Today’s scripture is about a woman who had been “disabled by a spirit” for eighteen years. She was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. Jesus straightened her out!

He also straightened out the synagogue leader and his cohort of objectors. They were “put to shame.”

The story reads like an interesting allegorical switch, in which a woman no doubt bent under a burden of shame heaped upon her by her synagogue and leaders for her ailment is healed, while the oppressors themselves (having become bent out of shape over Jesus’ healing of her on the Sabbath) become shamed for their heartlessness. Luke renders an artful literary telling of the phenomenon, which all centers around the theme of “shame.”

Who is the one bent out of shape? The woman or the leader of the synagogue? The woman is he…