What is your ailment, your weakness?
What kind of a spirit has kept you crippled, bent over, unable to stand straight, stand tall, with your head held high?
For eighteen years, you have come to the synagogue. What good has it done?
You’ve presented your offering.
You’ve tried speaking to the priests and the synagogue leaders.
But they, apparently, had more important things to do, like counting money, and making sure that people who are not worthy are not allowed to come too close to the holy presence, people like sinners and lepers and the disabled … people like you. People with any kind of physical or mental “deformity…” People who are lame, deaf, or blind, people who, whether by birth or by accident, have lost a finger, or an eye; people who can no longer stand upright and walk tall; people who, for whatever reason, are imperfect or blemished in some way.
Of course, it could have been simply because you were a woman, that they would not help you, heal you, care for you. Is that why scripture gives you no name, and records none of your words? Is the bondage that has kept you bent over simply the result of your sex?
I’d like to say that, were you alive today, it would not be so. After all, this is a modern, enlightened world. And yet, even though the world’s population in 2010 is still growing, the number of women in the world is declining.
It has been reported that already, there are 60 to 100 million fewer girls than boys in the world, due to selective abortions, selective infanticide or neglect, and the uneven allocation of basic resources such as food, health care, and education to girls. Also, the battering of women results in more injuries requiring medical attention than auto accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.
I’d like to say that, were you alive today, and were you an American woman, you would not have suffered from the spirits that have kept you bent over. But even here, there are cultural social forces that “bend” women’s bodies through cosmetic surgery, clothing, and obsessive forms of dieting. Here, in 21st century American, you might be pressured into getting a facelift, eyelid surgery, laser skin resurfacing, cheek augmentation, teeth whitening, body contouring, or breast augmentation, reduction, or lift.
Even here, even today, women carry heavy burdens that keep them from standing tall with their heads held high.
Pictures of young women in magazines and on TV are digitally manipulated and “bent” to alter proportions and reality, and yet many real women and even girls try to bend their bodies into the ones they see, the ones that are not even real, with results that are dangerous and sometimes fatal.
Some women today can’t stand to look at themselves in the mirror, or see photographs of themselves, because what they see doesn’t match the bent and altered images they see in magazines and on billboards. Some of them have bodies that have been altered or even disfigured by age or injury, by mastectomy, or even by their own failed attempts to improve the way they look, and so they have been declared not worthy by a society that, even today, discriminates on the basis of physical appearance.
I’d like to say that, were you alive today, you would not have a crippling spirit inflicted upon you, that your body would not be bent out of shape – but I cannot.
I’d like to say that you, along with all those who are oppressed, all those who are kept in the shadows, would be welcomed by the church today, embraced, and empowered to stand tall with pride. But even today, 2000 years later, we’ve still not fully learned Jesus’ message of love and welcome and affirmation.
It was Jesus who you met that day in the synagogue. When he saw you, it was not a cripple that he saw. It wasn’t your stooped shoulders or shuffling feet. He did not see a person lacking in holiness because of her gender, or because her body wasn’t perfect in the eyes of society. Jesus looked at you, and he saw a daughter of Abraham; he saw a child of God.
It’s funny, in a way. The priests and the synagogue leaders worked so hard to keep anything “unworthy” from entering the holiest part of the synagogue and encountering the holy presence, when really, all along, the holiest presence of all – Jesus – was out there, outside the synagogue, walking around with the people, addressing and even embracing those very same “unworthy” people.
Walking around, it was he who saw you. It was he who called you over, it was he who healed you, it was he who laid his hands on you and set you free from the spirit that had kept you bent over for eighteen long years.
And when you were healed, you stood up straight, you held your head high, and, with what I assume was a voice loud and strong, you began praising God.
How beautiful your song must have been! So full of emotion, so full of joy at being set free from your bondage. What a celebration it must have been in response to the miracle that restored you to wholeness, the miracle that gave you your life back.
It would seem to me that everyone present would have enthusiastically joined in your celebration. But not all of them did. Some, including the leader of the synagogue, seem to have missed the miracle. Somehow they didn’t see it. They didn’t see the healing. They didn’t see wholeness restored.
Instead, they saw a violation of the Sabbath.
It makes me wonder what I would have seen if I were there. It makes me wonder what I would see if you were alive today, if your healing took place this very day, in this very place. Would I have seen the miracle, or would I have been skeptical, or possibly annoyed by the interruption?
If you were a woman who one day decided to no longer allow the glamour magazines tell you how ugly you were, and instead listened to God tell you how beautiful you are, would I recognize that as a miracle?
If one day you decided to stand up straight and follow God, casting off the heavy burden that society has placed upon your shoulders, would I recognize that as a miracle? If one day you learned to stand up straight, confident that God loves you and accepts you just the way you are, would I recognize that as a miracle?
I wish I could hear your words of praise! I wish I could hear the song you sang! At the very least, I wish I could read your words. But I can’t. The scripture writer did not record your words.
I wish I knew your name, but not even that is mentioned. I guess the scripture writer, despite his devotion to Jesus, and despite his discernment in editing which allowed him to tell as much of your story as he did, could not avoid the influence of a culture that tried to bend women’s bodies and silence women’s voices.
Were you alive today, I’m sure I’d hear of your love and gratitude for a God whose love does not discriminate, a God who embraces every person on earth. Your words of praise are lost to us, but we have your story, and we know that it is God’s desire that no person be bent over in spirit, for any reason, whether gender or physical disability or bodily imperfection or sexuality or age or education or income.
Were you alive today, I know that you would tell us that if we follow God and believe in Jesus, then the pressures to keep our bodies and our spirits bent would be lightened, and we would learn to see ourselves and each other as God sees us: as sons and daughters of Abraham; as children of God, beautiful to behold.
And as God’s family, we would have our strength renewed. We would run and not be weary. We would walk and not be faint. We would hold our heads up high, and we would sing praises to God, because we would know that we are God’s children, accepted, adored, and loved by God, who sets us free, and who restores us to wholeness.
No comments:
Post a Comment