Fight-Pickin', Rug-Pullin' Jesus--May 13, 2020

Fight-Pickin', Rug-Pullin' Jesus--May 13, 2020

"Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 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. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, 'Woman, you are set free from your ailment.' When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept on 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.' But the Lord answered him and said, 'You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath unite 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 Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?' 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]

There are times when Jesus both yanks the rug out from under me to knock me to the floor... and makes me fall in love with him all over again at the same time.  This is one of them.

Let me tell you about it.

Maybe I should start with getting knocked to the floor.  This is one of those times when Jesus is absolutely ruthless against the hypocrisy of religious people, especially people who seem willing to write off the sick woman because it gets in the way of their scheduled program for the day.  It's tempting for me to say to myself, "Yeah, you tell 'em, Jesus!" as though I'm not constantly falling into the same hellish trap of ignoring people, or pretending they don't matter, in order to keep on going with the oh-so-important business of the day.  There are lots of times I have my own personal list of "stuff I want to get done," and someone else appears on the radar, needing me to set aside my plans and productivity for something, and I have to keep learning to get over my sense of self-importance and self-centeredness.  I have to keep learning, as Jesus shows here, that people are always more important than "getting back on schedule," or me checking everything off the to-do list in the order I want them checked off.  Jesus' attention to this woman shames me in all the times I don't want to see someone else God has sent across my path, because I know that seeing them will mean stopping my busy-ness for their sake.  And I have to admit, that makes me squirm here.

I have to admit, too, that I can't look for loopholes or ways out of this story, because Jesus pushes the confrontation to happen.  He could have just as easily have told the woman, "Hey, let's not make a big deal about this, but if you come back tomorrow, or meet me outside the synagogue when nobody is looking, I'll heal you without provoking a confrontation with the Respectable Religious people." Or for that matter, Jesus could have healed her without making a scene--he could have silently winked or wiggled his nose and made the woman well without saying a word, and nobody would have known it was him.  No one would have needed to make a fuss then, and the Respectable Religious people wouldn't have had their precious schedule delayed or derailed.

But he doesn't. Jesus, who clearly has the power to heal people without touching them, without saying anything, and even without being in the same place as the person needing healing, deliberately picks this fight with the Respectable Religious people.  Jesus' choice of action is purposely designed to send the message, "If your practice of religion is an obstacle to the health and healing of another person, you are doing it wrong."  Jesus knows his action will be offensive to the Respectable Religious people, and he does it anyway--this is his way of making it clear that God is always in the business of giving life, even if that means that other business has to be put on the back-burner. When our to-do lists, our sense of accomplishment, or our religiosity come into conflict with preserving and restoring the lives of others, none other than God is going to derail our plans and put them on hold.  Jesus knows he is making enemies with his actions--but he is willing to do so, because he is clear that his mission, his reason for being, is and always has been to bring people more fully to life.  Jesus is willing to do that for the sake of the woman who has been crippled for eighteen years, even when it means yanking the rug of my smug self-importance out from under my feet and knocking me to the floor.  He knows that he can help me up again if I'm down on the ground--but he can't do anything for me as long as I am unwilling to see that the needs of this woman are not forgettable or ignorable.

And maybe that is the paradox of this whole story, because it is that very thing that makes me love Jesus all the more.  I need a savior who is willing to yank the rug out from under me when I need it.  I need a rabbi who will not pull punches.  I need to know that God sees the people I have been ignoring because it is inconvenient to have to think of their needs before my own, or to see that they are at least as important as I am in God's reign.  

And yet, beautifully, gracefully, Jesus doesn't throw this woman under the bus.  He doesn't let her become the villain, or the scapegoat, or the "problem," even when the Respectable Religious people looking to get on with their agendas give him an out to do just that.  The Religious Leaders see the healing happen, and they start attacking the woman, and they stir up the crowd against her.  "If you want to get healed, come on another day!" they shout, as if this woman had asked for this to happen--as if she had intended to cause this disruption to "the plan" for the day's business.  The religious leaders want to make her into the problem, the scapegoat, the wrongdoer... except they aren't even courageous enough to address their complaint to her.  They stir up the crowd and put a target sight on her back, as if to make her the object of their anger at having the plan for the day interrupted.  This is the same cowardly attitude we find still today all over civil society when folks refuse to have an honest face-to-face conversation, but instead just go ranting on social media against the easy scapegoats because folks need to vent frustration rather than actually acknowledge that life is complicated and messy.  So there's nothing new under the sun...

But what makes me love Jesus--and respect and admire him, as well as want to follow and serve him all the more--is this: Jesus won't accept that "out."  Jesus doesn't let the Respectable Religious folks make the woman who was crippled into "the problem," and he doesn't let them get away with insisting that their need to practice their religion gets to be more important that preserving life.  So Jesus does something wonderful--he picks another fight, and he makes himself the target of the Respectable Religious people.  Like a Mama killdeer squawking to draw a predator away from the vulnerable eggs in the nest and onto itself, Jesus inserts himself into the conversation.  When the religious folk start backhandedly criticizing the crippled woman, as though she had sought out this healing on the sabbath day, Jesus jumps in and breaks open the whole notion of what sabbath is about.  And instead of treating it as a ritual that must be performed in order to satisfy some imagined needs on God's part, Jesus reminds everybody that sabbath was always about bringing life--life that comes from rest, to be sure, but sometimes just plain life.  So if "the way we've always done our religious thing" comes into conflict with "bringing and preserving life," guess what--Jesus is going to insist on life.  Always, always, always.  And if we start fussing that "it's our right to practice our religion as we see fit, regardless of what it means for anybody else," Jesus interrupts us once again, probably yanking the rug of self-righteousness out from under us as he does it, and says, "That's not what genuine religion is about--the real and living God has always been more invested in the work of saving and restoring life than in getting the rituals right."

It is that courageous love of Jesus that gets me every time.  He is willing to make himself the target, to draw the fire of the angry powerful people away from the vulnerable folks like this woman, and to turn it toward himself, because he can take it.  And that, honestly, it just makes me love Jesus all the more, and to want to be a part of whatever it is he is up to in the world.  Because honestly, that's the whole Christian faith in a nutshell--Jesus says to the powers of death and the grave, "I'm over here--come and get me!" in order to turn their attention from targeting us, and he takes their attacks and hostility like a mother killdeer, offering herself as the target to preserve her young.  And because I can see that deep love from Jesus for me, I can also bear to let Jesus knock me to the floor by yanking the carpet out from my feet when I need it, because I know it means he is protecting someone else who is vulnerable.  

In the end, it's scenes like this one that remind me the only God worth serving is the One who speaks to the bullies and says, "How about you take your fight to me, instead of this vulnerable person over here?"  And the only Savior worth giving our lives to is the One who won't let us erase the sick or the hurting because it is inconvenient to think of their needs.  I can only love a God now who calls me out on my narcissistic self-importance when I think my to-do list, and my list of stuff I want to get accomplished, is all that matters.  Any other god who will never get between me and my "rights" when the needs of the neighbor are at stake are just dead idols.

Loving Jesus, it turns out, it complicated--he reserves the right to call us out when we need it, and to let us get knocked off of our high horses when we need that, too.  But that is the sign he is the real deal, because it means he is fiercely seeking the good of someone else whom he loves, too.

Today, let us pause and consider the ways we may be tempted to ignore or erase people and their needs because it might not suit our agenda for the day.  And in the midst of that, let us allow ourselves to fall in love with Jesus, all over again, because of his courage way of drawing the fire of religious bullies onto himself in order to protect those who are most vulnerable.

That's why I love Jesus.  That's what he does.

Lord Jesus, let us allow you today to rearrange our hearts, our agendas, and our priorities in light of the needs of those we have forgotten are in the room.... even if it means getting knocked off our self-important high horses today.