting on the sofa on Sundays instead of being downstairs in his carpentry workshop. If only he could have understood this as enriching the world – indeed he only made useful things, like the forty year-old desk, at which I sit to write these sermons.

In our Isaiah reading today we hear God saying that trampling the sabbath (v13) happens when we merely pursue or serve our own interests or affairs – going our own ways, rather than seeing how we might better serve the world’s needs. May we too, like the woman Jesus heals, stand up straight and let God’s glory touch our faces – honouring God by seeing how we can better place who we are and what we have -- at God’s disposal for healing the world. May it be so, Amen.