4th Epiphany
Luke 13: 10-17
Once
he was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman
who had a spirit weakening her for eighteen years: she was bent over and could
not stand upright [lift her head all the way up]. When Jesus saw her, he called
her to him and said to her, “Woman, you are released from your illness!”
He laid his hands upon her, and at once she was
able to straighten up. And she praised the power of God. Then the leader of the
synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the
people, “There are six days for doing work; on those days you can come and let
yourselves be healed—but not on the Sabbath.”
But
the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Does not every one of you untie his ox or
his ass from the manger on the Sabbath and lead it away to the water trough?
But this daughter of Abraham, who was held bound by the dark might of Satan for
eighteen years, wasn’t supposed to be released from her bondage on the day of
the Sabbath?”
All his opponents were put to shame by these words,
and the people rejoiced over all the signs of spiritual power that happened
through him.
4th
Epiphany Sunday
Luke
13: 10-17
The
insect world has an unusual characteristic. Bugs have no bones. Their muscles
are attached to their outer shell. Their carapace is the support for their
movement. Human muscle, however, is attached to bones within the body. Support
for our movement comes from the bones; within the bones,our very lifeblood is made.
Jesus
heals a woman from an oppressive spirit that had pushed her earthward. She had
become earthbound, hindered from uprighting herself to connect with God in the
heights. Jesus’ deed was a creative act, which restored her into the stream of
God’s creative working.
The
Law, the rule of the time, was interpreted in such a narrow way that, by law,
Jesus was not allowed to do such a thing on that day of the week. The Law had
become a kind of carapace, enforcing a kind of oppressive uprightness from
without. Christ stood before the choice to follow the “right”, or to do the
good, the creative, restorative thing. He makes it clear that the right and the
good are not the same thing. This is particularly so when the rules have
outlived their usefulness, or have become constraining.
In
a certain sense, we can see Christ’s healing of the woman oppressed as a
picture for the healing of the Law itself. Through Christ, the Being of Love,
the Law is shrunk back to its origins and proper place within the human heart.
Its essence is loving God with all one’s being and loving one’s neighbor as
oneself.
Through
Christ, we meet God as the Creating Word who draws us to His great heart.
Through Christ in us, we meet other human beings on the expansive and expanding
field of Humanity becoming Divine.
In
the words of Rumi we can hear the words of Christ in us:
Out beyond the ideas
of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.[1]
[1]
Jelaluddin Rumi, ( 1207 – 1273 CE) “Out Beyond Ideas of Wrong-Doing”, The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks, p. 36
