"A Miracle" Text: Psalm 71:1-8; Luke 13:10-17 The Reverend Joanna M. Adams Morningside Presbyterian Church Atlanta, GA August 26, 2007

Although the gospels are laced with miracle stories, the one that we have just heard is told only by Luke. Perhaps the other writers did not know the story; perhaps they knew it, but did not deem it important enough to include, but Luke liked the story. Remember that Luke was by vocation, a physician. He had seen his share of debilitating illnesses and conditions. Luke the physician clearly deemed this story worth telling.

Barbara Brown Taylor in her wonderful book Gospel Medicine points out that Luke never actually resigned from his original job, that of being a healer. Rather, he assumed an additional identity, that of being a disciple of Jesus. "Instead of prescribing herbs and spices, hot compresses and bed rest, he told stories that had the power to mend broken lives. Instead of pills and potions, he carried words around in his black bag, words like 'Weep no more'; 'be not afraid'; 'your sins are forgiven'; 'woman, you are free.'" (p. 3)

I have a confession to make this morning. I am weary of hearing a lot of the words you and I have to hear if we are going to go on living in this world. There are words everywhere that speak of death, not life. Words everywhere that describe in great detail, the perversions of the human spirit. Words that will make you cynical and want to withdraw. Words that make you mad. Words that tear you up.

Here are a few from the newspaper this weekend.

"Dog-fighting quarterback heads to jail."
"Helicopters blast rooftops before dawn."
"Explosion kills one, wounds four others."
"Six Flags beating victim struggles to regain life."
"Maternal deaths in the United States on the rise."

Against this cacophony of cruelty, against this heaping pile of words that describe the hurt and brokenness in the world, I need a counterpoint sound. I need to hear a counterpoint of kindness. I need to hear there is a power that is operative here, among us, that is not of this world but that was sent into the world for the purpose of healing lives.

So I thank you, Dr. Luke, for getting your black bag out this morning and for pulling out of it a story about the presence of God and God's power to make the wounded whole. To understand the "how", you have God's son, "the Great Physician," in whom "the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."

Today, Luke brings Jesus front and center. The setting is the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, as was his custom. You may recall that the disciples' usual way of referring to Jesus was "rabbi," which comes from an ancient Hebrew root that means "teacher". Picture Jesus, the good rabbi, standing in the synagogue, explaining the finer points of Jewish law to the men who were gathered before him. Women were allowed in the synagogue, but they were not allowed to receive instruction. While he was teaching, Jesus noticed out of the corner of his eye, a woman who was "quite unable to stand up straight".

Luke, giving us a little medical history, makes note that she had suffered this way, being unable to stand up at all, for 18 years. Imagine how long ago 18 years might have been. Eighteen years ago from today, in the year 1989 - imagine being unable to lift your body from the waist since the first year George Herbert Walker Bush was in the White House. Eighteen years is a long time.

When Al and I lived in Chicago, I served a church that sits at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chestnut Street, right at the heart of what is called the Gold Coast. Located in one of the most affluent areas in all of the United States, the church is surrounded by swanky shops and toney residential towers and department stores. Thousands of people walk down Michigan Ave every day, many of them tourists, but there were regulars whom I saw often. One of them was a street-person. I frequently glimpsed her on the wind-swept sidewalk. Usually, she was checking out the trashcan in front of Lord and Taylor's. She suffered from osteoporosis. Her visual world consisted entirely of the concrete beneath her feet. I sometimes watched the tourists watching her. Invariably, when they saw her, they averted their eyes, unable to look at her brokenness and her need.

Jesus did not avert his eyes when he saw a woman in the synagogue who could not stand up. We do not know if it was the first time she'd ever entered the portals or whether she was there everyday and people had dismissed her from their vision. What matters in any case is that Jesus saw her. He stopped teaching as soon as he glimpsed her. He called her over. It was at that moment that he really began to teach, wasn't it? He began to teach that whatever the kingdom of God is about, inviting those on the margins into a place in the center of the community where they can experience the Master's touch is at the heart of it. Note that she neither sought him nor did she ask him if he would heal her. He saw her. He called her, and as she entered in to his presence, he offered her healing that would lead to new life.

Some of the strongest words in the whole New Testament are found here in this 13th chapter of Luke. I will say them in the King James Version: "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." This was the single most important piece of information she had ever received. She was free from whatever had forced her to look down instead of up. The healing power of Jesus Christ is able to free people from that which forces them to look down rather than up.

I think of a story that Fred Craddock tells from a period in his early ministry when he was serving as the Dean of a seminary in the Midwest. One day a woman came to see him. She asked if he would go out to the parking lot with her. He followed her there. She opened the back door of the car. In the back seat was her brother. He had been a senior at the University of Oklahoma in the prime of his life. He had been injured in a terrible automobile accident, and he could not stand up. The woman had quit her job to care for him. All their resources were gone. She said, "Dr. Craddock, would you heal him?"

Fred said, "I can pray for him and I can pray for you and I can pray with you both, but I don't have the power of healing."

The woman shut the back door of the car, opened the front door, got in, put the key in her ignition, and said, "So you're not in the business of healing, is that right?"

"That's right."

"Then what in the world do you do?"

What in the world do we do with a community that gathers in the name of Jesus Christ, if we do not engage in the business of healing? There are, of course, many illnesses that turn out to be intractable. As Norman Cousins writes in his wonderful book Anatomy of an Illness "Not every illness can be overcome, but there is always a margin within which life can be lived with meaning and a certain sense of joy, despite illness." (Anatomy of an Illness) No, everyone is not healed physically, but everyone can be healed, in some way, because God's transforming power truly has been released in the world through Jesus Christ. He was on earth in the flesh long ago, and he is on earth now through his Spirit, in strength and in power.

Flesh to flesh, Jesus touched the one who could not stand up. Instead of the dusty ground beneath her, a new horizon came into view for her. The faces of family and friends became hers to enjoy. She could, at last, look someone in the eye.

The church of Jesus Christ is in the unbending business. That is what we do here. The story that we have heard this morning tells of a woman who has no name, who cannot stand up straight. I wish I could tell you that 2000 years after this incident, there were not forces in the world that keep women from standing up straight, but I cannot tell you that. I can tell you that in the year 2004, there were "60-100 million fewer girls than boys in the world due to selective abortions, selected infanticide or neglect." (1) I wish I could tell you something different, but even allocation of the basic resources of food and health care and education for girls and women is getting worse each year rather than better. "The battering of women results in more injuries requiring medical attention than auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined." (2)

Woman, thou art loosed. That is God's will, that is God's plan, and it is a key responsibility for the people of God to make that promise a reality in our time.

I think of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and how it was that in 1989 our denomination adopted a new Confession of Faith. In that Confession of Faith is a little sentence you might miss if you don't pay careful attention: "The Spirit calls women and men to all the ministries of the church." It seems like a no-brainer to us, but most Christian communions in this country and around the world still do not ordain women to the office of ministry or elder or whatever the governing office is called. We trust in God the Holy Spirit who "calls women and men to all the ministries of the church." Never had that statement been made in a Christian confession before.

The church is in the business of unbending the backs of women and of giving them voice. Do you notice that it says that the woman in the story began to praise God? What did she say? Her words get lost. Maybe even Luke thought that what she had to say was not worth writing down, given its source, in a culture in which the voices of women were usually silent.

I know that many of you enjoy the writings of the novelist and essayist Sue Monk Kidd. She writes of sitting once on an airplane beside a young woman with a briefcase, obviously a professional woman. As they chatted before the seat belt light came on, a female voice came over the loud speaker and said, "This is your captain speaking."

The woman beside Kidd said, "Oh no. A woman pilot!

"I'm sure she's well-trained," Kidd responded.

"Right, but she's still a woman."

Think of the wounds in all of us. What kind of wound made that woman afraid to fly in a plane piloted by someone of her own gender? There are wounds, broken places, vision problems that go deep in both women and in men. The hopeful word that we have encountered today is that Jesus knows where we need to be healed by the power of his divine touch. He can reverse the way people see things in the world. He can alter assumptions that seem to be absolute and unassailable.

You'd think that everyone in the synagogue the day the woman was able to stand up straight would have been happy about it. You might expect to hear an outburst of rejoicing, but Jesus was criticized by a leader in the synagogue. "You're not supposed to do these kinds of things on the Sabbath day."

Jesus responded that there are things that are more important than obeying the rules. Paying attention to those who are invisible, for example. Helping those who need healing, for example.

I close with a wonderful story from a book you probably haven't thought about in a long time, The Ugly American. Emma Atkins was working in a small village in Asia. She noticed that the old people in that village were bent over and walked always as if their backs were hurting. She couldn't figure out why. Perhaps there was something lacking in the diet. Then, she realized that the old people did all the sweeping, and because wood was scarce, they made their brooms out of reeds they had gotten from the riverbank outside the village. The reeds were short, so generation after generation, the people swept stooped over. As they grew older, their spines grew in a crooked way. One day, Emma Atkins went out to the mountains and found reeds with taller stalks. She transplanted them to her garden, and they grew. Then with her newly grown reeds, she made one tall broom. She went out into her front yard and swept with it, where all the villagers could see her.

You know what happened. Brooms with long handles began to be made in that village. Years later, when she was back in the United States, she received a letter informing her that an altar had been made in the center of the town. At the foot of the altar were these words: "In memory of the woman who unbent the backs of our people."

When Jesus healed the woman in the synagogue, the people 'rejoiced at the wonderful things he was doing." I love the tense of that verb: the wonderful things he was doing. This is not a said and done thing that happened once a long time ago. Jesus is still doing these kinds of things. In every age and in every place, which includes here and now. To you and me, whatever is broken in us, Jesus Christ offers his power to heal.

Precious God, in your mercy we ask that you would restore in our lives whatever needs to come to good health. May we be patient with the time it takes to heal. (3) May we trust always in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, world without end. Amen.

(1) Teresa Berger, "Living by the Word," the Christian Century, 8/10/04.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Joyce Rupp, Out of the Ordinary