Time to Heal

 

Luke 13:10-17

There is a story by Alice Hoffman called Seventh Heaven. It’s about a suburban community in Long Island, near Levittown. It’s the kind of community that popped up all over America after World War II, like Levittown. Tract homes, affordable for first-time homeowners. Streets that never go straight, winding around in loops to make sure you won’t drive too fast. Sidewalks everywhere for strollers and tricycles, to keep the kids safe. All the houses look alike, so newcomers driving into the neighborhood get confused about where they are. Neighbors can walk into each other’s homes and know just where everything is, because it is exactly the same as their own house.

The story takes place at the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, a time when the world is on the verge of change. And the people in this community are beginning to feel a little confused.

They are confused because they have always followed the rules. They have done what they are supposed to do. They got married, had two or three kids. The men work hard at their jobs and the women work hard at home. The children watch TV, but not too much TV. The men drink an occasional beer together, but not too much beer. The women chat together during the day over coffee – about the kids, about PTA business, about recipes. And they don’t bother each other once their husbands get home from work. Everyone does their part.

But problems start to come to the neighborhood and they can’t figure out why, because they have always followed the rules. Now they think they are being punished for something, but they just can’t figure out what, because they have always done what they are supposed to do. What could they have done wrong?

In the neighborhood, there is a woman named Donna. She has a husband and three kids. She does everything she is supposed to do, just as she has for the eight years of her marriage. Her family always has clean and mended clothes, nutritious and tasty meals. Everything has a place in her house, and she makes sure everything is in its place. She goes about her work quietly, so quietly that no one really sees her anymore. Her kids, her husband, even her friends. They don’t see her. Which is interesting, in a way, because somewhere along the line Donna started eating for comfort. Emotional eating. She has been doing it for a number of years, and she has grown quite large. But she keeps her head down and she tends to her work.

One day the washing machine breaks down and she calls a repairman. Something extraordinary happens. This stranger, the repairman, he sees her. He has no inappropriate intentions, but he looks at Donna and says, “I can tell you work hard. You’re somebody who really cares.” And Donna cannot remain the same after this, because she knows she has been seen. And because now, for the first time, she realizes that no one else sees her.

And slowly, quietly, Donna begins to break the rules. She can no longer live within the confines of these rules because she sees now that it is slowly killing her spirit.

It was Donna I thought of when I read the story about the crippled woman in the synagogue. Because I wonder what that woman had been thinking for 18 long years. Had she always assumed, without question, that being bent over, unable to stand up straight, was just her place in the world? Had she learned through experience that her bent posture was the role she was born to play? Did everyone in her community expect this of her?

For 18 years she had been bent low by this spirit. 18 years, during which 6 out of 7 days are not the sabbath. However, no one offered her release on any of those days. No one really saw this woman. For 18 years she has been invisible.

She has, perhaps, filled some role, just like Donna filled the role she had been given, keeping groceries in the Frigidaire, meals on the table, clean laundry in the dresser drawers. Perhaps there were certain expectations of this woman in the synagogue, and as long as she met them she remained virtually invisible.

No one saw her. until Jesus saw her.

When he called her over to him, I wonder how she felt. She might have felt afraid; after all, the religious authorities were all around, watching everything. It was already abundantly clear that they disapproved of Jesus. What would it mean to them if she walked over to him? What would happen to her if she publicly associated with a renegade?

She might be risking the community’s scorn, if she walks across the room, forcing everyone to see her affliction.

But sometimes breaking the rules is important. To make the world look at something they don’t want to look at. And sometimes faith means being willing to break the rules.

Jesus breaks the rules now, as he has done before, and calls her over, bringing attention to this woman’s pain. He places his hands on her and says, “Woman, you are set free.” Or in the familiar words of the King James, woman thou art loosed. And at that moment she stands up straight, giving thanks and praise to God.

And we know that, once again, Jesus has done something dangerous.

The act of freeing this woman is a dangerous act, and we need to understand that it doesn’t really matter what you call this affliction she suffered. It doesn’t matter if it is a physical disease of the bones or if it is a kind of spiritual or psychological affliction. It doesn’t matter, because we need to understand that when the scriptures speak of Jesus’ healing, it is speaking of every kind of affliction. We need to know that in Jesus, by the power of God, we may be made well. Period.

The act of freeing this woman in the synagogue is dangerous, as every healing act he performs is dangerous, because it threatens to free all God’s children, from the chains that have held them in their appointed roles. The woman bent over, the slave in shackles, the immigrant in the shadows. The addict bound in addiction, the abused and battered bound in abuse, the poor in poverty. How many ways might we keep people bound by afflictions, because we are uncomfortable seeing them – really seeing them? How many ways might we neglect people bound by afflictions because it is inconvenient to see them?

Jesus frees this woman of the affliction and in the same instant he lets loose the forces of opposition. The leader of the synagogue shouts to the crowds that it is not the day for healing. It is the sabbath day. He cries out to them, “If you came here for healing, then leave now. Come back another day, for today is not the day for healing.”

But if this day, the sabbath day, is not the day for healing then no day is the day for healing. And, yes, that does appear to be the unspoken message. The authorities of this place do not approve of healing, of freeing people from the afflictions that bind them.

But let us not look so critically at the first century religious authorities that we avoid looking at ourselves. Because isn’t it true of 21^st century religion as well, that we are uncomfortable looking at our own and others’ afflictions? Isn’t it true that we are a little afraid of admitting that there are all kinds of pain sitting in our sanctuary, that we might ease a little bit just by seeing one another with compassion? That there are all kinds of afflictions that might be loosed a bit?

The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Things not seen in the ordinary course of this world, but faith gives us eyes to see as God sees.

When faith sees people suffering, faith must stand with the suffering, no matter what it means – even in the face of opposition. And there will be opposition. As people of faith, let us affirm that in faith, and by the power given to us by God through the Holy Spirit, we will use this power the ways that God intends for it to be used. We must affirm that, as the church we will stand where the Lord stands, in the words of the Confession of Belhar. The church must stand where God stands, and that is with the afflicted, the downtrodden, the vulnerable stranger in our midst. The church must stand with the suffering, with the weak, the lonely, the hurting. Which is all of us.

When Jesus called that woman to him, he showed us where the church is meant to stand. Right there in that spot where he was standing. And the woman, when she walked over and stood before him, showed us the courage each of us is called to have. To stand with Jesus, to offer up our wounds to be healed, our chains to be loosed, our spirits to be freed.

In faith, we know that the time for healing is not some other day. The time for healing is always now.