Our story this week is less lengthy and complex than the story about that woman at the well. In Luke 13:10-17, Jesus is not straying beyond the borders proper to a Jewish religious leader of his time. He is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. What could be more proper than that? Plenty, we’ll see. Jesus doesn’t do “proper” so well.
“Just then,” Luke says, “there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and unable to stand up straight.” Now some, seeing such a sight, might say, “Oh, isn’t that too bad. She must suffer a great deal.” Others, with a meaner bent of mind, might even think, “Hmmm… wonder what she did wrong to be punished in such a way?”
Jesus saw someone who needed to be set free and given new life. “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.” The leaders of the synagogue were not pleased – more on that later this week. For today, let’s stay with this woman, bent over for eighteen years.
The Gospel writers often tell us how long people were afflicted before Jesus healed them. Eighteen years is a long time, a long time to not be able to look people in the eye in conversation, or to admire a beautiful night sky. If you don’t think anything can be done for you, you live with it, for eighteen years or more. That woman probably thought she would always be like this, and got on with her life.
Jesus said, “Here’s something we can heal.” It is his first instinct – “Come here, let’s deal with that.” He doesn’t deliberate and wonder if it’s “God’s will” – he knows illness and disability are not God’s intention for us. We may not always see healing as immediately as in this story; sometimes it’s more gradual. But we can trust that it is God’s will that we be whole. Wholeness is always the will our God whom we call One and Perfect. How could such a One desire less than wholeness for us?
Today, I invite you to ask yourself what conditions and limitations do you just live with because you don’t think anything can be done (which is like saying that thing is more powerful than God…)? A physical pain or disorder? A long-term depression, or tendency to anger easily? An addiction or inability to lose weight or be as fit as you’d like? Even lack of faith can feel like something we’re stuck with.
If the Good News about Jesus that we find in the Gospels tells us anything, it is that we don’t have to be stuck with anything, from personal failings or physical disease to injustice and systemic corruption. Jesus came to announce our freedom from everything we feel we’re stuck with.
What do you think you’re stuck with that God can release you from? Make a list. In prayer, invite the power and love that made the universe to be released in you, in your body, your mind, your spirit. And expect that the living water of God is flowing and bringing new life to you wherever you need it most. And then the next place, and the next place.
If you’re scared to pray this way because you’re afraid “nothing will happen,” do it anyway. What do you have to lose?
What you have to gain is a deeper relationship with God, more peace as you move into wholeness – and a whole lot more life as you are set free. Amen?
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