By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
August 21, 2022
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Luke 13:10–17 (ESV)
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
Over the past few years, I have made a point to mention what I see as Jesus’ holy rhythm. He made it his custom to worship with the community in the synagogue, He withdrew often to isolated places to pray, and he ministered to the needs within the community. The rhythm of life, Jesus’ yoke or teaching to his disciples was worship, prayer, and service to others. This is the life that Jesus called his disciples to. This is the life that Paul encouraged those that followed him to put on when he said follow me as I follow Christ. This is the life that each of us are called to as well. We are called to worship, prayer, and service. We can even find this in our mission statement: Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and Living the love of Christ with others.
I want to remind and inform you all how we came up with this statement. I came to this Meeting along with another copastor in 2010, over twelve years ago. Our meeting was struggling at that time. We were divided. We were dysfunctional. We were hurting, and out of our pain we lashed out to those around us that seemed to irritate those sore spots.
When I was younger, my family would often drive around the countryside looking for wild fruit. We would go out and pick sand plums, choke cherries, wild grapes, and other fruits so that my mom and grandmother could make jelly. My mom even had us collect yellow clover to make a honey substitute. But there was one fruit that we collected that was irritating, prickly pear. You must be careful when you pick prickly pear fruit, because it is a cactus. There are long white spines that will embed themselves into your skin and they hurt. But the white spines are not the real problem, all around these white spines is an area that is red. It looks almost like it is just a pretty highlight that offset the spine so that you can see them better against the green background of the plant. But this red outline are also tiny spines. If you happen to stab yourself with the white spine then all around the puncture are hundreds of these tiny needles that are also stuck in your skin. The worst thing about these little red spines is that they are red in color when you see them on the plant and all together, but when they are in your skin they disappear. They are nearly invisible once they imbed themselves into your skin. You will pull out the larger spine, and for the next hour you will be plucking out these tiny things.
You pick all the needles out and you go back to work, knowing that soon mom will be making jelly and it will be the best jelly in the world. Nothing you can buy at the store even comes close to what mom and grandma makes. Then seemingly out of nowhere you brush up against something and if feels as if you were shocked, or a knife was just jabbed into your skin and you look down and see nothing. You try to go back to work, and again you are randomly met with pain. You cannot see it, but there is a prickly pear spine still stuck in your skin, and you carefully examine your extremities until you find it. You cannot proceed again until that spine is removed.
This is where we were twelve years ago. We had little spines sticking in our collective skins, and we were trying to figure out what was causing the problem. Some of us wanted to just move forward and start doing outreach ministries. Others of us just felt as if we were in shock because we had just lost a pastor and faced division as we sought the next. And during all that turmoil you called two pastors: John Harkness and me. And both of us were in unity about one thing, we need to slow down and get our bearings before we began to move forward.
We encouraged everyone to pray, and even encouraged that someone come into this meetinghouse every day to pray for at least an hour. For several months we walked with all of you and ask an important question, who are we and what is our mission? For several months we all discussed the topic. We did not want a statement recycled from somewhere else, because we as a meeting needed to know who we are and what our mission is.
After praying individually, after sitting in holy expectancy for several meetings, and much discussion we came up with a simple statement of who we are and what we do: Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, Living the love of Christ with others. I did not come up with this, John Harkness did not come up with, the clerk of the Meeting did not bring this statement about. It was something that we, each one of us, contributed to and I hope it defines who we are individually and as a community. I want us to be a group of people known as Loving God. I want the entire community of faith to know that we as individuals and as a meeting of people embracing the Holy Spirit. And I hope that the entire city will see each of us living the love of Christ with others.
We have come a long way since 2010. We used to have a gravel parking lot, not anymore, and now our building is more accessible for those with disabilities. The first Sunday I spoke as one of the official pastors there were twelve people in attendance, and about half of them were my family members. Now we print things in multiple languages. We faced a worldwide pandemic and were able to adjust and continue our worship without much trouble, and in many ways, we came out of that stronger than we went into it.
Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, Living the love of Christ with others. In those three simple statements we say a great deal. We are a worship community, we are Friends, and we are Christ centered. Those words are not only a mission statement but can easily be turned into spiritual checkpoints or queries. How are you loving God? How are you embracing the Holy Spirit? In what ways are you living the love of Christ with others?
Jesus has a holy rhythm of worship, prayer, and ministry or service. He called his disciples to join him in that sacred rhythm and to share it with others. I want us always to remember that rhythm. If you only learn one thing from me, I hope you learn the holy rhythm of Jesus. I bring this up because it is difficult to live that rhythm.
There are some Sundays that I really do not want to come to church. At times I even wonder if I really believe the things, I claim I believe. There are times over the past twelve years that I even wondered if it might have been better if I would have just resigned eleven years ago. But just as soon as those thoughts come into my mind, I am reminded of something else. Recently my son was listening to music on the google speaker. A song came on that caught his attention, and he yells, “Dad you have got to listen to this song.” Something in the song sparked within his mind something that I have said or read out of scripture. The song that sparked this in him was, “Hymn for the 81%”, the chorus of the song says:
“You said to love the lost, so I’m loving you now. You said to speak the truth, I’m calling you out. Why don’t you live the words that you put in my mouth, may love overcome and justice roll down.”
I sat in my big blue chair listening to my son tell me why he wanted me to hear that song, and I sat in tears thanking God for showing me yet again why he called me. I am here, I am called to be a person loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. An eight-year-old kid heard those words in a song and that kid yelled out to his deaf dad, and he told me that this song is what we are supposed to do.
There is nothing like being taught by a child. Now you all know why I do not mind teaching the kids Sunday school class. They often teach me as much as I teach them.
We get distracted from the truth of who we are and what our purpose is. Life is filled with unexpected situations that seem to bombard us from every direction, and each one demands our attention. Even if we are not overwhelmed by the stress of life, if we stop for a moment and look at what is going on, we often find that we once had a plan and somewhere along the line we ended up in a completely different place. That is why I hate the question that so many people ask in interviews, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I can tell them where I would like to be, but I am such a realist I know that the reality of the situation is I am probably going to be two or three steps farther back than I started because I have the attention span of a squirrel. And just so you know, according to the internet the Warner coat of arms has a squirrel on it so I must come from a long-distracted line.
This is where we find Jesus today. This is the last time that Jesus is in a synagogue, according to Luke. I am not saying that Jesus himself is distracted, but he finds himself facing a distracted community. They are all caught up in the systematic aspect of history and expressions of faith that they have forgotten the whole purpose of their existence. And when Jesus comes in, he irritates them like one of those red prickly pear spines.
There is a woman that had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. Luke does not tell us where she was, or what she was doing. Only that she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. Some commentators have said that she may have had a medical condition we know as scoliosis. When people have this condition their spine curves in a manner that is not ideal. And if it is not corrected eventually the vertebra will develop calcium deposit, to strengthen the spinal column that will prevent the individual from standing straight and will cause the curve to worsen. We do not know what exactly caused this woman’s weakness or disabling spirit. All we know is she had some sort of condition that was keeping her in bondage. And she was in bondage. There were cultural and social stigma attached to illness in ancient times. Many believed that if you were sick, it was because God cursed you. Even today some people still teach this.
This woman lived with this burden for eighteen years. Who sinned? Was it her or her parents? Is she possessed? Imagine if you had to live within a community where every time you left your house, people would turn away and avoid you because they were afraid that you were cursed. Yet Jesus did not turn away, he saw her. And he called her over to him.
We often fail to recognize just how important this last visit to the synagogue truly is. When we read about Jesus turning over tables in the temple, we know he means business, but this is even more shocking. Jesus is turning over the tables of accepted tradition. Within first century tradition Rabbis would rarely speak with women, this is not the case today because a Rabbi I listen to on YouTube teaches women conferences all the time. But back then women were separated. They were not taught; they had their role and men had theirs. And when it came to faith, men were to lead. Jesus acknowledges her, he sees her, he calls to her, and he brings her into the community. He says to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he places his hands on her, blessing her. And she stands straight. Imagine seeing that happen before your eyes. Imagine being freed from that kind of chronic pain.
What is the response? The ruler of the synagogue speaks to the crowd saying, “there are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” The ruler of the synagogue did not see the woman, he did not acknowledge or have compassion for the woman in her need. He did not even praise God when he saw that she was healed. He was distracted by the letter of the law and missed the point of the law. He raised his voice to the crowd within the synagogue and made a proclamation, “we must honor this day and keep it holy!”
Jesus looked at the man, he looked at the crowd, and he responds, “You Hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
We can often get distracted by the rules. We want to make sure we keep them all and, in the process, we fail to see why the rule is even there. Why is there a speed limit? Depending on the day I might say it’s a tax on people that need to get somewhere, but really it is there to promote attentive driving. You all drive a machine that is capable of massive destruction and death, be careful! The law is not there to restrict you, it is there to remind you. Just like the Sabbath. God wants to remind us to relax, stop the daily grind and remember who we are and what the point is.
The ruler was telling them to follow the rules, I cannot fault him for that. Ninety-nine percent of the time I would back him up, but there are always exceptions to the rules. One exception is for a thirsty animal, you need to untie them and lead them to water. The point of this exception is that life should be respected and honored, even the life of your donkey. They want to make sure that we are keeping the rule, yet Jesus points out that they are treating this woman in a manner lower than an animal. The ruler is worried about the violation of the rule, yet Jesus is worried about restoring health and dignity to a daughter of Abraham.
William Barclay says in his New Daily Study Bible commentary, “Jesus’ action in this matter makes it clear that it is not God’s will that any human being should suffer one moment longer than is absolutely necessary. The Jewish law was that it was perfectly legal to help someone on the Sabbath who was in actual mortal danger. If Jesus had postponed the healing of this woman until the next day no one could have criticized him; but he insisted that suffering must not be allowed to continue until tomorrow if it could be helped today.[1]”
Who are we? What are we here for? We were created to Love God with everything we are and all that we have, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We were created to go out into all the world and let love overcome and justice to roll down. We were created to bring all of creation to a place where we all reflect the image of God in all that we do.
Will we look at the rule or will we see the woman? Will we show those around us that there is a better life available and live that life in front of them. Will we live that life so they too could choose to follow the God who loves them so much that he sent his one unique son teach, restore, and redeem them. How are you loving God? How are you embracing the Holy Spirit? In what ways are you living the love of Christ with others?
[1] Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 211.
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