Look With Love - Serve With Humility

Luke 13:10-17

At the beginning of the last century, a lot of terrible things happened, and in the mid to late 1940s, when some of us were toddlers, there were still remnants of the damage the terrible things had done.  In New York City, where I lived, there was a man who stood on the corner of a busy boulevard outside the newspaper and tobacco store where my Dad bought his newspaper. The man stood alone and ranted to himself. My Dad told me sternly, “Don’t look. Don’t stare. The poor fellow lost everything in the Crash”. I had to be a bit older before I realized he meant the stock market crash of 1929.

But there were other “don’t look, don’t stare” people.  Don’t stare at the lady in the wheelchair, the man with crutches and only half a leg on one side, the person whose face is badly scarred, anyone with a disability, anyone who seems different from “the norm”.  Don’t look!  Don’t stare. Don’t see!

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.

Our Gospel reading for today opens with a familiar scene, Jesus, in the synagogue teaching.  It isn’t His hometown synagogue, but it’s not unusual for a Rabbi, or for any man who has made his bar mitzvah, to speak in synagogue, and Jesus is now something of a celebrity.  When He arrives in a town, people have heard of Him, and they come in numbers to hear what He has to say, perhaps to see if He’ll perform a miracle.  The celebrity rabi (Jesus) and the larger crowd means people who don’t come to synagogue on a regular basis may show up.  Today is just such a day.

And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.  She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.

How did the crowed react?  We’ve started with what would be a normal, busy Sabbath at the synagogue, well, normal for a day on which there is a visiting celebrity Rabbi, but the day has suddenly changed into one that is anything but normal.  Disabled people did not show up at the synagogue and with good reason. 

In Jesus time, physical and mental ailments were seen as the work of evil forces, of Satan; and the very being of someone with a serious ailment was thought to be hostile to God.  Disabled people were rarely seen on the street.  They were excluded from society, hidden away, or thrown away – anything to be rid of them and the demons it was believed possessed them.  They were shut out, of homes, of the synagogue, even of the city itself.  Yet, here she is, a disabled woman, showing up at the synagogue. 

Many things could have happened at this point.  The crowd sees what they have been trained to see, and they could have tried to exclude the woman, to throw her out.  For her part, she might have forced her way through them to Jesus and begged for His help, His healing touch. 

We’d certainly expect the latter, but she doesn’t rush forward, which for a moment seems odd, until we realize she can’t find Jesus, she is bent over and she can’t see Him in the crowd.  She’s summoned up all her courage and appeared in public, because she’s heard Jesus would be at the synagogue, and she has come in faith with hope, seeking whatever God may have in store for her.  She is there on the Sabbath among people who would gladly toss her into the street – and she is silent.

Did she come with relatives?  Surely there is someone there with her who will seek out Jesus, speak for her, ask for Jesus’ help.  But there is no one.  No one is going to help her, and the crowd around her may at any moment turn hostile. 

But Jesus has an eye on the people around Him. He’s not self-absorbed, not so into what He’s saying that He’s unaware of His surroundings. He’s there amid all that noise, people pushing to get close to Him, people hushing each other so they can hear what He has to say, people at the back discussing what He’s already said, and yet …

When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." 

Oh, my goodness!  He looked.  Not only that, He saw her, and when He laid His hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

Faithful Jews have shunned her, rejected her, seen her as evil.  Now, she has appeared in the place of worship, God has responded to her need, and yet, the very leader of the synagogue, is outraged.  Why? Because Jesus has broken the 4^th Commandment, He has done work, albeit a miracle, on the Sabbath.

The leader of the synagogue believes accepted teachings, believes the woman is evil, and so he keeps shouting about rules. Though addressing the crowd, he is nonetheless taking Jesus to task.

There are many kinds of blindness of the heart and soul. The leader of the synagogue has seen a miracle, and, in his blindness, has rebuked - God. Don’t look!  Don’t see!

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 day?"

If you will untie an animal on the Sabbath, why would you not untie, set free on the Sabbath, a woman bound to such a dreadful disability?  Jesus makes it plain that the leader of the synagogue, and all those agreeing with him, will bend the rules, are kinder to animals than they are to humans.  Then, Jesus addresses the woman as “daughter of Abraham”.  This phrase does not occur elsewhere in Luke or in the rest of Scripture.  This name stresses the woman's membership in the covenant community.

When Jesus said this, all His opponents were put to shame, and in an ancient culture, where honour was everything, that would have stung terribly.

What does all this mean for us? We are all aware of the needy around us, and we live in Massachusetts, where we have the Mass commissions for the blind, for the deaf and hard of hearing, we have the Ride, and curb cuts, and special seats on the “T”, and ASL interpreters.  We have homeless shelters, and sanctuary cities. We care for the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the suffering. Surely, we are people who see!  But how many of us will approach a disabled persons struggling in, say, the supermarket and ask, “Can I be of assistance?” Often the answer is, “No”, but do we care enough, love enough, are we humble enough to ask?

What about those closer to home? We open our hearts to disabled children, but do we see them as children, or as their disability? Children, especially ones with disabilities, are acutely aware of whether or not we really see them. How about the seniors who have lost hearing, do we lose patience and shout at them? And those folks who, through loneliness or habit talk incessantly, or hold a negative attitude to life, or repeat the same story over and over – how much patience do we have with them? Do we give a thought to how our actions and reactions may wound even those we love, and when do think about it, do we do something about it?

In our world, people are quietly drowning - in pain, suffering, loneliness, not just the obviously disabled, but those whose hearts long for love and acceptance. We always think that drowning of any kind involves kicking, splashing, and shouting out for help. But, as any lifeguard will tell you, that’s not the case. In a film I saw recently there was actual footage of a child drowning – only feet away from other swimmers who took no notice, because downing is quiet, involving little movement and no noise.  Fortunately, in the film, a lifeguard saw what was happening, rushed into the water, and saved the child.

We, Jesus’ followers, are the lifeguards in this world. In each of our hearts there are places where prejudices survive, where we do not love as Jesus has commanded us to love, and we often use “the rules” to excuse our behavior.  Think of the beggars, to whom we will not give money because we cannot control what they will do with it. Think of the people to whom we do not offer our help, because, we tell ourselves, they might be insulted by our asking.

In our lives, there are always signs from God directing us into the path that leads to holiness, people who need us, whom Jesus puts in our way, but we have to be paying attention or we will miss them.  Often, we do see them, but look away, because these signs, these people, call on us to make sacrifices, to assume, not the position of power, but the one of humble servant, because it takes humility to not control a situation, or to risk a rejection when we offer our help. And we have all sorts of rules, many learned in childhood, that keep us from doing the work Jesus calls us to do.  Don’t look!  Don’t see!

We, are the lifeguards in this world.  We are the ones who know what is needed, and are called to respond to each and every person we meet, never with judgment, never with condemnation, never with revulsion or impatience, but always, as Jesus has commanded us, with compassion, with humility, and with love.  This is our work in this world, and through it, we show that we are Jesus’ followers.  Through it we become holy people.

Let us pray: (in the words of St. Francis of Assisi)

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.