You Came to Get Healed on a Sunday?

Weeks before his death from suffering with tuberculosis, Henry Lite wrote: Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Abide with me.

In his final months, his plea was for the Lord to not abandon him in his darkest hour but to stay near and abide. A beautiful hymn with a beautiful story that enhances a beautiful gospel story.

One Sunday Jesus was teaching in one of the churches. And woman there who for eighteen years had had a weak spirit and was so bent down she couldn’t look up. When Jesus saw her, he called out and said to her, “Lady, you have been freed from your weakness.” He put his hands on her and right away she was straightened up, and started praising God.

But the pastor of the church, indignant that Jesus had healed her on a Sunday, on a Sunday! The pastor said to the people, “There are six days in which it is all right to work. Come on one of them and get yourselves healed, but not on a Sunday!”

Jesus replied, “You bunch of hypocrites! Doesn’t every one of you on Sunday turn his cow or horse out of the stall so it can go drink? All right, now take this lady, who had been spiritually locked up for eighteen years; don’t you think she should have been released from her bondage on Sunday?”

This kind of argument surely did shake up his enemies, but most of the people were overjoyed at the wonderful things he was doing. (Luke 13:10-17 Cotton Patch Gospel).

I have seen a preacher stop a service for many a reasons. I once watched a preacher stop in the middle of his sermon to chastise the entire youth group for passing notes. I heard of a preacher who stopped the service to berate the congregation beginning with the person who fell asleep and ending with calling one member “the sorriest church member he ever had.” I watched as a little girl interrupted the pastor’s sermon to give him a drawing. I also watched that pastor stop his sermon and gleefully accept the girl’s gift. I have even experienced a pastor stop in midstride to yell at the choir for talking during the sermon. However, never have I experienced a pastor stop the service to heal someone or pray with someone.

Jesus sees this woman whose spirit is so broken that it had weighed her down for 18 years of her life. Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what was weighing her spirit and it doesn’t seem to matter in this story, what matters is her and her burden, her struggle, and the presence of Jesus. Jesus sees this woman as he is teaching and stops, calls out to her, and heals her. If Jesus is our pioneer of faith, as the writer of Hebrews indicates, then it is necessary for us to see how connected, how in focus, and how present Jesus was to his surroundings.

It would have been easy for Jesus to get caught up in the strictness of the Sabbath law. Once a week the Sabbath was intended to be a day of complete rest for the people, both rich and poor, free and slave, as well as for the ground and the livestock. It was a justice law enforced to allow time for rest and a day with God so everything does not become overburdened or abused. Jesus knows this law very well but something inside him causes him to break the law.

The woman is not seeking healing or any specific comfort, Jesus breaks the law not of request but of compassion for God’s movement. God’s movement transforms us to be active doers of the word and to understand the law through eyes and minds that are not our own. “The woman is broken, worn, abused, burdened, in need of rest,” Jesus explains, “Why shouldn’t she be healed on a Sunday?” Why shouldn’t she be healed on a Sunday? Many of us are here in hope of some renewal, some life-giving refreshing and reassurance of God’s hope and God’s love. We desire to know that God still cares for us, still loves us even when our own spirit is weighed down. Should you leave and come back on Monday to be refreshed? Should you leave and only come back when you’ve been made right? Why shouldn’t you be healed on a day that belongs to God? Why shouldn’t she be healed on a day that belongs to God?

The leader of the synagogue may have had good intentions and wanted to enforce the law because if you make one exception for one, you’ll end up making another exception for another. It is the belief that if you make an exception to bend the rules for one person, soon you’ll have to make exceptions for others and it is a slippery slope. The pastor believed Jesus should have told her to come back on a Monday instead of healing her then, even though she never asked to be healed. The pastor didn’t want his church to become a church law breakers and radicals. He wanted to keep Sunday safe and he wanted his congregation to be safe believers of God. He wanted his congregation to be good citizens of the law and instead of radical citizens of God’s kingdom.

Last week we read Jesus’ own words, “I have come not to bring peace but conflict.” and in today’s story we see Jesus inject the God fueled conflict into a local church. Jesus’ “conflict” sure did shake up his enemies but the people were overjoyed.

The people were overjoyed.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.

People long to know there is someone out there who cares for them and loves them. It one of the consistent reasons teenagers join gangs or fall into drugs and alcoholism because they are longing to know someone cares for them and loves them. They give up on life or believe they cannot amount to anything because of an emptiness, a void seeking to be fulfilled by someone’s love.

I am not one for trends and surveys. I tend to think they are heavily bias and do not speak for every given context; yet there is a consistent statement in the surveys on church and why people are not coming as they once did. It is the statement that we preach about God’s unconditional love but practice judgment and hate. In some form that statement, that observation, that thought appears in nearly every survey on why people, specifically my generation, has stopped coming to church.

Whether we think they are misunderstanding or making general assumptions about Christians and church, we must not turn a blind eye to this thought. We cannot allow for voices that speak only to the law and to power and to wealth to be the voice of the Christian church. Those voices are the voice of the pastor who believes himself/herself to be the most important person in the room. Those voices are the voices of the pastors who tell the broken, the poor, the oppressed, the lonely, the hurting, the mourning, and the lost, to get lost on Sunday because they are dirtying up the place, and to come back when they’ve taken care of their personal problems. We cannot allow room, anymore, for those voices.

Our voice must rise above the others, shouting of the healing love of Christ and acceptance of all sinners in his church. Our voice must represent the voice of Jesus, who willing stops his own sermon, not to preach some hopeful word, but to lay his healing hands on the broken spirit, on the burden that has weighed this woman down for so many years. Our voice must rise out over the crowd as Martin Luther King Jr.’s did 50 years ago this Wednesday when his Baptist preacher side took over:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” (King, Jr. Martin Luther. “I Have a Dream” August 28, 1963).

Let our voices speak of the one who has freed us from our prejudices, from our reliance on wealth and power; the one who freed us from our hatred, self-loathing, and self-indulging, selfish attitudes. Let our voices roll out over the crowds giving new life and transforming us all into followers of God’s holy movement.