I wish it were not so, but it is. Religion can be horribly repressive sometimes. Indeed, our text certainly reflects it. The story opens with Jesus teaching in a synagogue where services were normally informal: primarily prayers, reading of scripture, comments, and offerings for the poor. Any man in attendance could read from scripture and then teach or preach if he were so inclined, and on this day apparently, Jesus was.
He noticed a woman, identified in scripture as only "crippled" and "bent over" — some disease that deteriorated the spine, maybe osteoporosis or scoliosis — a condition she had suffered for eighteen years. Jesus called to her to come forward. "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity" (Luke 13:12). Jesus touched her and, voilá, immediately she straightened up and praised God. Ta-dah!
Of course, we know there is more to the story. Enter the rabbi in charge. He thundered to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the sabbath" (Luke 13:14).
One of my friends noted that the rabbi's complaint, even though it had to do with what Jesus did, was directed to the people. He says it's the same in churches today as well — somebody gets mad with the minister and instead of coming to him or her about the problem, they pick up the phone and call all their friends. "Did you hear what the preacher did?"
Truth be told, what Jesus did was bound to cause a stir. He had healed this woman on the sabbath. That was a clear violation of God's commandment.
"Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy ... Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work...." — Deuteronomy 5:12-14
Healing is work; ask any doctor or nurse.
Good Jews to this day are scrupulous about what may and may not be done on the sabbath. Some of the rules may sound nitpicky, but the tradition goes back to the days when the nation was in exile. Sabbath-keeping was the way Jews then and Jews now assured themselves a unique identity. Through the centuries, the rabbis had set up all sorts of "fences" around the sabbath to assure its special place. By the time of Christ, there were 1,521 things one could not do on the sabbath.[1]
Then Jesus did this healing — work — and not even an emergency healing. In fact, the woman had not even asked to be healed. But Jesus did it anyway.
It is not much of a stretch to conclude that he did it on purpose. He knew the rules. And it is not that the rules were designed to be repressive. On the contrary, it was this commitment to the Sabbath that reminded the Jewish people who they were and whose they were. Why would Jesus deliberately tweak their ecclesiastical nose? And while he was at it, he called them a nasty name?
"You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 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?" — Luke 13:15-16
There was not much the local synagogue leaders could say. In fact, the gospel writer sums the story up with, "... all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing" (Luke 13:17).
Generally, when people are stuck in a system or a particular way of understanding, they need to be shocked out of the old and into the new. Logic and reason usually does not work. Jesus could have spent all day arguing with the synagogue leader about whether or not it was legal to heal this woman on the sabbath while she remained ill. (How many church meetings are discussions about what should be done, rather than actually getting things done?) The healing took place before the discussion about whether or not it was the right thing to do.
It is similar to so many situations that arise where it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. It is such a shame that something that can do so much good — religion — can be made to do so much that is so bad.
Why is there any repressive religion in the world? Part of the answer is that folks take religion seriously. Week to week there are millions and millions and millions of people gathering for worship all around the globe. Far more people are related to churches on Sunday or synagogues on Saturday or mosques on Friday than are involved in any other voluntary activity.
Gallup polls in this country consistently find that more than 95% of the population professes belief in a god, 85% believe that the Ten Commandments are God's law and should be obeyed, and almost 70% of the adult population claims a personal relationship with the Lord. As much as we hear of the decline of religion and the rise of secularism, the doomsayers have a long way to go before they would ever see their prophecies fulfilled.
Move that a step further. Why are the controversies over school prayer or abortion or stem-cell research so pervasive and heated? Because, at their heart, they are religious questions, and people take religion seriously.
Is concern for a suffering woman what Jesus wanted to convey that day in the synagogue? Not really. The word we are to hear is about religion, or better, about religiosity, and how seriously we are to take it. The point is that there is such a thing as too much. Mae West, in her inimitable style, once said, "Too much of a good thing is ... wonderful!" But most of us know that anything good can be pushed beyond its appropriate limits. Be careful.
Eighteen years — can you imagine seeing nothing but dirt and other people's feet for eighteen years? Jesus offered this woman not just physical healing, but a whole new way to see the world...literally. He offers the same to you and me.
1. Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), p. 53.