Let us pray. Merciful God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of each heart here before you be good and acceptable in your sight. Amen.
Can you feel that?
The semester starts this week at UNF. Freshmen have moved into the dorms. We have a kick off party on campus this afternoon… Duval County Schools have started again. Traffic is absolutely awful again.
Can you feel it? The city is buzzing again. Things are starting to feel about halfway normal.
Can you feel it in here? In this place? This congregation? This community?
The buzz I feel here is a little different, a little slower to boil, but it’s there. And I don’t think it’s traffic or school starting. I think it’s the Spirit.
God is up to something. Can you feel it?
Now, God is never NOT up to something. We are taught this from a very young age in Sunday school, in Bible studies— even if we don’t say it exactly like this— God is active in all of narratives we know by heart. From the very beginning, God formed the oceans and the dry land, the sun and the moon. God created human beings, God promised new life and new creation after the flood, God led God’s people out of slavery— throughout all of history: God is up to something.
Here we are introduced to a woman of no great importance in the grand scheme of things. She is no queen, no prophet, no mother of a noble. Yet she gets this whole introduction about having a spirit that crippled her and her bent back being unable to straighten for 18 years.
18 years. Those freshmen I said who moved into their dorms this weekend? The majority of them are 18 years old. Young to us, perhaps, but imagine being bent over for that long. Imagine yourself 18 years ago. That was more than half my lifetime ago. Imagine being bent over and unable to stand for that long. More than that, imagine being afflicted with a spirit of sickness for that long.
After 18 long years, is this woman supposed to wait one more day to be healed? When she finally encounters God in the person of Jesus Christ, is she supposed to wait for the proper time? Is Jesus supposed to tell the woman to stay on the margins of society, afflicted and condemned, for one more day? Just a little longer, until all the right conditions have been met.
I love this story because it reminds me that our teaching is nothing without our action. Jesus shows us this first hand.
You see, Jesus isn’t just an observer in the synagogue that day— he is teaching. He is likely in the middle of a crowd of faithful Jews who know God’s story of redemption by heart. And Jesus brings this woman into middle of the crowd, right in the middle of his teaching. As soon as he sees her suffering, he calls her over from the margins of the community and brings her into the center.
This is very specific language in the story— Jesus immediately stops his formal teaching and actually brings this woman— a woman who has likely been ignored for the majority of the last 18 years because of her physical appearance— he brings her into the center of attention because he notices that she is in need of healing, she is need of wholeness.
He was probably teaching and preaching about God’s grace. Jesus was probably telling a story about how God set the captives free and liberated the oppressed. And then he sees this woman and recognizes the opportunity to practice what he’s preaching. He sees that he can demonstrate God’s incredible grace right there in that place and free this woman from the spirit that has crippled her for so long.
And so he does. Jesus stops doing what is seen as “proper” and “legal” in order to do what is most important in the moment.
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Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with rules and laws. They are important to keep us safe and keep our society from being plunged into total chaos. The laws that God has given us in the Old Testament are meant to be gifts, not oppressive restrictions. So when what we believe is proper or legal begins to diminish the incredible power of God’s grace, we have to look again at our own intentions. I mean, when we encounter a situation in which a donkey is treated better than a woman… well, then it might be time to re-evaluate how and why we follow the rules and laws. They begin to no longer be gifts if they are not framed in the grace and love of God.
It seems that the leader of the synagogue lost sight of that. He was indignant that Jesus would heal on the Sabbath.
But the bottom line here is that Jesus saw a need and he fulfilled it. He intimately knew the grace of God and he embodied it in his actions. He saw a woman imprisoned and he set her free. This is the most important thing that God in Jesus does for us in this world— sets us free.
I want you to hear those words: You are set free. This is what our God does. This is the promise that has been made to us. This is the gift of Sabbath and the gift of Jesus. You are set free.
I don’t know exactly what that means for us here at Redeemer, but I can feel the Holy Spirit stirring. I can tell that God is up to something in this place.
And we don’t have to wait for a better day or a more appropriate day— we don’t have to wait for a more solidified strategic plan, for a better definition of what “liberation” or “freedom” mean, we don’t have to wait until we have all the right answers for all the right people— we are called to act as God has taught us through Jesus. We are called to be witnesses to the liberation of Jesus. Can you feel it? Are you ready for it?
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When God is up to something, prepare to be set free, prepare to be unbound: whether from confining diseases, or social norms, or back breaking work, or the lie of busy-ness. God keeps showing up, drawing the circle just a little wider and unleashing a divine horizon that turns to rejoicing over the loosing of every human bondage in every time and place. And for that, and our own renewal this day and always, we praise God. Amen.
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