10-13 He (Jesus) was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.
14 The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.”
15-16 But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”
17 When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and red-faced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on.
Two haunting questions raised by this text:
First: “Do we hide behind obscure biblical passages and ancient prejudices as a way of avoiding the call to be a healing presence in the world?” Lisa W. Davison
Consider homosexuality as one example. Do we hide behind the few verses of Scripture which seem to condemn homosexuality, so we don’t have to face the many verses of Scripture which call us to be “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Ps. 103:8) as Jesus was! Thus being a healing presence in the world.
Second: How do we keep the Sabbath today?
Weekly worship is still with us, yet few of us worship weekly.
Sunday is still a “special” day yet it is full of that which happens the rest of the week. As the NFL official said, “Sunday once belonged to God, but now it belongs to us.”
Reflect on these words from Gary E. Pelukso-Verdend, a United Methodist pastor at Phillips Theological Seminary inTulsa, OK.
“Keeping Sabbath is also a weekly reminder of God’s household economics in which economic justice is a foundational virtue of any society and in which the value of liberation for the bound takes precedence over normal prohibitions. In today's 24/7/365 globalized and commercialized economy, keeping Sabbath thus understood will involve striving that rises to the level of agony. We Christians have little external support for Sabbath stewardship. It is not easy to be a good steward of time, money, energy, and attention in a world that never sleeps or rests, in which faith in the global economy sometimes crosses over into idolatry.”
In the light of all of this remember:“When God is up to something,
prepare to be unbound:
whether from confining diseases,
or social norms about persons
with disabilities, or even holy pieties.”
David Jacobsen
Prayer thought for the week: "Lord, unbind me from that which keeps me from being a healing presence in my world."
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