FROM JESUS' RADICALS
MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013
A Dream For Those Who Cannot Sleep
Sermon on the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Luke 13:10-17
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. 14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” 15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Introduction
On this weekend when the Nation remembers the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom we gather as disciples of Jesus to remember his March on Jerusalem 2000 years ago. As Dr King spoke of a Dream that is not yet a reality in this nation, so Jesus was also living a Dream as old as the God of the universe; a Dream first announced to Abraham in Genesis 12 that through him “all the peoples of the earth” would be blessed; a Dream announced by the prophets a thousand years before Jesus.
The small story that we will study here in Luke 13 may seem far removed from the thousands that gathered before the Lincoln Memorial fifty years ago this week. It may seem far removed even from our own lives - the lives that preoccupy our hearts and minds as we sit here this morning so far from Washington, DC - so far from Jerusalem.
But it is not so.
What we will see this morning, what I hope and pray that we will understand this morning, is that the Dream of God spoken to Abraham and through the prophets and embodied in Jesus still enlivens all of our Dreams today. It is the Dream of God spoken from the heart of the universe and yet manifested in the midst of each one of our daily lives so that we see it at work not only in the fate of nations but in the feet of courageous, freedom-filled individuals and freedom dreaming communities who refuse to stop marching until that Dream is fulfilled.
A Woman Healed in the Synagogue on the Sabbath
This is a story that is unique to Luke’s gospel. It includes only eight verses and can be summarized simply:
- Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach
- A woman comes who has a physical disability
- Jesus heals her
- Some of the people get mad
- Some of the people think its wonderful
That’s it. Nothing too complicated and if this was Sunday School or we were reading a Children’s Story Bible it might be enough for us this morning; but let’s go a little deeper.
First of all, Jesus comes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. This is Jesus’s last recorded visit to a synagogue and his first since Luke 4. You remember Luke 4? Where immediately after his baptism and his extended time in the wilderness Jesus came to the synagogue and read from Isaiah 61 about the Spirit of the Lord being upon him, because God had anointed him to proclaim good news to the poor and sent him to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor? You remember that?
And you remember how that story ends with the people being so angry that they tried to grab Jesus and throw him off the cliff? So Jesus has not been to synagogue since then. It’s a better excuse than anyone here has.
So Jesus goes to the synagogue to teach and a woman comes in. Luke says she “suddenly appears” which implies that she was not a regular attender. Dr Luke tells us that she was “bent” or as the KJV says “bowed together.” She had been in this condition for 18 years and Luke tells us this to indicate that this was no passing thing. This was not a temporary complaint but a permanent condition. She was not able to straighten herself. She was not able to stand up straight. We do not know the reason for this condition, but we can imagine the feeling - each one of us can imagine this feeling. The feeling of being pulled over inside and out, bowed together, folded into ourselves.
You know how when you’re having a good day and feeling on top of the world you walk with your head up and your shoulders back, and your chest is expanded and you’re taking in all that fresh air and any moment you might just jump up on a curb and start singing hallelujah? You know that feeling?
You know when you’re having a bad day and feeling like the world’s footstool and you walk with your head down and your shoulders sag and your chest is drawn, and you feel the pressure inside, your body tells you that something is wrong in your world?
You know the feeling when bad news comes and it’s as if someone put their fist right into your solar plexus, and you double over, and have trouble catching your breath, even though no one has physically touched you?
Some of you as you sit here this morning can feel the tension in your shoulders as if you have a weight tied around your neck and even though you tell your neighbor everything is fine your body tells the truth. You feel bent over, weighed down, heavily burdened. It will take more than will power to pick you up. It will take more than a kind word. It will take more than a pat on the back.
It will take a movement of Spirit within you. It will take the work of God in your heart. It will take the deliverer Jesus setting you free. This is somewhat like the condition of this woman who has suffered like this for 18 years and can no longer stand up straight on her own power.
Jesus sees her.
This is crucial to this passage. Even though the men and women are standing in different parts of the synagogue and Jesus would have been towards the front and the woman would have been towards the back Jesus sees her. Nothing else happens in this situation unless Jesus sees her. She does not speak to Jesus. She does not cry out to him. There is no indication that she has come to meet him or that she has any hope that her life will be changed by coming to the synagogue on this day. But Jesus sees her and that changes everything. Jesus sees her because that is what Jesus does - over and over in the Gospels Jesus sees those who to others are invisible. That is how it always begins. God hears our cry, sees us, and comes to deliver and set us free.
Jesus see her. Jesus sees you this morning. You came to Second Baptist this morning perhaps wanting to be left alone. You aren’t looking for a lot of attention, you just want to sit quietly and get a little blessing to get you through the week. You aren’t trying to make a new friend or find an old friend, you just want to come and go - but Jesus sees you. Maybe no one else out there will really see you this morning. Maybe no one up here on the platform will really see you this morning; but Jesus sees you and that is what makes everything else possible.
Nothing else happens in the synagogue on this Sabbath morning unless Jesus sees her. Jesus calls her over. He doesn’t go over to her. She doesn’t call out to him or ask for healing. He invites her forward to the front where everyone can see her. It may be the first recorded instance of an invitation in the New Testament.
Then Jesus heals her. He specifically says that she has been “set free.” The announcement comes before the healing. It’s interesting that he doesn’t say she has been made whole, or that she has been restored to health; or that she has had a demon cast out of her; but instead she has been “set free”. He repeats it again in verse 16.
Then he puts his hands upon her. She immediately stands up straight. This is not a gradual healing. Though the condition had lasted for 18 years suddenly it is gone in an instant.
Brothers and sisters, this is not her story alone but this is your story and my story. There is no one standing up straight this morning on their own power. We have all known the hand of God delivering our release from captivity; and we will all know it again and again.
She begins to praise God, perhaps with the words of Psalm 71 that we read a few moments ago:
8My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long . . .
15My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all day long, though their number is past my knowledge.
16I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God, I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.
17O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
18So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come. Your power
19and your righteousness, O God, reach the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? . . .
23My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have rescued.
This all happens in the first four verses. But the story is not over yet. This passage is not just about the healing of this woman, nor is it just a passage to teach us about the power of Jesus. There is more going on here and the story of this particular healing is also told so that we can learn something else.
What is the Will of God?
In the next four verses things begin to get tense. The synagogue leader stands up and addresses the crowd. The synagogue leadership was an elected position and it was always held by a man. This man is angry that Jesus had performed a healing on the Sabbath. The woman straightens up and the leader is bent out of shape! But notice he speaks to the crowd, not to Jesus nor the woman. The man tells the crowd that there are six days a week to get healed but it is unlawful for this to happen on the Sabbath. The leader says that “it is necessary” that this law be obeyed; that it is the will of God that it should be so. In essence, the synagogue leader publicly shames this woman and publicly rebukes Jesus.
What will Jesus do? What is the “Christian” thing to do in a situation like this? Should Jesus turn the other cheek? Should he accept the rebuke humbly and quietly withdraw from the synagogue? Should he apologize for having put this woman in a humiliating and shameful position before her local community?
Instead Jesus defends the woman’s honor and publicly rebukes not only the synagogue leader but all of those who agreed with him. He calls them hypocrites. He gives an example from the Torah proving that there are exceptions to the Sabbath law. He argues that if these exceptions hold true for animals how much more so for human beings! Furthermore, this woman is not just anyone but Jesus identifies her and names her a “daughter of Abraham.” By giving her this name he indicates that she is heir to all the blessings of Abraham’s descendants and those blessings are being dispensed through Jesus’s ministry.
Contradicting the man who says that it is a necessity to obey the law because it is the will of God Jesus insists that it is the will of God that this woman be healed and it is necessary that it be done even on the Sabbath.
The man says that this is a house of laws but Jesus wants to know if it is a house of justice. The man says that this is a house of obedience and Jesus wants to know if it is a house of mercy. The man says that it is a house of necessity and Jesus wants to know what is more necessary that the radical deliverance of salvation. Now this might be enough for this sermon or for any sermon, but on this day we need to push a little bit further, we need to dig a little bit deeper - for there is another word here for us and we can’t let our small appetite determine the size of the meal.
What is the Dream of God?
The key to this entire passage is the issue of Sabbath.
- The word Sabbath occurs five times in these 8 verses.
- We are told that Jesus went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath.
- The synagogue leader is angry because Jesus healed on the Sabbath.
- “There are six days to be healed but not on the Sabbath”
- Jesus points out that there are exceptions to this rule about the Sabbath
- The Sabbath day is an appropriate day for someone to be set free from that which binds them in captivity.
Why was Sabbath such a big deal? The Sabbath was a boundary line between the people of Israel and the rest of the world. They kept Sabbath and the Gentiles did not. That’s one way you could tell the difference. Sabbath marked them as the people of God.
If Jesus wanted to get along with the religious leadership of his day there were two things he should not have attacked: the Temple and the Sabbath. He attacked both.
Jesus deliberately disobeys the Sabbath law. The complaint of the synagogue leader was a legitimate one. There were six other days when people could come for healing. There was no reason to do this on the Sabbath. Luke has indicated that this woman had a long-standing condition of 18 years and so there was no danger that she would be any worse in 24 hours. The woman did not draw any attention to herself or cause any public disturbance, she did not make a scene. NO ONE WAS ASKING JESUS TO DO WHAT HE DID!
This gets us to the very heart of what I want you to take away from here this morning: not just what Jesus did, but why Jesus did what he did.
There were two main traditions of Sabbath teaching: The priestly tradition linked Sabbath to the creation of the world. After God created the entire cosmos in six days on the seventh day God rested. Sabbath. The prophetic tradition linked Sabbath to the deliverance of Israel from captivity in Egypt. Deuteronomy 5:15 says “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”
Jesus consistently chooses the prophetic interpretation. He chooses the tradition that sees the Sabbath as a day connected with loosing, releasing, delivering, and healing. This tradition sees the Sabbath as connected with the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee (some of the most radical concepts in the entire Bible).
Jesus understood that his actions on the Sabbath in terms of preaching good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom to the captives, and release to the prisoners was what Sabbath was all about. For Jesus what was true during the every 50th year Jubilee should be true every Sabbath. Each and every Sabbath should be a mini-Jubilee!
The synagogue had missed the Sabbath’s freedom core; the humanitarian heart of Sabbath. Sabbath had a liberation center that agitated against any control by the established powers who would use it to protect their own interests. This liberation center advocated for the deliverance and release of any and all who were oppressed and held captive by that control. Jesus deliberately performed an act of religious disobedience in order to underline, highlight, and draw attention to this difference.
The arc of the moral universe is long and it does bend towards justice, but sometimes brothers and sisters you have to take hold of it with both your hands and pull hard.
The arc of the moral universe is long and it does bend towards justice, but sometimes brothers and sisters if you can hear me this morning, you have to take hold of it with both of your hands and pull hard, and then hold on.
Hold on.
Conclusion: A Dream for Those Who Cannot Sleep
At the beginning of this message I indicated my desire to connect this passage to the events commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
There is a huge difference between that march in the summer of 1963 and the march that took place yesterday. The 1963 March was part of a great freedom movement that had already been underway for several years and had not yet reached its ultimate goal. It was a March and movement on behalf of those who were bent but not broken. Dr King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech was perhaps the highlight of that day; and out of all that will be said this week about that event and about that speech I want to underline one important point.
In the "I Have a Dream" speech which is so familiar to all of us, indeed to almost everyone everywhere in the world, we must highlight his perception that if this country is to change into the country we wish it to be then we will need a bigger dream. The American Dream is not big enough.
Dr King’s Dream was as he said “deeply rooted in the American Dream” but it could not be equated with that Dream, nor could it be contained by it. We need a bigger Dream.
The American Dream is for those who can sleep well at night. But where is the Dream for those who can’t sleep? Where is the Dream for those who are bent but not broken? The great poet Langston Hughes wrote “America has never been America to me.” Where is the Dream for those for whom America has never been America?
God’s freedom dream is bigger than the American Dream because it is a Dream for those who cannot sleep. It is a Dream for those who are bent but not broken. God has a freedom dream for those who cannot sleep because of unemployment, housing foreclosures, and exorbitant medical bills. God has a freedom dream for people mourning the loss of loved ones to gun violence, police brutality, and racial profiling. God has a freedom dream for undocumented immigrants who live and work in this country but not recognized by this country. God has a freedom dream for those who are bound by the past and needing to hear the word of divine forgiveness and be welcomed back into the community of freedom dreamers.
What would it mean for Second Baptist Evanston to begin to live into the freedom dreams of God? Here’s what we learn from Luke 13:10-17 that we studied this morning:
- We have to see with the eyes of God looking to the margins and not just the center
- We have to call attention to those who are suffering
- We have to invite the marginalized and outcast into the circle of community
- We have to bring freedom, release, deliverance, and healing in Jesus's name by the power of the Spirit
- We have to confront entrenched powers who are part of the problem and not part of the solution
- We have to grab hold with both hands to the arc of the moral universe and pull hard - and then hold on.
The Freedom Dream of God is for those who cannot sleep. We are the messengers of that Dream. What we have seen this morning is that the Dream of God spoken to Abraham and through the prophets and embodied in Jesus still enlivens all of our Dreams today. It is the Dream of God spoken from the heart of the universe. It is the Dream of God manifested in the midst of each one of our daily lives. It is the Dream of God that we see at work not only in the fate of nations but in the feet of courageous, freedom-filled individuals and freedom dreaming communities; those dreamers who cannot sleep, and who refuse to stop marching until that Dream is fulfilled.
[This is an edited transcript of a sermon preached at Second Baptist Church, Evanston, IL for the Fourteenth Sunday of Pentecost and the commemoration of the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom]
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