Luke 13:10-17
All our readings today concern real encounters with the Living God doing very real things in lives.
Both Jeremiah and the bent-over woman were physically touched by God - Father and Son.
The Psalmist is crying out to God for refuge and help, in the full hope and expectation that it will be provided, because he has seen God’s faithfulness already when he looks back on his life. They have all been seen by God, just as we have.
When the Kingdom of God comes so close to us and we find ourselves suddenly aware that we are seen by God exactly the way we are, and, for a moment, encounter heaven.
Jesus’ miracles always have a greater purpose than the supernatural event itself. In Jeremiah, the event of God touching Jeremiah’s lips, had the greater purpose of prophesying against and bring to pass the downfall of nations – including his own, Judah.
Last time we looked at the straightening of the bend-over woman we focused on the miracle of Jesus seeing her at all, with her both bent-over, and sitting behind the screen in the synagogue where women had to sit, literally out of sight.
Two things happened in these two encounters. Both Jeremiah and the woman were seen by God, and then they were touched by God. They had God’s hands laid on them!
What then is the greater purpose of Jesus’ healing of the woman on the sabbath? Two things, I think. Firstly, we know that we too are seen. No matter how hunched up we’ve become, or how unlikely it is that anybody would care to see us – we are seen!
The woman couldn’t see Jesus so had no expectation that he would see her. She was passive and Jesus did everything. The one big thing she did do was show up. She went to church!
She didn’t come up to Jesus asking to be healed, (she would not have been allowed to speak in any case), but she was seen exactly as and where she was and all the initiative in this healing is with Jesus.
We too are seen. The power of the miracle is in what comes before and follows it. Jesus announces her freedom before laying hands on her, with a word. “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”
Then he touched her. His word, then his touch. When she is healed, she straightened up and praised God.
I read it in different translations and could almost feel her humble yearning to be healed, but she couldn’t ask. Jesus took the initiative when she just couldn’t. What utter grace and love from our Saviour.
Which brings us to the second greater purpose of this healing – once we know we are seen, we ourselves can now see. Jesus’ touch allowed her to stand tall and true and for the first time in eighteen years, see clearly.
We can be bent double by the cares and worries of this world, and we just can’t see straight.
But we can see clearly when we know we are being seen by God.
In her straightened state she praised God. She could now see. What she saw was the power and glory of the Kingdom of God and she couldn’t help but to begin praising God.
One touch, just like the one Jeremiah received, from the King of Kings changes everything.
The unnamed woman’s healing in this week’s Gospel reading is a story of expansion, revelation, vision widened by grace, a glorious progression toward the life God intends for all of us.
This new grace-filled way of seeing means that being channels of God’s grace has nothing to do with the rules of the world or even the church, but all about the grace lavished on us by the one who saw and formed us in our mother’s wombs and now flows like a river from the body of Christ.
As Ps 110:7 says, God is the lifter of our heads (Ps 110:7 et al) so we too, can look the world in the eye with confidence in our Lord, and we too are compelled to praise God.
There’s more to the story, however, and two sides to this theme of shame that runs through this reading. Not only is there a wonderful healing of a shamed woman, Jesus puts to shame those who rebuke him for healing on the sabbath.
It is important to remember that some people had to work on the Sabbath. The Jewish priesthood of course had to work on the Sabbath!
And the rich irony of today’s reading is that it is Jesus who is doing the true priestly work, whilst the priesthood criticises the woman and says to her come back another day when we do healings!
The priestly role in the Old Testament was to intercede with God on behalf of the people – to enter the Holy of Holies where God dwelt. Jesus’ actions in healing the woman are a form of intercession between the bent-over woman and God.
This is classic Jesus behaviour. Lifting up the lowly whilst knocking the mighty ones down from their puny little thrones.
Matching a proud and envious man’s rebuke with a direct and theologically grounded rebuke of his own, turning people’s expectations inside out. Grace wins and hypocrisy loses.
I always feel like cheering when I read this healing, just like the crowd did.
This story’s reversal of fortunes is worthy of our joy, particularly because it allows the crowds in the story to experience God’s grace directly through the healing work of Christ.
We who earnestly seek the furthering of God’s desires for our broken world can rightly rejoice in the demotion of the proud and hypocritical.
Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we too are free to now enter the Holy of Holies; the very throne room of God, and intercede for each other, just as Jesus did and still does.
This what we do as a church.
Jesus is the lifter of our heads, and we can truly see, as we have been straightened in all the places where we were once “twisted out of shape by society’s pliers” (Bob Dylan).
As today’s Hebrews reading says, Our God truly is a consuming fire, the Holy Spirit in our lives working out and bringing to pass the pure and perfect will of God.
Let me pray …