Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
August 26, 2007: Pentecost 13
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Luke 13:10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And 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. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "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?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
I was having coffee last week with a young pregnant woman last week. She and her husband are expecting a baby in November. “Have you picked out names yet?” I asked. She shook her head no, and so we talked about other things—what it’s been like to be pregnant, what they need to do to get the nursery ready, which relatives are coming after the baby is born..
But my mind kept drifting back to this thing about naming another human being or being named by other human beings. It’s a delicate process with far-reaching implications.
Think about it—were you named for a beloved relative or someone your parents admired? If so, what did that say to you about their hopes for your life and what affect did that have on you? Or were you given a name that sounded beautiful to them or seemed admirable to them or sounded quirky to them? If so, what did that say to you about their hopes for your life and what affect did it have on you?
And so, being named Jessica in a family is not the same as a being named Dakota or Barbara. Likewise, being named Gregory in a family is not the same as being named Shane or David.
I will never forget my son Evan’s diatribe against me when he reached the age of fourteen. “I hate the name Evan!” he declared. “It’s too soft! Why didn’t you name me Joe or Mike?”
This was only bested by my family’s discovery in the year after my father died, that his given name had been Lester, of all things, and that he, himself, in his twenties had changed his name to Lawrence, because it better expressed who he wanted to be.
But names, whether we like them or not, are only some of the words by which we’re known. Other words come to be applied to us as well. The youngest in the family is called “baby.” The amusing one in the classroom is called “the clown,” the smart one is called “the brain.” and the overweight one is taunted with “fatso.”
This, of course, doesn’t stop when we become adults. The terms just go underground—they’re not so much said out loud as they become the lenses through which we’re perceived by others: “the young person with great potential,” “the recently widowed woman.” “the man who has trouble holding a job,” “the person who gets all the job offers.” “the person with cancer,” “the man or woman in the middle of a divorce or the break-up of a relationship.”
In our gospel, it is the Sabbath, the one day on which all creatures—human beings and animals alike—are to unwind, to rest and renew their God-given wholeness, free from the yoke of anyone’s demands. On this day into the synagogue comes a woman that Luke does not identify by name. Instead she is referred to as “the bent one.”
She has had this ailment for eighteen years, a point made twice in the text. But, as our gospel tells us, after all this time, in a flash, Jesus sees her, calls her over, lays his hands on her, and sets her free from her ailment. In response to this, the leader of the synagogue is outraged, and begins talking to the crowd, telling them that the Sabbath is not the time to come to the temple for healing.
He is, of course, making a legitimate point within that context. But legitimate points are not what either motivate or constrain Luke’s Jesus.
And so what is this Jesus all about? What was he about on that Sabbath, but more importantly what is he about on this Sabbath—a day when each of us is here in some sense bearing both our name and the many labels others have given us or that we have given ourselves, bearing the burden both of our potential and our ailment, and in it all, seeking a moment of Sabbath renewal, a time to be released from everything that binds us and stands between us and the love and acceptance that is God. What was this Jesus all about?
First, Luke’s Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath or to put it another way, Luke’s Jesus is Sabbath incarnate. For Sabbath is all about reclaiming an identity of wholeness that comes to us from being liberated from the things that have the potential to keep us bent, bound up, or enslaved. Luke’s Jesus, therefore, is not somehow subject to the Sabbath. He is the energy that the Sabbath flows out of. For us this means that all our worship, all our welcome to others, all that we do with children here, all our community life flows out of this same energy. We are witnesses to a Jesus whose property is lifting up what is bent over, unbinding what is bound up and bringing to wholeness all that is partial or fragmented.
Second, Luke’s Jesus is all about now. I love this part. In other words, for Jesus and, therefore, for us, its never too late to go from being bent to standing upright, never too late for liberation, never too late for wholeness. It’s never too late, and there isn’t a moment to lose. Along with this, I believe, comes another harder message—the urgency and importance of now—means that our standing upright, our liberation, or our wholeness will not wait for a convenient time or place. Often in fact we can count on our standing upright, our liberation and our wholeness coming at an inconvenient time and happening at an inconvenient place.
Finally, Luke’s Jesus is about renaming and relabeling. Look at his words to the leader of the synagogue referring to the woman known only as the bent woman earlier in the passage: “… ought not this woman,” Jesus asks “a daughter of Abraham…be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Jesus renames the woman not only for her but for all us who are listening in to this conversation. He does not refer to her in terms of her ailment but redefines who she is, who she has always been by calling her a “daughter of Abraham,” that is, a person entitled to worth and respect in that she is an heir of God’s covenant. And so this morning, we, all of us, are sons and daughters of the most high. We were this before our parents named us or others labeled us. This is the reality confirmed and conferred in baptism.
Writer, and Southerner Fred Craddock tells of meeting a man one day in a restaurant
“You a preacher?” the man asked.
Somewhat embarrassed, Fred said, “Yes.”
The man pulled a chair up to Fred’s table. “Preacher, I’ll tell you a story. When I was a little boy, life was rough because my mother had me but she had never been married. Do you know how a small Tennessee town treats people like that? Do you know the words they used to name kids that didn’t have a father?”
“Well, we never went to church. But for some reason or other, we went to church one night when a revival was going on. There was a tall visiting preacher there, dressed in black with a thunderous voice.”
“We sat toward the back, my mother and me….and after hours of powerful preaching, we were slipping out the back door when I felt that preacher’s hand on my shoulder. I was scared. He looked at me, looked me in the eye and said, “Boy, who’s your Daddy?”
“I don’t have a Daddy.” That’s what I told him in trembling voice, “I don’t have a Daddy.”
“O yes you do,” boomed the preacher, “you’re a child of the Kingdom, you have been bought with a price, you are a child of the King!”
“I was never the same after that. Preacher, so for God’s sake, preach that.”
The man pulled his chair away from the table. He extended his hand and introduced himself. Craddock said the name rang a bell. He was the former governor of the state of Tennessee.
You and I are a world away from the stark images of Craddock’s story of a Southern young boy raised without a father who, after encountering the words of a revival preacher, became governor of a state. We’re also are a world away from Luke’s tale of the bent woman healed by Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath to the consternation of the religious authorities. But know this, we are not a world away from here and now and God’s invitation to us to let go of our bent selves, to stand upright, and to claim our name and our identity as sons and daughters of God, a name that supercedes all names and all labels, an identity that will hold us fast.
Works cited or consulted
William Willimon’s sermon of 8/23/98 in which he tells the story about Fred Craddock
