Text: Luke 13:10-17

The leader of the synagogue was very nervous. His palms were sweating as he introduced the visiting rabbi who would hold the stage on this particular Sabbath. The rabbi’s reputation had preceded him, as he traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem. There had been a clamor among the members of the synagogue to invite this itinerant to lead in worship on this day. The leader had given into the pressure, though he himself had reservations about this rabbi. Of course, he, like the rest of his people, had heard the stories about the healings and exorcisms and the other miracles. He had also heard about this rabbi’s seemingly cavalier attitude toward the law; about his disdain for religious authority and his direct challenges to the scribes and Pharisees. Still, he knew that crowds followed this teacher everywhere and a full synagogue would reflect well on him as leader, but he certainly did not want any disruption of the well established practice of religion that he had so carefully maintained for his people in this place over the years.

So you can imagine the sigh of relief when the rabbi sat down to teach, opened the book of Moses and began to read these words, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.” The leader of the synagogue was pleased to repeat the familiar words in his own mind, “Six days shall you labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God…” (Exodus 20:8-11.) But as he comfortably and routinely continued his mental recitation, he became aware that the teacher had stopped his reading mid-sentence. There was a hush in the room and the leader of the synagogue looked up to see the teacher’s eyes focused on a far corner of the room. He followed the teacher’s intense gaze to where it was fixed on that old crippled woman who always took her place wordlessly in the shadowed corner.

The leader went on instant alert. What was the teacher up to? What concern could he possibly have with such a one as her? The order of the day was broken; the leader was suddenly afraid his fears would be confirmed, and his palms again began to sweat. Jesus did not disappoint the leader’s anxiety. Peering into that shadowed corner, he called the woman out. “Come here, sister.”
Dan Clendenin images the scene this way: “When Jesus saw her he called her to come forward. Watching her shuffle forward, her contorted body bent to the ground, must have felt like an excruciating eternity, like watching an accident in slow motion. I wonder what she felt and thought in the hushed silence, with all those eyes on her” (Daniel B. Clendenin, "Sabbath-Keeping, Fasting, and 'My Own Flesh and Blood,'" The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, August 26, 2007.) Can you imagine what the scene was like? Have you ever experienced anything like it? She was hiding in the shadows, a woman crippled from forces physical, psychological and spiritual. She faithfully inhabited her corner, in spite of being seen, if she was seen at all, not only as the prisoner of her distorted body and troubled mind, but also as a victim of her own sinfulness, as one who had earned her crippled position by the actions of her own life. As such she would have been marginalized, seen as impure and treated as an outcast, an untouchable.
Unlike other gospel characters, this woman did not ask for Jesus’ healing. She was content to wait out the days of her life lurking in the shadows, accepting her lot and avoiding attention. Clendenin again says, that “neither [this] nameless woman, her family, nor any of her friends (did she have friends?) asked Jesus to heal her. She probably didn't know Jesus, and maybe had never even heard of him. I imagine her going to the synagogue with her familiar routine of doing everything possible to avoid drawing attention to herself. No doubt she kept to herself and kept out of harm's way in the back of the synagogue; after eighteen years of chronic disabilities she knew her place. But Jesus did not leave her to herself…In front of the crowd, Jesus did something that I'm sure no one had done to her for a long, long time, and something that violated the gender taboos of the day. He ‘put his hands on her’ and touched her. Then he said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.’ Freed from physical and spiritual bondage, ‘she immediately straightened up and praised God’" (Daniel B. Clendenin, "Sabbath-Keeping, Fasting, and 'My Own Flesh and Blood,'" The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, August 26, 2007.)
This entire scene had unfolded in matter of minutes, while the stunned leader of synagogue watched immobilized in fascinated horror. By the time he had found his voice and the presence of mind to act, the deed was done. The law had been broken in his very presence, the sabbath violated in his very synagogue and on his watch. He was furious as he spluttered into action. Working out his strategy as he struggled to his feet, he decided to address the crowd, figuring that to address the teacher would be to invite direct conflict. Stepping indignantly in front of the teacher as a means of dismissing him, he blustered to the assemblage, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” His back to Jesus, he strove to restore order to his carefully crafted service and rigidly controlled congregation. He knew the law and how to apply it. He was not about to let some itinerant rabbi from Galilee upset also the work he had done over the years to keep his people faithfully in line and to establish his reputation.
The tension in the room was palpable as people were suddenly confronted with the necessity of choosing between the teacher and the leader. “Who’s got it right?” “Which side should I take?” “The healing is a miracle of course and a wonder to behold; on the other hand this woman certainly has been of no consequence to me or my life.” “I do have to live here and this is the leader of our synagogue. We will both be here when this teacher has moved on. And the law does say…”
These rumblings of mind and murmurings among the crowd are interrupted by the stern, angry voice of the teacher, “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?” In other word, “Isn’t one of our own, our very sister in the faith, of more value than our livestock? Where is your compassion, people?” With this confrontation, the writer tells us that the congregation joined the woman in her rejoicing and praising God, as the leader and his cronies, flushed with shame, gave up the fight.
This is a wonderful story of the triumph of Jesus and his ways over the oppressive conventionality of religion as it was too often practiced in his time. The question of sabbath and how it is practiced is a complex one. The ancient law does indeed mandate a day for rest in symbolic appreciation of God’s own work of creation. For those, especially in our own culture, who have become addicted to their work and find no time to stop to smell the roses, the notion of keeping sabbath has become a popular antidote. When do we make time to be still, to look inward, to pray or meditate? When do we slow down long enough to take stock, to breathe deeply, to focus on God’s will for our lives? How many of us have known someone sitting on top of the heap with more stuff than they knew what to do with, suddenly asking themselves, “Is this all there is?” Clearly there is wisdom to sabbath and its keeping for us creatures as we try our hardest to conquer the world.
Still, it seems to me that sabbath is about something more than rest. We could argue that playing golf or watching football or shopping or taking the kids to soccer or t ball or tripping off to Tahoe or the beach qualify as some sort of sabbath activity. After all these things provide a change of pace from the daily routine; they are recreational; they are done most often with family and friends. But the text says, “Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.” Oh…well…yes, there is that. Perhaps this fourth of the commandments is meant to be linked closely to the first in which we are enjoined to have no gods before the one true God and the second in which we are warned to forgo idolatry and the third that tells us not to make wrongful use of God’s name. Somehow human beings have managed to trivialize these great instructions about our relationship to God by reducing them to rules and regulations about statuary in church and use of foul language and going to movies on Sunday. It is no wonder that so many have turned their backs on such small-visioned and mean spirited religion.
Isn’t this the very kind of religion Jesus came to challenge? When he comes to show us the way back to God and to God’s realm, he confronts such deadening religious practice every time it takes us away from a living relationship with the God who made us and loves us and wants to have abundant life in communion with God. No wonder he responds in anger and frustration with those who have commandeered the living tradition of God’s covenant with humanity and made it a set of rote practices and beliefs that are deadening rather than enlivening.
When Jesus looks into the shadows and sees the suffering of this daughter of Abraham, he is drawn into a sabbath state of compassion. Elcindor Johnson and Lori McPherson say that “In this act we see that caring for the needs of others is actually an integral part of our worship and spiritual growth. Service is a form of worship. Even in the midst of our worship services there are opportunities to minister to the needs of others. And when we minister to the needs of others outside of our church buildings we are creating new sacred spaces” ("Restorers of the Streets," Elcindor Johnson, Lori McPherson, Out In Scripture: An Honest Encounter Between Our Lives and the Bible, Human Rights Campaign, August 26, 2007.) Paul Nuechterlein points out that “Jesus not only reached out to heal the sick but seemed to choose the sabbath as the best time -- as a time to celebrate God's continuing power of creation through healing -- and refusing the moralizing interpretation of his day” (Paul Nuechterlein & Friends, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, August 26, 2007.)
And in our words of preparation Nuecheterlein goes on to say, “Sabbath work is precisely work that frees us to finally do the work that we are created to do, that all of creation is created to do: praise God. This woman is able to be unbound from the burden of Satanic work so that she is immediately able to do her proper work as a beloved creature of God. She is freed to praise her Creator. Jesus seemingly gives us an example not of sabbath rest but of the sabbath work of re-orienting our work in a way that liberates it” (Paul Nuechterlein & Friends, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, August 26, 2007.)
Today’s text is an illustration of Jesus’ attempts to enliven the faith and the religion of his people. Sabbath is not rest as opposed to work. Sabbath may, in fact must, include both. Sabbath, he seems to be saying, is about our relationship with God; it’s about how we live into the holy. Sometimes it does mean rest; sometimes it means going off alone to pray and meditate; sometimes it means engaging in the work of love and compassion. Nor is sabbath of this sort tied to a particular time or place. Of course, for us, it helps to have this place to gather as a community of faith for worship and friendship, care and support, mission and outreach, learning and playing, but sabbath is more a state of mind, an approach to life that keeps us connected to God and God’s will and work for us. May we then hold a sabbath state of mind, including sabbath rest and sabbath work, as we seek to be the church of Jesus Christ in this place and time.