Jesus heals a woman bent double (Proper 16)

 Luke 13: 10-17

To be in pain is a terrible thing. 

To be unable to move freely is a real impediment to a full and happy life. 

People who are wheelchair users describe how hard it is to be taken seriously when everyone else towers above you.

So imagine how hard life was for the woman Jesus meets in the synagogue who is bent double and has been for 18 years, experiencing all of those things.

 

What do you think you would find most difficult if you were bent right over?

 

In fact we don’t have to just imagine it, because in 2019 there was a story on the news of Li Huan – a Chinese man, nicknamed “the folded man” because he had been bent right over for more than 20 years by an extreme version of ankylosing spondylitis.

His chin was on his chest and his face against his thigh bone.

 

His mother cared for him, helped him to wash, to eat, to get around and about; but at the age of 71 she was beginning to worry about what would happen to him when she was no longer around. And so doctors in China decided to perform the risky surgery to break and re-set Li Hua’s bones, to get his body upright once again.

I’ll spare you the details – but you can still see the report on Youtube

here 

Li Huan described the operations as giving him ‘a glimmer of hope’.

 

After the operations, which were successful, he rejoiced in being able to lie flat in bed once more…then he could sit up in his wheelchair… and finally he learnt to stand with the help of a frame, and even begin to learn to walk again.

 

He described being able to see his mother properly, face to face, for the first time since he was in his teens. He wanted to thank her for all she had done to help him.

Li Hua even managed to return to work in the family shop.

To be free to stand up straight again after so long is a blessing and a miracle.

 

In the story we heard from Luke’s gospel, the healing power of God in Jesus Christ heals the woman in the synagogue, who is bent over double, immediately.

 

Her life is given back to her – she can look people in the face, she can move freely, she can work and not be a burden.

 

Yet there are people who say to Jesus that he shouldn’t have healed her in the synagogue that day, because it was the sabbath, the day of rest, when no-one should work. These people thought healing the woman was working – and that Jesus should not have done it.

 

But Jesus describes what he has done for the woman not as work, but as ‘freeing’ her.

He tells the woman ‘you are set free from your ailment’, as he heals her. And when he is criticised, Jesus says

“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? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom evil has bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

 

We may be fortunate enough not to be bent double, but Jesus can offer us freedom from the things that hold us in bondage – that keep us tied up in knots.

 

Jesus frees the woman from her illness and he tries to free the leaders in the synagogue from their wrong idea that healing on the sabbath is wrong.

Jesus offers freedom to everyone – whatever day of the week it is.

 

Maybe there are worries that weigh us down, the keep our heads down and our shoulders bent?

Jesus can free us.

 

Maybe there are rules and regulations that make us feel we are not as good as other people, or even make us worry that we do not deserve to be helped?

Jesus can free us.

 

Maybe there are things that keep us tied up in knots – other people’s unfairness to us, long-standing difficulties, troubled relationships?

Jesus can free us.

 

And the wonderful thing about the freedom Jesus offers is that it is not just for every day of the week, it is for every week of every month of every year for evermore.

Jesus never stops offering us freedom – he wants us to live life in all its fulness – life that is free and rich and wonderful.

 

And the freedom of Jesus is not just for all time, it is for all people.

So when we are troubled by the news and see people who desperately need freedom for their land, or from poverty, or from climate change, or from violence and hatred, we can know that Jesus wants to offer all these people freedom. And we can pray and work and speak out for freedom for all people, for all God’s children, that they might know the freedom of God’s love for them, shown in Jesus.

 

Then, like the crowd surrounding Jesus, we can rejoice in all the wonderful things that Jesus is doing.

Until that day when we and all God’s children are free and whole in the wonders of God’s kingdom.

Amen.

 

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