e-vo for week of August 18

Dearest e-votees-

How well do you function with rules and expectations that come from without? Are they an important part of decency and good order? Are they constraining and off-putting? Will you follow them grudgingly? Will you look for loopholes and chances to shave corners off of sharp expectations? How do you decide which rules and expectations are binding and which can be loosed?

In this week’s gospel lesson Jesus has quite a brush-up against someone who seems to care more about the rules than the sufferings of ones fashioned in God’s image who are right before him.

Where do you find yourself in this week’s gospel account?

Peace,
Karl

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10 Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 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. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." 15 But the Lord 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? 16 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?" 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Luke 13:10-17, NRSV


THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Imagine that you are part of an association that has certain rules about expected behavior and social interactions. Imagine also that you have the capacity to alleviate suffering from a particular ailment. As you are going about your business someone comes before you who has been suffering for many years from that very thing that you can readily cure. Wanting to spare this unfortunate soul even another moment of suffering you bring about a cure much to the delight of all but one. One of the members of your association approaches you quite angrily waving about a copy of the association’s rules. You are forbidden from bringing about healing on this particular day according to this member’s interpretation of your association’s guidelines. How do you respond?

Jesus answers the leader of the synagogue who told people to come for healing on a non-sabbath day quite pointedly. He responds with “You hypocrites!” (note the plural) Clearly Jesus is addressing the leader before him—who do you suppose the other hypocrites were? Other leaders of this particular synagogue? Others who read scripture too legalistically? Others who were nodding and otherwise giving assent in their hearts to this proclamation? Perhaps it is just as properly addressed to us who make harsh and legalistic decisions based on law and religion rather than mercy and relationship.

At the start of the 14th chapter of Luke there is another similar exchange:

1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, "Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?" 4 But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?" 6 And they could not reply to this. (NRSV)

Jesus pierces through the expectations that he would leave someone unhealed in order to honor the Sabbath. He shows the folly and the hypocrisy to those who would question him through their own actions towards their own children and animals.

Again, I ask you:
Where do you find yourself in this week’s gospel account?

Are you in need of healing? Have you been suffering for many years and need some relief and respite from your trials? Are you in need of a dispensation of grace and healing?

Are you in need of order and decency? Are you threatened by those who don’t do things according to your understandings and your time frames? Are you a leader that others are watching to see what you might do so that they can take their cues? Is something like hypocrisy at work in you which needs to be tamed?

Are you one who can work some measure of healing in the life of another? Are others pressing in trying to constrain and hem you in for whatever reason? Does their hypocrisy tempt you to fade into the background? How will you respond?


God, renew and heal our hypocritical hearts. Help us temper law and order with grace and mercy. Continue to bring healing into our lives and use us to heal others. Speak words of grace and love through us all to your glory. Amen.