Don’t Get Hung Up
Luke 13:10-17, 14:1-6
August 18, 19, 2007

As I mentioned in the newsletter, I know that many of you are serious sports fans. So I know that you must be enjoying the significant stories and developments that are unfolding moment by moment on ESPN. Some of you are passionate about baseball.You have been glued to the tube lately to watch Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th home run and Tom Glavine win his 300th game. And you’ve seen countless replays of Barry Bonds controversial record-breaking home run.

Some of you are passionate about football and can’t wait for the season to begin. Joe Jacoby of the Washington Redskins was once quoted as saying, “I’d run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl.” One of his friends from another team replied, “I’d run over Joe’s mom too!”

Some of you are passionate about fishing—you might even do something like the guy who fished all day and caught nothing. Rather than being embarrassed, he stopped at a fish market to pick out three of the biggest trout he could find. The clerk asked, “Should I wrap them up for you?” He said, “No. I’ll stand here; you can throw them to me.” “That way, if my wife asks if I caught anything today, I’ll be able to tell the truth!”

And I know we have a number of passionate golfers in the church family—whether you’re good at it or not! I officiated at the funeral of Dr. Roy Martin last week, and one of the stories his family shared was about his love/hate relationship with golf. He was terrible at it—but he kept on playing. After a bad shot, he was known to wrap his club around the nearest tree or throw his bag of clubs into the nearest pond! On one occasion, his wife became so perturbed about all of the time he spent on the course that she put his clubs under the blanket one night in the place she usually slept. I think he got the message!

We all have our passions. Some of you are passionate about sports. Some of you are passionate about music. Some of you are passionate about gardening and yard work. Some of you are passionate about political causes. And that’s great—as long as we don’t get so distracted by our passions that we miss the really important things that are going on around us.

IN THIS WEEK’S LESSON FROM LUKE, WE SEE THAT JESUS IS PASSIONATE ABOUT HELPING PEOPLE. And Jesus has a run-in with another passionate person—a religious leader who is passionate about following all of the rules and regulations of the law. The leader of the synagogue is “indignant!” He explains to the folks in the crowd—who havejust witnessed a miraculous healing—that Jesus is breaking the law. “You can’t cure people on the Sabbath—there are six other days to do this kind of work!” Now, before we join the crowd and start hissin’ and dissin’ this man, I want to shout out “three cheers” for the leader of synagogue! He offers a sound argument about remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.

Many folks in our 24/7/7 culture could learn from this man. We have those who campaign to put the 10 Commandments everywhere, but we live in a society a couple of them are ignored and broken on a regular basis. Some of you remember a time when coaches never scheduled any athletic activities on Sunday—or Wednesday. Some of you remember when the stores weren’t open on Sunday. And some of you know that we often worship an unholy host of other gods before we worship our Creator God on the weekends. So, you tell ‘em, synagogue leader! Back then, the Sabbath was a holy day that was considered sacred. Violations were serious—soldiers sometimes died rather than violate the Sabbath.

And yet, ideally, the day was not considered a burdensome obligation. The Sabbath was to be a joyous day of rest and worship and eating and drinking! It was a memorial of God’s rest and creation! It was a time to remember the liberation of God’s people from slavery. The day was set up with social justice in mind. It was a day of much-needed rest for servants and slaves. And even the poor and hungry were invited to join in the eating and drinking. To honor the Sabbath was a way to honor God—work was not permitted. But to use a form of a well-worn political question: “What do you mean by ‘work’”?

Ah, that is where some interesting discussions began! In this story, Jesus’ interpretation is actually closer to tradition—surprise! The law allowed for healing in emergency, life-threatening situations. Jesus affirms the life-enhancing aspect of the Sabbath—for him there is no holy do-nothing middle ground. The religious leader is correct, of course—he is sharing a form of the truth. But Jesus’ compassion for this woman who has suffered 18 long years is more correct and more caring. Sometimes people get sick; and sometimes religion gets sick. Luke does a masterful job of sharing these stories—you may have noticed some interesting patterns in his writing.
The past couple of weeks I have picked split passages from Luke 13 and 14 based on common themes.

Today’s texts follow the same path: Jesus heals on the Sabbath, there is conflict with religious authority, a similar analogy is offered. We also see here Luke’s characteristic pairing of female and male characters. The fact that the woman had struggled for 18 years also carries meaning. The number “18” connects the reference to the number of folks killed in the accident mentioned in the previous story. Many of you know about keywords from your computer searches—Luke was using them a long time ago to bind his stories together. But this is a beautiful story! Jesus lays his hands on her, an act of blessing and healing. She stands up straight—there is wonderful literal and symbolic meaning here. In a society where women are marginalized, Jesus not only restores her health but allows her to stand tall, with dignity and pride. Similar pride and dignity are restored to the man in the second story. And Jesus “puts the religious authorities to shame.” In this first-century society, honor and shame are critically important. Jesus turns things upside down—the woman and man are honored; the opponents are put to shame—and the entire crowd rejoices!

THE WOMAN HAD BEEN CRIPPLED BY A SPIRIT FOR 18 YEARS; DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO HAVE HAD TROUBLE STRAIGHTENING UP, OR WHO HAVE BEEN HUNG UP FOR ANY NUMBER OF REASONS? Perhaps you have seen middle school students develop poor posture because they grow and little faster than their peers? The young people are beautiful and handsome—but all they know is that they feel different and that they don’t want to stand out. They are crippled by a spirit of embarrassment. Perhaps you know folks who are bent over with too much responsibility? Not that their burdens are any greater than anybody else’s—but what weighs them down is a sense of inadequacy. Although they are highly capable, somewhere along the way, someone has made them feel like they are inadequate. You can hear it in the way they talk and see it in the way they walk. They are crippled by a spirit of inferiority.

And sometimes we are crippled by our religious beliefs—that’s what happens to the man in today’s story—and it can happen to the best of us. As we think about what is new and what is old and what is worth keeping, church historian Jaroslav Jan Pelikan offers a helpful insight. He writes: “Tradition is the living faith of those who have passed away; traditionalism is the dead faith of those who are living.” So here we have a guide: Is our faith a dead formalism or a living faith? Has our faith burned out or burned us out, or is it a blazing fire? Even worse, sometimes folks’ desire to preserve their dead faith becomes manipulative and deadly.

One of our Sunday School classes is studying this very subject right now. They are discussing Charles Kimball’s book, When Religion Turns Evil. In her book, Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, Madeleine L’Engle poses some very important questions: “What is there that makes Christians feel that hate can express the love of Jesus?” “Why are those who criticize my writing people who loudly proclaim themselves to be followers of Christ? “And why do others, to my humble awe, find that the books lead them to Christ? “I think of myself as a fundamentalist, that is, someone who still cares about fundamental things, like truth and friends and imagination and love and story and honor and compassion.” “One can be a fundamentalist without being a literalist, and one can be a literalist without being a fundamentalist.” Sometimes when we combine the two, we can run into trouble. Sometimes we try to force our understandings of what are fundamental truths upon everybody else. And this can happen across the entire theological or sociological or political spectra. We become the very people we are protesting against.

It’s like the person who became tired of seeing bumper stickers. He stuck something on the back of his car that read “Ban Bumper Stickers!”

Some of you may have read the influential book The Ugly American. The book describes the story of an American engineer, Homer Atkins. The man literally had an ugly mug, and he was sent to Viet Nam to build dams and roads for the military. But Homer refused to build dams and roads until the government first solved some of the problems of their own people. At the suggestion of his wife, Homer designed a bicycle treadmill pump to get water up to the hillside paddies on which the people depended for food. For centuries this water had been carried laboriously by pails.

Homer’s wife, Emma, was also curious about the fact that every woman over 60 had a bent back. Then she noticed that after the monsoon season, the sweeping of debris from the streets was inevitably done by older people who used a broom with a short handle. Since wood for longer handles cost too much and was in short supply, Emma found a long stalked reed and planted shoots from this reed by her door. She tended these reeds very carefully. One day neighbors came to the house. She cut a tall reed, bound coconut fronds to it, and began to sweep with her back straight. When the people questioned her concerning the reed, she told them where they might find it growing.

Four years later, when Emma and Homer were back in Pittsburgh, they received a letter from the leader of the village. The letter read: “In the village of Chang Dong today, the backs of our old people are straight and firm. “No longer are their bodies painful and bent. “You will be pleased to know that on the outskirts of the village we have constructed a small shrine in your memory. “At the foot of the shrine are these words: ‘In memory of the woman who unbent the backs of our people.’”

Those words could be said about Jesus—“he unbent the backs of countless people”—including the woman in our story today. But we cannot stop there. Those words could be written about you and me. We’re called to straighten the backs of others. We’re called to empower people to stand tall with dignity and pride. We, too, are called to live out the love of God… Whether it is the Sabbath or not.