You are Set Free

 Luke 13:10-17
August 22, 2022

Rev. June Wilkins

 

Jesus is in a synagogue, it’s just like a church like this.

They’re having a little class discussion in there.

And a woman comes in who had been

bent over in pain for the last 18 years.

She couldn’t stand up straight at all.

Jesus meets her, lays his hands on her

and he tells her that she is set free from her ailment.

And just like that, she’s healed, stands upright.

And she’s off praising God.

Seems like a good day, right?

 

Now, was the reaction from the church people

wonder, disbelief, excitement?

No. The pastor is upset because Jesus

healed this woman on the Sabbath.

He said to his parishioners, “he had six other days to

do that kind of work, why would this man

break the Sabbath?”

So Jesus did an amazing thing,

but they couldn’t see past him breaking a rule.

 

Now we could ask, “why would Jesus break this rule?”

This woman had been sick for 18 years,

what would one more day have mattered?

He could have asked her to come back the next day.

Then everyone would have been happy.

 

But I think Jesus purposely broke the rule

and healed this woman on the Sabbath, right there

in the sacred place, because his objective wasn’t just to free

the woman, his objective was to free everyone.

 

Now the Sabbath is and was a great gift especially in Jesus time.

Back then, most people worked seven days a week.

It was very unusual that people would take any day off.

But the God ordered them to take one day a week off.

 

The world told people that they were only as good

as what they produced, how they fed the economy.

But God told them that they were precious even

when they weren’t producing anything.

Sabbath was great gift that God had given

to the people for their and well being

and to help their relationship with God.

It was a gift, a discipline, and reminder of God.

We should probably take our Sabbath time more seriously today.

 

But, as often happens, the religious leaders took this gift

and turned it into a rigid law.

If anyone were to do any work on that day,

they were chastised and even brought up on charges.

 

And the Sabbath worked easily for those who were stable.

But for those who were poor,

for those living on the edge of poverty,

for those who had to beg or collect food for a living,

it could be a hardship.

In the gospels, Jesus and the disciples were

chastised for picking ears of corn to eat on the Sabbath –

when they were just getting themselves something to eat.

 

This is not just the truth for the Pharisees

or for Jewish religious law at all.

All religions often will take a good idea -- a gift from God

and turn in it into a weapon of control.

A way to scrutinize other people. A litmus test.

They used it to catch other people “sinning”

They turned it into a way to make themselves

look better and have more power over people

and to make other people look bad.

They turned it into a method of bondage or imprisonment.

 

Worship? You needed to do that in the appointed time 

in the appointed way or else you’re not a good Christian.

Communion? Only certain, worthy people get to eat.

Sex and sexuality? Forget about it, you’re doing everything wrong.

Couldn’t recite the Lord’s Prayer and the 10 commandments

correctly in front of the teacher at 6 years old. (that was me.)

You’re marked for life. You don’t love Jesus enough

 

Rules can do that. They can be good gifts to help us be faithful.

And they can become bondage.

We end up serving the rules, instead of the rules serving us.

The rules can be used to hurt people

and shame them instead of setting them free.

 

When the church only sees the rules,

then we run the danger of only seeing the world

for how people are breaking the rules.

God’s way can become a way of more pain than a joy.

 

How many times has the Christian Church been a place like that?

How many times have our churches placed bondage

on spirits rather than freeing them?

How many times have rules come before relationships?

How many times has dogma stood

in the way of the movement of the Spirit?

 

For many people outside it,

the church been identified as the place of

forbidding, restriction, bean counting, and finger wagging

 

Even if we’re not chastising people for breaking the rules,

we’re mired in our own bureaucracy

and unable to act when the need is there.

we’re slow, we’re far too careful, we over-think.

Things get stuck in endless committees.

Analysis paralysis.

 

God’s church has a reputation for being

quick to judge and slow to act.

God’s church has the reputation of being

the place of “no” instead of “yes".

 

So often Churches have the resources:

we have the people, we have the know-how,

we know high people in high places,

we even have the inspiration to do something,

But individually or as a group, we put it off,

tomorrow, later, maybe another day.

 

This woman could probably have waited,

She was used to waiting.

I’m sure she was used to being put off and brushed aside

by friends and family, by the religious leaders, by the people of God,

If Jesus had told her, “look, today is the Sabbath

and you know, rules are rules.

If you just come back tomorrow, I’ll help you.”

She would have said, of course I understand, I’ll come back.

She probably expected that exact reaction.

 

But here was Jesus, and there was her need.

Jesus has not come here to reinforce rules,

or to give us more rules, to uphold traditions,

or to help us hide behind our bureaucracy and systems.

Jesus has come to free us.

 

Jesus has come to free us from those

outside forces, illness, pain, injustice, addictions.

And Jesus has come to free us from our own

self-imposed bondage, our own prisons,

our own fears, our own restrictions,

our own apathy, the prisons that we put ourselves

and other people in in the spirit of “good order”

or “following the rules”

Jesus means to free all of us from all of that.

 

18 years is a long time to be bent over.

But many people have been bent over longer.

Waiting for hope, healing, justice

waiting for God to intervene and heal.

Well, we are God’s hands and feet in this world.

We are the body of Christ.

 

If you read my newsletter article,

we’re facing an issue here on this Island.

Chimney Cove, the apartments next door to us,

that have been there longer than we have,

is being sold to developers.

 

We knew that might happen,

but they are evicting people from their homes,

in the most uncaring, irresponsible
and unjust way.

They’ve given most of them only 30 days to get out.

Threatening them with the sheriff.

And where are they supposed to go?

 

We are people with means and power.

We know people, we can talk with people people will listen to us.

We can tell them how unjust and unacceptable this is.

 

We’re working with Deep Well on ways to help

the people of Chimney Cove

and Christ Lutheran is raising funds to help

their immediate needs, and I hope you all give to that.

 

But this whole thing is wrong.

It’s wrong for them next door and it’s wrong for people

in the past and in the future who are vulnerable

and will be displaced from this Island to feed someone else’s gain.

Taking away what little some people have because

someone wants more.

 

We have the ability to change that.

The city has the ability to make sure this doesn’t happen again

and we can help persuade them that things have to change.

We can help make this a place that cares for all it’s people,

rich and poor alike.

 

So what should we say?

“We have rules, we have processes to follow.

We’ll get to you when we can?

Should we say,

“Churches shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing?

We’re busy with other things?

Go somewhere else? wait until tomorrow?”

Or do we actually act like Jesus?

 

Jesus has come to free all of us.

To help us to stand up straight,

to free us from our bondage,

from our restrictions, from our excuses, from our apathy

from whatever is holding us back

from doing what God would have us do.

 

People of God, you are set free from your ailment.

Stand up, rejoice, and follow the Spirit of God.