August 26, 2007    18^th Sunday After Pentecost        Rev. Laird Duran

 Luke 13:10-14 Now <Jesus> was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11And 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. 12When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

 This story tells us a great deal about Jesus. When we hear the story in English, it sounds like it’s just about healing a woman with osteoporosis. But what we translate as “bent-over” in the original Greek would be “bent together” or “bent with.” It refers not only to her physical body, but to her whole personal demeanor and deportment.  She had been so bent over in her body and her spirit, she had been unable to look anyone in the eye for eighteen years. Her eyes were on the floor.

 We read she was “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.” Luke wants us to see a picture of someone who is not only afflicted with a disease, but has spiritually become her disease. There is nothing she can do now to help herself out of the spiritual pretzel her life has become.

 Notice she did not ask Jesus to cure her. The thought that Jesus even looked at her plight caught her off guard. She was bent in on herself with no hope of ever getting her life straitened out. Have you even known anyone like that? Have you ever known someone who was afflicted for so long, they were spiritually trapped? 

Somebody who has started to believe that their life is destined to fail? Someone who is in so much debt, they believe they will never get out? Someone who has never had any success at school, and believes they could never amount to anything? Someone who believes that the failure of their marriage and family relations is somehow their fault? Have you ever known anyone like that? At times, I have felt like that.

 Now they might come to church and say with their mouth, “God loves me,” but cannot really say it to their own hearts. They might say I believe that Jesus forgives my sins, but they believe that they can have the freedom and healing power of Jesus for themselves? They might believe in their head that God created them with a purpose, but their heart is telling them they are useless to everyone, including God. Have you ever known anybody like that?

 She could not comprehend that God believes in us, and loves us, even when we are completely bent over and are spiritually bankrupt. Here Jesus was showing her is showing us that in the kingdom of God, people like her can stand up straight and walk tall because of God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus’ message was that now that the kingdom has come, God will take away all our infirmities, our sickness, our propensity for sin so that we can look eye to eye with Jesus.

 This is not just another healing story. It’s a story of a woman in a faith dilemma. You can imagine how astounded she was by Jesus. Did you see what he did? Back in those days, there were lots of miracle workers and religious teachers. There were all kinds of voices saying, just keep the commandments and God will bless you. Just as there are today, there were many who had all kinds of quick fix solutions to problems, but none of the lasted. The religious leaders were telling people that such ailments were the result of their sin or the sins of their parents. So they would never touch a woman like her because she must be a sinner. 

Read this story, and you see that this woman didn’t say anything! She didn’t ask Jesus to help her. Jesus just saw her, and called to her. She didn’t promise to do anything before or after she was healed. Jesus just saw her problem, and fixed it. That’s what we call the undeserved grace of God, which forgives sins and lifts up those who are bowed down.

 We Lutherans have made this undeserved grace the center of everything else we believe, say and do.  Dr. Martin Luther found this principal consistent with everything that Jesus did. We are straight with God, because Jesus forgives our sins, even before we confess them. Even when we forgot what it was like to be free of all our sins, he forgives us and sets us free. That’s what Jesus did for this woman, too.

 Jesus called her over, laid his hands upon her, and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” After he did that, this woman was astounded. “Immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. ”

 Look at these verses again. It says, “Jesus called her over.” How near do you suppose he called her to come over? The answer is near, — very, very near— in your face kind of near. Near enough that he touches her. Near enough to look her in the face, to see her eye to eye. How else could he have said the words, “woman you are set free.”

 I don’t agree with artist who drew the picture for the cover of our bulletin. That picture had Jesus looming over her, while she was bent down looking at the ground. I don’t see it that way. The only I the only way he could have done this  was to get down on his knees, and crane his neck up to look into her face.

 Let’s take this just one step further and ask just one more question.  It says he touched her. “How do you suppose he touched her? Where do you suppose he laid his hands on her? If you are kneeling on the ground, looking up into somebody’s face, what are your options?  I think he put his hands on her feet, her dirty, broken toe nails with nail fungus that were the only thing she had seen for eighteen years. I think he put his hands on her feet.

 Somewhere in the Old testament, (I couldn’t find it. I recall it’s in the Psalms)  there’s a reference to God’s people grasping God’s feet. It portrays us clinging to God’s ankles. Jesus turns that all around. Jesus now gets down on his hands and knees with us, and lays his healing hands on us, even when we didn’t ask to be healed.

 We have a God whose grace and forgiveness is unfathomable. We have a God who gets down on our level, who loves us before we had any faith at all. Don’t let anybody tell you that you have to get yourself together and run to God, that you have to have the will to do the right thing before God will hear you. Don’t pay any attention to the voices that say you have to have faith before God will speak to you. We have a God who loves us, who yearns for us, who loves us even when we can’t stand to look at ourselves in the mirror.

So what do we do with that? What did this woman do? After this woman was healed, she began praising God. When we see the power of God, when God sets us free from what binds us, that’s the only response possible. The only thing we could do is give thanks to God because Christ has set us free!

Then you will see that there’s life changing power that comes to us once we start giving thanks to God. Our connection to God and to other people will grow, even, especially for the ones that are bowed down. We will grow in faith as we witness by giving thanks to God for them, and telling them how God’s power helped us stand up straight and walk tall. 

We will give thanks to the people who brought us the message of the freedom Jesus has given us. Today, we’re going to pray for teachers, students, and for our schools. Teachers, wherever they teach, have a special job. Their lob is to help people overcome the obstacles so that they can stand up straight and walk tall for a lifetime. Our church teachers help people to walk tall for all eternity. We will pray that God does visit our schools and colleges with grace and hope.