Friday, February 7, 2014

4th Epiphany 2008, Right or Good

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
January 27, 2008
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