A community of wounded healers

​Ven Canon Mark Chamberlain

Luke 13:10-17

1. INTRODUCTION

   1. Made a photograph album for my Dad for his 90th Birthday

   2. Thought it was Sir Edmund Hilary on the cover – but it was him!

   3. He’d now 91 bending over

   4. Hard growing hold – loss of capacity, loss of status, sometimes loss of dignity

2. WOMAN BENT OVER

   1. Gospel reading relates an incident that happened when Jesus was in a synagogue

   2. Saw a women come into worship – hunched over – Kyphosis – curvature of the spine

   3. Couldn’t accomplish usual tasks, found it hard to look at people, suffered for 18 years.

3. TWO REASONS SHE WAS AN OUTCAST

   1. Jewish society

      1. Conventional Jewish thinking said that she must have done something to displease God

      2. She would have had a tenuous place within the community, shunned by some, unable to participate in many community activities

   2. Wider Roman World

      1. The Roman world also would have seen her as worthless, not able to belong in the usual ways – she didn’t really matter

      2. In our modern democracy we have elected leaders, wealthy, middle class and those who have fewer resources but can still generally participate within society – safety net for those who really struggle

      3. But in the Roman world society was structured very differently – ruling elite, equestrian class, artisans, large number of the poor – many of them were slaves. Very stratified society – very few at the top – large number of slaves at the bottom

      4. True that Plato and Aristotle wrote about moral and political philosophy – at one level they were interested in justice

      5. But justice for them involved maintaining the natural inequalities that existed.

      6. And so, in both the Jewish and Roman world the women who was bent over was worthless – she simply didn’t belong.

   3. JESUS INTERVENED

      1. But against this background (characterised human society in every age) Jesus came as a kind of intervention from God

      2. Wherever Jesus went he welcomed all kinds of people into God’s family

      3. Woman at the well John 4 – didn’t belong – despite her moral choices Jesus intervened and said you are welcome

      4. Man born blind in John 9 – didn’t belong – despite his physical disability Jesus intervened and said you are welcome

      5. Women with the issue of blood in Luke 8 – didn’t belong - despite her ritual impurity Jesus intervened and said you are welcome

      6. Now in this incident, we have Jesus in a synagogue – seeing a women – lowest level of society, loss of relationship, loss of dignity, loss of community – Jesus intervened and said – “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Laid hands – cured her and she stood up straight and praised God – imagine the unrestrained joy of that moment!

      7. Jesus words and actions combined powerfully to say “You are of value, you matter – you are a daughter of Abraham and I welcome you into God’s family.”

   4. DETRACTORS GRUMBLED

      1. So how did the leaders of the synagogue respond? Well, they did what conventional wisdom expected them to do – they objected that Jesus had crossed over the flint hard boundaries that formed the invisible structures of society. They objected that he healed on the sabbath, that he reached out and touched a ritually unclean woman. And the passage says that the leader of the synagogue “kept saying to the crowd – there are six days on which work ought to be done: come on those and be cured but not on the Sabbath,”

   5. JESUS RESPONDS

      1. And Jesus answered him and said “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath.”

      2. Jesus incisively, with great independence of judgment, exposes their hypocrisy by asking “Why would you take care of cattle but not exercise the most basic human kindness to this disabled woman?”

   6. CONTEMPORARY APPLICATION

      1. So, who are the ones in our society today who are bent over and crippled?

      2. Many people are bend over from carrying heavy loads – the emotional burden of a failed relationship perhaps, the burden of family conflict, the burden of responsibility that is too hard to bear, the burden of not having enough money to pay the rent, the burden of living without hope or meaning in life.

      3. There are so many physical, emotional, relational and spiritual burdens that people carry that make them bent over. You might not see it on the outside, but underneath their character – their mood – their demeanour – is bent over. They are crushed.

      4. We are all crippled to some extent – we’re all wounded human beings.

      5. And yet Jesus Christ says to you this morning “You matter, you are valued, you have a place in God’s family – you belong.”

   7. GOSPEL IN A NUTSHELL

      1. This incident – healing of the crippled women – represents the whole of the Christian story in a nutshell.

      2. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is God’s intervention into human history/culture

      3. The whole of the Jesus event is a message to us all from God

      4. We were bent over with burdens of sin and brokenness and conflict.

      5. Human society had become stratified – the young, the weak, the helpless and the disabled had been pushed to the fringe.

      6. But into this broken world Jesus Christ came with a message of reconciliation and love.

      7. To all those suffering and hurting – indeed to all of humanity – his message was about reconciliation and welcome and love.

      8. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not die but have eternal life.”

   8. CONCLUSION

      1. When I was young my Dad was not a Christian – my siblings and I were sent to Sunday School and Mum sang in the church choir – but Dad only came to church occasionally.

      2. But then God reached into this life, and out of the blue, he came to know God and to follow Jesus Christ. That was 47 years ago and he continues to pray, attend Church and follow Christ as best he can. He was carrying burdens which Christ rolled away. And even though he is a bit stooped over these days, he now enjoys a freedom from anxiety and angst and disharmony that was never the case before he came to know God.

      3. And we are called to be a community of wounded healers – those who remember what it was like to be far away from God, but also remember and give thanks that God searched for us and found us.

      4. As the women in the synagogue - stood up and looked about with freedom that day – so we stand with freedom that God has rescued us, freed us from our burdens and given us new life. What unrestrained joy we have. What reason to be deeply grateful to God. We have so much to hope for and nothing, nothing, nothing to be afraid of.

   9. CALL TO ACTION

      1. I invite anyone who doesn’t know our Lord Jesus Christ or has ever experienced the joy of our burdens released to see me after the service – I’d love to be able to pray for you.