When I first read this story I thought it is was about Jesus' opposition to legalism- about Jesus winning the debate- what should and shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath- this is one of three stories of Jesus getting the established religious leaders all “worked up” because he heals someone of the Sabbath. When I read it again I marvel at the healing power of Jesus “the great physician”-
When I read it again, I thought of it more metaphorically, how does it speak to me today--- about Jesus' victory over oppression- its about the healing or “straightening up” of whatever keeps us bent over and looking down. I see it as all of these things and more- but the more I read it and re-read it, the more I see it as a simple story of love. It’s a story of eye opening love.

Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath.
While he is teaching- he sees someone- she’s not given a name in the text- We are told that she had been suffering for eighteen years. One translation says an "evil spirit" was responsible. Another translator uses the words, "a spirit of weakness." The text says that Satan has bound her - we don’t fully understand the relationship between the spiritual and physical dimension of her condition…
one thing we do know for sure… she was bent over.

I did some research on what would cause this condition of bending over… and medically, this disease is probably what physician's today would call Ankylosing Spondylitis, or Marie-Strümpell Disease, a fusion of the spinal bones. Ankylosing Spondylitis is a chronic progressive form of arthritis with symptoms including inflammation and stiffness- Early in the course of the disease, sufferers often find that the pain is relieved when they lean forward. So they often go through the day leaning slightly forward, and gradually their spine begins to fuse. The more they lean in order to relieve the pain, the greater the angle, until a patient might be bent almost double, as the lady in our story.

This disease had been progressing in the lady for 18 years. What began with lower back pain has ended with permanent deformity. She is bound with invisible chains, chains of calcium now hardened in her spine.

Can you imagine what it would be like to not stand up straight for eighteen years?

After 18 years I would imagine that her whole identity is so wrapped up her in condition that she has no other name except "bent-over woman." crippled woman, the handicapped woman, the one who looks different from other people—
Which, let's face it, is how you and I identify some people — We give them a name- which is not really a name but a label.

When Jesus sees the bent-over woman, he does something most of us wouldn’t do. He focuses his attention on her. Now if you’re like me, when you see somebody who is obviously handicapped, do just the opposite. We look away because we don't want to be impolite- we don’t want to stare. And, of course, it is rude to keep staring at somebody who looks different… but this quickly looking away that we do, well, that’s hurtful too- because it makes them feel like they are not even worthy of our attention, not of value, almost invisible. We don't intend that…But the result is the same, whether we intend it or not.

Jesus sees the bent-over woman. He calls her to him, and he says to her, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." He places his hands on her. And she stands up straight and begins praising God.

Jesus has no patience with those who are more concerned about the rules than they are about relieving human suffering. "You hypocrites!" he says. "You give water to your work animals on the Sabbath. Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound for 18 long years be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?"

Did you hear the name Jesus gives to the bent-over woman? He calls her "a daughter of Abraham." She's the only person in the whole Bible to be called by that name…
Abraham, of course, was the one who, many years before, received God's promise that a great nation would be created out of his descendants, a people through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. This woman, says Jesus, is a daughter of Abraham, no less. She is part of God's plan of salvation and blessing for the whole world.

Salvation and blessing for this worldly world that so many ways of bending us, pushing us, and breaking us down… our jobs, health problems, money problems, marriage problems, family problems, loneliness, addiction, bitterness, worry, anger, lust, selfishness, pride and that was just this morning and it’s only 8:20 in the morning- Lord have mercy! All the hurts we have suffered over the years — the rejections, the disappointments, the betrayals, the failures, the losses, the fears.
-- Its hard to get real about the hurt inside us… sometimes we would rather bend a little to ease the pain than face it- and over time, these things have a way of becoming just how we are- just who we are.

As one preacher said “Jesus loves us just exactly the way we are…and way too much for us to stay that way”
--- Hear the good news! You are a child of Abraham, you are God's child, you are loved without limit, without reservation, without condition. Jesus loves us and Jesus is willing and able to take all that is bent and crooked in our lives and stand us up… straight and strong.

As Henry Nouwen once wrote- the job of a Christian is "To love Jesus, and to love the way Jesus loved."

Holocaust survivor and writer Ellie Wisel once wrote that “the opposite of love is not hate- the opposite of love is apathy.” Not seeing, not hearing, and not caring- that is the opposite of love.

We're invited to open our eyes and see our lives, our world, not just as they are but as they can be, for God has given us, according to the prophet Jeremiah, "a future, and a hope."

As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, "Let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter – but beautiful – struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the children of God."

Open our hearts Lord, help us to love like you- open our hearts Lord, help us to love.

© 2010 Manchaca UMC