Wondering: The Healing of the Bent Over Woman

Luke 13:10-17

It's been more than four years since the name "Dancing with the Word" came to mind as a title for this blog. Although anything but a 'dancer' myself, I have always loved the interplay of words and ideas. This has been especially so as I have learned to exercise such a 'light touch' when it comes to interpreting the Word among God's people. There is a back and forth-ness to dancing, just as it is in our ongoing conversation with the Word. For me, this is how this back and forth conversation often looks;

Most every week I start with the text itself. I read through it once and I read it over again. I pull out a pen and underline what strikes me this time around. I dip into the commentaries, hoping for a new way into the story. Sometimes I go to the original language, but it is so that this is not my best gift. I try hard to set aside whatever conclusions I came to the last time around --- and yes, this can be hardest of all. Sometimes one way of thinking gets cemented in my brain and I have to work hard to be open to new possibilities. Many weeks I find the best way to open myself up to new ways or thinking is to simply start writing down questions about what is before me. In this way, I force myself to 'wonder'at the text. Indeed, my own journey to the sermon almost always begins with questions like those which follow as I have sat still in the story before us now:

• What was it that caused Jesus to notice the 'bent over woman' in the first place? And why her and not another?

• Was it a hard choice for him to abandon his teaching and focus on her? Did it cross his mind that he might offend someone by choosing to heal on the Sabbath or was he actually trying to bait those who would oppose him on this?

• Why does it matter that Jesus does this on the Sabbath? Now surely it is so that any conversation about "Sabbath Keeping" today must necessarily differ greatly from such conversation in the time of Jesus. At least my observation of the culture where I serve leads me to believe that questions about what is appropriate or not on the Sabbath rarely enter our collective or individual conversations. Indeed, many of us could perhaps benefit from a more 'rigid' interpretation of this particular practice. On the other hand? Hardly a 'day off' goes by without interruption of text or phone message causing me again and again to re-evaluate how I will 'keep Sabbath' this time around. What is your experience of this? How have you resolved it?

• If "Sabbath" is not a "rule" which gets in our way, is it possible that like the leader of the synagogue, we also sometimes hide behind 'other rules' which keep us from faithfully from following Jesus? What are those 'rules' in your experience? Are there ways in which our 'rules' --- both spoken and unspoken --- help keep the status quo? Indeed, are there ways in which our 'rules' keep the privileged, privileged and don't allow a way in for those who are not so privileged?

• What must it have been like to be the formerly bent over woman  to suddenly find herself standing up straight? I wonder if unused muscles were stiff at first. I wonder it this new/old posture took some getting used to.

• Certainly I have known people who are similarly physically bent over by arthritis and other ailments. What would it look like to ask them how it is for them? Would I be able to ask what it is they miss the most from the time before their bodies and/or spirits so betrayed them? Would you?

• I can't help but notice that the woman never actually asked for healing. I find myself wondering if I have ever experienced healing I never even thought to ask for. I wonder if there are parts and pieces in my life and experience which beg for healing but in resignation or despair I have simply stopped asking. I wonder if that was so for her. I wonder if that is so for the people for whom and with whom I bring the Word this week. And I wonder at the utter grace of receiving unasked for, unanticipated healing!

• I find myself asking whether we have ever experienced this kind of healing in this way: Because this woman's affliction did not allow her to stand up straight, she was not able to see without struggle. How does the healing Jesus brings simply allow or enable one to see the world more clearly? As individuals? As congregations? 

• Can you think of a time when the 'healing touch of Jesus' actually enabled you to see something you had not seen before? Something wondrous? Some injustice? What was that like? And what happened next?

• And this as well: What is it about Jesus that he is willing to physically 'touch' those whom were considered 'unclean?' How has Jesus touched me/touched you in my/your most broken places? When have I/have we hesitated to do the same? When have you/when have I done so anyway? What was the result of such risk taking? Oh, I have not forgotten the hospital call I made more than twenty years ago now. The child I went to see had HIV AIDS. My mind told me even then I could not contract this disease by touching his hand. And still my heart leaped back even as my hand reached for him. Unclean? Of course not. Treated that way by the world? Absolutely. Consequences for me? Absolutely none for other than to his immediate family, his diagnosis remained secret even to the grave. Although perhaps it was of some comfort to his family that I did not outwardly flinch even though I was inwardly wary. Either way, I have never forgotten my instinct to pull away and how much that differs from the example Jesus offers now.

And so I wonder as  you journey to a sermon or just a deeper understanding of the story before us now, what questions would you add to mine? What makes you wonder?

What new path might your questions take you on as you seek to follow Jesus in your living, in your sharing, in your preaching, if that is your call?

Finally, how might experiencing this one familiar story in new ways begin to change how you see and interact with the world? What does it mean for you to be "healed" in order to be able to stand up and see? What are you seeing more clearly already?

Jesus, the Bent Over Woman and a Pastor Who is Still Learning...

Luke 13:10-17

The story we hear today is one we can't help but feel deeply, it seems to me.  To hear of a woman who has been unable to stand up straight for eighteen years is to begin to feel how her every waking moment must have been marked by physical pain. To understand that she would not have been able to easily gaze into the eyes of another --- not her husband, her child, her grandchild, her neighbor, her friend ---  must have resulted in her feeling cut off from those who meant the most to her.  To experience the truth that her deformity would have led to her being unwelcome in the synagogue where she is called into the presence of Jesus today --- well, she must have even felt cut off from the promise that belongs to those of us who claim faith in a loving God. Jesus' words offered healing on so many levels.  Still, prior to that seemingly chance encounter in the synagogue, hers was an existence I cannot imagine.  Just as I know I can hardly begin to imagine the struggles of many --- even those I encounter every day. 

Or maybe it is that I don't want to. For the suffering of others taps into my own. The struggles of another remind me that I am one poor decision, one bad diagnosis, just a few years away, perhaps,  from experiencing the same.  If I'm honest, often I am not so different from those who would rather not have looked upon the suffering of this one daughter of Abraham.  For it is so.  Too often, we seek the easy explanation, try to assign blame, or simply look the other way in resignation, judgment, or despair.

Now there are, as always, a number of different ways one could run with the marvelous story before us now, but the one I find myself returning to is this.  It seems to me that in the moment after Jesus called the woman over to him and before he healed her, he must have bent down to look into  her eyes. Luke's account does not say this, of course, but I've never been able to imagine it any other way.  We know for certain that Jesus must have felt what troubled her deep down in his own being else he might not have taken notice of her at all.  And I can't help but think that her first step towards wholeness was Jesus getting down on his knees and looking up at her.

I am not proud of the fact that I did not learn this lesson long ago, but I was brought to a deeper understanding of the importance of this not that long ago. 

Oh, I make hospital and nursing home calls, I always have.  But it is also so that I have made those stops itching to keep moving.  Like everyone else,  I am busy, of course.  Too often I am fitting in these visits between a dozen other pressing obligations.  Still, I was brought up short a year or so ago when I was in conversation with  a woman who told me the story of her daughter's experience.  It was and is a wonder to me that she would have had no way of knowing that this was something I needed to hear.  Or maybe she did...

For you see, her daughter died a few years ago from a fast moving cancer and, like many in her circumstance, spent more than her share of time in hospital beds.  During that time she was visited by dozens of doctors.  The one she loved and trusted the most was the one who got down on his knees so he could look into her eyes when he talked to her. 

I listened to the telling of this a while back and I realized how seldom I did that --- how often I stood when I visited and prayed.  I thought of this and realized that by not even taking the time to sit down I was keeping one foot on the threshold --- ready to move on as soon as I could --- unable or perhaps unwilling to fully encounter the pain of the one I was there to visit.  As I sat and listened that afternoon I realized how often I have not begun to understand much less begin to meet the needs of those I have called upon in my time as pastor. 

I am no less busy now, of course.  And I don't always do it, but more and more I try to at least sit down and listen to the struggle, the questions, the pain of the one I am called to be with in that moment.  It not that I think I can ever fully emulate who and what Jesus was for that bent over woman so long ago.  But maybe, just maybe, my looking the suffering of another in the eyes will be the beginning of some kind of healing.  And maybe, just maybe, I also begin to have a sense of the wonder of the truth that Jesus bends over to look into my eyes every single day.

• Where do you enter the story before us now?  Can you begin to understand the suffering of the woman in this story? Why or why not?
• Can you also understand her joy at being made whole again?  Why or why not?
• Why do you think Jesus picks her out of the crowd in the synagogue?  Why do you think others protested her healing then?  Was it simply a violation of Sabbath law or do you think there was more going on?