The Lifting Up of Heads

Proper 16, Year C, Luke 13: 10-17

When I was growing up, my great, great aunt was a prominent figure in my family.  “Aintee,” we all called her. She never married yet had helped raise my grandfather and his siblings when his mother (Aunty’s sister) died when he was three months old. She helped my grandmother care for my mother and many of her cousins, when my grandfather was serving in World War II. From a family of sawmill workers in deep East Texas, she had contracted polio when she was around 24 years old and was crippled with a huge bump on her back that bent her over about 90 degrees. 

Polio was a pandemic in the early 20th century that struck in 1916 affecting mostly very young children, paralyzing and killing thousands. I guess you could say that Aunty was one of the lucky ones. She was tiny and bent over, yet a force to be reckoned with and one you did not cross, and we all loved her deeply. She was a permanent fixture in our extended family, sitting in her rocker with her brass spittoon by her side for her snuff. 

I thought of her this week when I read the Gospel story in Luke of the bent over woman being healed by Jesus in the Temple, on the Sabbath. Aunty spent more than 60 years bent over, this woman had endured eighteen, both were too long. Both of these women had resigned themselves to their condition.

In our reading today, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath–the last time in Luke’s Gospel that we see him in the synagogue teaching. And he spots this woman that is bent over and can’t stand up straight. The text literally translates “she was bent over and unable to lift up her head.” It may be that she just happened to be there at that time for there is no indication that she came because Jesus was there or that she was hoping or even expecting to be healed. She doesn’t ask him for anything. 

Jesus sees in this woman all those that suffer, that have no voice, that can’t speak up for themselves, that are perhaps too afraid to ask for healing. People who are marginalized and can’t lift their heads from the burdens they carry. There are those who work seven days a week to feed their families and never get a rest, those who are migrating around the world because of famine or violence, those whom our society rejects, those whose presence makes many of us uncomfortable, those who are chronically ill, those who are dying or grieving, all those who suffer. They are the ones bent over and cannot raise their heads.

And yet, without her initiating anything, Jesus calls her over. “You are set free from your ailment.” You have been released from those things that have bent you over, that have caused you to not be able to lift your head. She has not been able to lift her head because of her physical ailment, but also cannot lift her head for shame. Jesus tells her she has been set free before he touches her. For Jesus to use those words “You are set free” means so much more than “cured from your back problem.” The first thing Jesus offers her is freedom–freedom even before she is cured. Freedom from all she has faced in her life, and especially the last 18 years of deformity, poverty, shame, rejection, and hardship. Free from the grief and sorrows she must have carried as an outcast. She is free.

When he then lays hands on her, her spine is healed. Her healing depends neither on her faith nor on the faith of others—worth noting by all who promise miracles and good fortune if they only have enough faith! For eighteen years she had not been able to raise her head or look anyone in the eye, was in a permanent subservient stance, was ridiculed and pitied, disgraced and humiliated, and Jesus basically told her to stand up tall and lift her head. Jesus’ touch was her initial welcome back into community and her immediate response was to praise God, to rejoice. He restored her dignity in front of everyone sitting in the synagogue who may have been ignoring her needs for years. And she rejoiced. 

The religious leaders were not feeling the joy and did not want her nor Jesus to mess with the system they had established and so they accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath law. For them, “doing good” was not the point, for Jesus’ good deeds undermined their social order. The funny thing is, though, even the law followed the Mishnah concession that allowed for reasonable conditions, such as making sure your livestock were watered and fed–tending to the needs of these animals. Jesus’ point was, how much more so should we make sure those who are suffering are also tended to if we make provision for our donkeys and oxes? Yes, there were six days in the week when Jesus could have healed her, but Jesus wasn’t there then, he showed up on the Sabbath.

If it is permitted to loose an ox or donkey on the Sabbath, then why is it not permissible to loose a “daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years”? Again, for Jesus the care of human beings is itself a religious virtue that takes precedence over rites, rituals, and the social systems they ensure. The law as written in Deut. 5:12–15 begins with, “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Is it not holy to render justice, to love mercy, and lift up the head of one’s neighbor? This Deuteronomic understanding of holiness is at the heart of the Old Testament prophetic traditions.

I think it is important in these stories of Jesus that we take a look ourselves in each of the characters. We all want to think and hope that we would always side with Jesus and the rest of the affirming crowd that was watching this unfold. But truth be told, we also tend to respond like the Pharisees here. The Pharisees represent any religious leader or chief of staff for many an organization. Rules and laws, whether religious or secular, are generally made for important reasons. But when a rule or law prevents what is just, right, or loving, Jesus challenges us to choose what is best for our neighbor, to choose what is holy. 

To be fair, the Pharisees had a good point. She wasn’t in an emergency situation. She didn’t ask to be healed right then. There were six other days in the week for Jesus to heal. Jesus could have followed the status quo and waited a day. It is easy to counsel someone else to be patient.  But rules are more likely to be considered reasonable when they do not affect the rule enforcer. Had this woman been one of the synagogue rulers’ mother, wife, or daughter, the opportunity for her restored health may have been too good to pass up, even on the Sabbath.

This story in Luke’s Gospel is immediately followed by two short sayings about the dominion of God. One begins, “[Jesus] said therefore, ‘What is the kingdom of God like?’” (v. 18), and the other, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?” (v. 20). The story of the afflicted woman seems to anticipate these questions and provide a kind of picture of what the ultimate reign of God will be like. The reign of God is where Jesus is. Where we are restored, set free from our afflictions of body, mind, and spirit. Where this unnamed woman and my Aunty are no longer bent over by their afflictions and burdens, but their heads are raised high, and they are praising God. As we are the Body of Christ in God’s kingdom on earth, there are many things we are to rest from on the Sabbath, but the law is to keep the Sabbath holy, and the lifting up of heads is holy work indeed.