Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
You’ve got to love it when the Gospel begins with Jesus in a synagogue on the sabbath—because you know stuff is about to get real. Jesus seems to relish these moments, especially when religious leaders are present to see what he will do. Again and again, he chooses to heal on the sabbath, even though some see it as breaking the rules. So, it should come as no surprise that the events of today’s Gospel stirs up contention. After all, no work was to be done on the Sabbath. Though I wonder, if maybe the deeper question here isn’t about Sabbath rules at all. Maybe the real question is this: What counts as work, and what counts as care?
Several years ago, after my father died, my mother called me one morning in distress. I could tell by her voice that something was very wrong. She had woken in the night in terrible pain and asked me to drive her to the doctor, since she couldn’t manage on her own. I immediately jumped in the car and rushed to Selma. When I got to her house, I found her already downstairs though I do not know how she managed it. I got her into the car with the help of my father’s old walker, and drove her to her doctor.
Her doctor gave her a shot to ease the pain and a prescription to manage it until she could see a specialist in Montgomery. His office arranged an appointment with the specialist, though she couldn’t get in until the following week. By the time we got her to that appointment, she could hardly stand up straight. It was hard to witness. This woman of strength and courage—who had weathered so much—now seemed bent low, as though her body were betraying her.
The back specialist scheduled her for surgery and two weeks later we were in the outpatient surgical center at Jackson Hospital. Because it was still the height of Covid, I had to wait in my car outside the outpatient center. We had arrived early that morning for check-in and pre-op and, hours later, I was still sitting in the car waiting, having watched the parking lot slowly empty. I finally realized I was the last car left in the lot. By the time I was called in, she looked worse than when I had dropped her off. She was in excruciating pain and could barely dress herself, let alone stand. I feared the surgery had failed. But with time, rest, and the attentive care of nurses, doctors, and therapists, she grew stronger. Within a week she was standing upright again, and within months she was restored to health. Today, you would never know she had been so near to being bent low and broken.
What carried her through was not only the skill of her doctors but also the care shown by friends and family. That combination of healing professions and human compassion became a living sign of love.
I doubt my mother would have cared when her healing took place—Sabbath, Easter Sunday morning, or any other day. For her, healing was grace. Had she been healed on the sabbath, she would have found that even more profound and renewed her hope and faith in God through that healing. What would have been unbearable is if her doctor had said, “Come back later. Today isn’t the right day to be made whole.”
Those who would heal her did so not just because it is their job or the work they do, it was because they cared. Still, there is an exchange of goods in the caring work they do. Jesus received nothing in return and yet, the leader of the synagogue declared his healing to be work, not care. I wonder how that woman who felt bound by Satan for eighteen years would define what happened that day. Would she have thought Jesus’ actions to be work or care for her?
The bent-over woman in today’s Gospel didn’t seek Jesus out. She didn’t ask to be healed. Yet Jesus saw her, called her over, and set her free. For him, this was not “work.” It was care, love, and liberation.
The synagogue leader’s words, though addressed to the crowd and aimed at Jesus, were directed toward her. “ There are six days in which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” I ‘m not sure the woman came on this particular day just to be healed, much less knew Jesus had such healing power or even that he would be present that day. Can you imagine how she must have felt? To have your very healing questioned, your worthiness challenged, your liberation dismissed? Where Jesus had just lifted her up, the leaders tried to press her back down.
When people judge the circumstances of our lives—be it our ailments or our healing—they strip away our dignity and we assume that we have failed in some way. We have been denied our worth as a human being, as someone who deserves to be liberated and healed from pain and suffering. It seems problematic to say that a “spirit had crippled her” or that “Satan had bound her for eighteen years”— that is exactly what seems to be happening here. Though it is not Satan’s actions but those who should know better acting upon his behalf—denying worth to others, binding them in judgment and shame, refusing to care for those who are in pain.
Jesus responds not only by healing her body but by affirming her dignity. He names her a “daughter of Abraham,” a beloved child of God. He refuses to let her be shamed. Where others saw her as a rule-breaker, or even as cursed, Jesus saw her as worthy of freedom. He doesn’t simply liberate her from her physical ailments, he liberates her from the judgment as to her worthiness.
Where the leaders of the synagogue and the opponents of Jesus attempted to shame this woman, Jesus shames them.
When my mother was in pain, it never once crossed my mind that her suffering was caused by sin or Satan or an evil spirit. I saw only a grieving woman trying to navigate life after the loss of her husband, brought low by her body. What she needed wasn’t judgment—it was encouragement, healing, and hope. And that’s exactly what she received. The deeds of healing and the words of encouragement helped her remember that she was loved, that she had value, that she was a child of God.
And isn’t that the heart of the Gospel? That in Christ we are reminded again and again that our value and dignity as children of God is not diminished by suffering, by difference, or by what others say about us. We are all daughters and sons of Abraham even if we do not resemble one another in health and wholeness or skin color or nationality. Each of us—every single one—is a beloved child of God, worthy of love, care, and liberation.
So the question that lingers for us is the one Jesus asks: Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, be set free from her bondage?
And by extension: Ought not we all?
Amen.