A Walking Exclamation Point

She knew every paving stone by heart. She was far more familiar with the feet of her friends than their faces. She knew that there were a lot more field mice taking up residence in the synagogue than the leaders thought. She had even started to name some of them. If it happened on the floor of the synagogue she knew about it. She was the resident expert on the bottom of things.

That’s what happens when you live your life bent-over. Eighteen years this woman had been crippled with this – this infirmity. Eighteen years of never being able to meet the world face-to-face. Eighteen years being denied the dignity afforded to most human beings of looking someone in the eye. Eighteen years of invisibility. That’s what it felt like. She might as well have been invisible.

Over time the illness not only affected her body, it also affected her soul. A weird kind of paranoia set it. Reading body language from the knees down is very difficult to do, so she began to imagine the worst from those who were addressing her. Even if their words were kind or supportive she began to imagine that they spoke to her with a smirk of scorn on their faces. She would crane her neck to get a glimpse up, but it was never the same as actually conversing. “They think I’m a nuisance,” she began to think. “They think I’m a bother. They think I’m worthless.”

The suspicions she had began to settle in like a weight on her shoulders – an additional weight. “What’s one more burden when you’re bowed down already? Bring it on. Load me down with your disdain. Give me all your feelings of superiority. Yes, I’m a woman in a man’s world. Yes, I’m a crippled person in a world made for the healthy. Yes, I’m broken. Yes, I’m a walking question mark. So why not let me take all of your anxieties away? Why should you carry the burden of questioning yourself and your position? Why should you have to stoop to my level? Just throw it on me. One more thing on my back is not going to make one bit of difference. God knows I’ve got a weak back but some pretty big shoulders. Just like a donkey. I’ll become your beast of burden.” These were the dark thoughts that began to occupy her mind.

The longer it went on the deeper the wounds got. They seeped down into her soul. It wasn’t just her body that was doubled over, but something inside her began to bend, too. It was like some inner demon was forging a chain to pull her further down. Satan…something…was turning her anger into something much worse. The chains were pulling all of that anger into herself so that she wasn’t just mad at the world, she was also mad at herself.

“The world thinks you’re worthless. Maybe you are,” she began to hear herself thinking. “The world thinks you’re invisible. Maybe you should be. What makes you think you deserve anything more than a front-row view of the floor? Down here is where you belong. Down where the streets are covered with filth and manure. Down where the vermin live. Down where you can conduct conversations with feet. Maybe you are cursed. Maybe God doesn’t care. Maybe you should just face up to it. Ha! Face up to it…face down to it. No one has earned the right to God’s favor. Certainly not you. Weakness is your watchword. That’s who you are.”

So that’s what she was carrying with her that day in the synagogue. An evil spirit that attacked her soul as much as any illness that attacked her body. But something within her had not yet given up hope. Though she could have stayed away from the synagogue…No one would have minded…No one would have noticed…Though she could have stayed away…she came. There in that place where she knew every paving stone, she still hoped to hear a word from above that was not scorn.

There was a new teacher there on this day. Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was becoming known for doing great deeds. The woman had heard that he had once healed a man with an evil spirit who had often been chained in the graveyards because of his illness. Jesus had set him free. No more chains. The man used to run around with no clothes because he would tear them off. But when the people of the village came out, there he was...with Jesus – clothed and in his right mind. Jesus had done that.

Now he was here. Teaching. But something interrupted his lesson. The woman couldn’t have known. How could she have seen it? But Jesus had stopped because he saw her. It was only one of Jesus’ many gifts that he could see invisible women.

He called out to her, “Woman.” Everyone looked around to see who he could be talking to. But the bent-over woman felt something break within her – something like a chain – and she knew from that word who Jesus was talking to. “Woman,” he said, “You are loosed from your weakness.” You are loosed from your weakness. Not “You will be.” Not “You may be.” But “You are loosed from your weakness.”

Even though she knew it was true she wondered what had happened. Had Jesus done the loosing or had he just seen what had already taken place and announced it to the world? Like that moment in a wedding ceremony when the officiant announces that a marriage has taken place – that these are man and wife – even though the moment itself goes unobserved. The woman didn’t know, though she knew now that all that remained was for her to stand up.

Before she could move she felt his hands on her shoulders. She could see the look on his face even though she couldn’t see the look on his face. Her whole body was in turmoil. Muscles that had atrophied over the years sprang forth like a fast-growing vine toward the heavens. Her shoulders were pushed back and her neck straightened. Her head…Oh, her head! It was like a geyser bursting forth from the ground, shooting upwards to the heavens. Everything inside her was moving, growing, living again.

The words she spoke were only natural. What else do you say when you walk out of an 18-year captivity? The sun is good to see. The faces of my brothers and sisters are good to see. God, after all, is good. God, after all, is a redeeming God. God, after all, is stronger than any chain that can bind. God, after all, has not abandoned me. God, after all, has not condemned me to the dirt. God, after all, is worthy of this life I have to give.

What happened next is pretty stupid, really. Somebody complained. There are, after all, people who have an interest in keeping bent-over people around. The ruler of the synagogue, who was not all that keen on having Jesus take center stage anyway, broke into the woman’s praise and said, “Now look, there are six other days of the week when it is necessary to work. So it follows that you, woman, should come to be healed on one of them and not on the Sabbath day.”

Jesus was not about to let him get away with it. “You hypocrite!” This is about as angry as you ever see Jesus getting. He seems to reserve this kind of language for those who profess to follow God, which might be a word of warning for us. “Hypocrite! You keep cows and donkeys, your beasts of burdens, tied up in the stall and what do you do on the Sabbath? Do you leave them bound or do you let them go and lead them to water? Does this woman look like a donkey to you? No. This is one of Abraham’s daughters. One of God’s chosen. One of God’s beloved. And for 18 years Satan has kept her chained. You talk about what it is necessary to do on work days. Isn’t it necessary to loose her from these chains…even on the Sabbath day?” Isn’t it necessary? Isn’t it necessary to release her into life?

What could the people do except to join the woman, no longer bent over, but praising God? And what could Jesus’ opponents do but to hang their heads in shame. Jesus was going to set people free and there was nothing that they could do to stop it.

So what about you? What about you and me and the people we love who are chained by spirits we can’t understand? Do you know what it’s like to have your whole life defined by what you see when you’re looking down? I’ve been there. Do you know what it’s like to look at the same patch, the same routine, the same struggle, the same bad habit, the same persistent sin, the same wound and to believe that all that the world is for you is that? Do you know what it’s like to question what God is up to…to wonder whether God can accept you…to feel as though you are invisible to Jesus’ love?

Even the saints can feel bowed down. I know another bent-over woman who had questions. She wasn’t bent over as much as the woman in Luke, but she always seemed a little stooped. But there were times when she questioned her own worthiness and questioned God. "Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul,” she wrote in a private journal. "I want God with all power of my soul -- and yet between us there is terrible separation.”[i] Those are quotes from the writings of Mother Theresa, who labored so long helping the poor and the dying in the streets of Calcutta. It seems that she was prone to long periods when she, too, felt separated from God and invisible to Christ’s love.

So what is it that we need to hear? What is it that we need to know? That when we are drawn in on ourselves and it seems that the weight of the world has bent us over, someone needs to remind us that Jesus has set us free. That when we are overwhelmed by what we think we’ve lost or what we think we’ll never gain, someone needs to remind us that Jesus is calling us to walk into a future that has already been assured for us. That when we are feeling unworthy or invisible that God is seeing us in the light of Christ who died to open the way for us to live…who took on sin so that we could be redeemed…who took on the worst that the world could throw at him to reclaim the lost and to release the captive.

And here’s more good news. He’s not done with us. Jesus promised that his story was not going to end 2000 years ago in Palestine. Jesus talked about a day when all things would be made right…when the poor and the oppressed would be lifted up…when the humble in spirit would be rewarded…when those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be satisfied…when Jesus would return. And what did Jesus say to do when we saw these things taking place. “Now when these things begin to take place, STAND UP and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” [Luke 21:28, NRSV]

Stand up! Stand up! Your life is too short to restrict your world to the patch in front of you. Stand up! Even if your body is not moving your spirit can…stand up! You are not a beast of burden; you are a daughter of Abraham or a child of God. Stand up! Don’t you think this day is a good day to claim what God has promised you in Jesus Christ? Stand up! Isn’t this day a good day to leave your question mark behind and to start living in the joy that comes from knowing Jesus? Stand up! Isn’t this Sabbath as good a day as any to become a walking exclamation point? Thanks be to God.

Luke 13:10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Look, there was also a woman there who had for eighteen years had a weakening spirit that left her bent over so that she could not stand erect at all.
When Jesus saw her, he called out to her and said, "Woman, you are loosed from your weakness." Then he put his hands on her and immediately she was restored and began to praise God.
The ruler of the synagogue responded with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. He said to the crowd, "There are six days on which it is necessary to work. So it follows that you should come to be healed on one of them and not on the Sabbath day."
The Lord answered him, "Hypocrite! Doesn't every one of you, on the Sabbath, loose your cow or donkey from the stall and lead it to drink? This is one of Abraham's daughters. Look, Satan has bound this woman for eighteen years; isn't it necessary to loose her from these chains on the Sabbath day?"
Saying this, all his opponents were put to shame and all the crowd rejoiced over the glorious things being done by him.

[i] Mother Theresa, http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/09/06/excerpts.mother.theresa/index.html