Texts: Job 24: 1-12; Luke 13: 10-17
A number of years ago, Robert Guillaume published his first book in the “happily ever after” series with the story of what happened to Cinderella after she married her prince. Now, Guillaume took a jaundiced view of life after the “they lived happily ever after,” so you can just imagine what happens when Cinderella really doesn’t like sleeping in a royal bed while the street sweepers sleep among the cinders. Just like Guillaume approached fairy tales in this manner, I have always wondered what happened to the people that Jesus touched or healed. What happened to them afterwards?
In this morning’s reading, Jesus describes the woman as having been bound by Satan. This was more than a mere physical ailment; it was a spiritual one as well. Luke’s Gospel uses an interesting Greek word to describe how the woman was afflicted: kyphotic. One scholar has pointed out that instead of translating the word as “bent over,” a better translation would be “bent into” or “bent with.” In other words, this infirmity had so become a part of the woman that it had eaten into her very being.
Our lives are often like that. We have let the infirmities of the world affect us in such a way that they eat right into us. They become of how we define ourselves. We can’t seem to shake loose. Whether it’s a money problem or a relationship or a real physical infirmity, we feel trapped. Nothing seems to change. Like the woman healed by Jesus, we have become spiritual pretzels, for lack of a better term. How do we move beyond this awful situation? What can we do? Jesus isn’t just going to pop around the corner, touch us, and heal us -- at least not in the same way he healed people in his own day. But there are ways to break the pretzels that we often feel we have become.
We are often overwhelmed at the enormity of certain situations that hold us in their power. The process of discernment through reflection and prayer can help us to break them down into smaller, more manageable parts so we are able to work on them in discrete units. But it takes more than using the intellect and sensibilities given us by God; it takes being open to surprising possibilities, even the ones that don’t seem to be the answer we expect. Then, with God’s help, we can unbend ourselves and take on a manageable piece. It’s a longer process and it takes a lot of reflection, prayer, and willingness to look at a situation in a new light, but in the end, it’s more effective and much more satisfying.
I want us to go further this morning. The question is what we do after the healing, after we have found a new way to address an old problem. It is an essential part of our faith that we share our insights with others. This is different than the traditional evangelical model of saving souls for Christ. I wouldn’t presume to think I could save anyone’s soul. Only God can do that. But I do think there are ways we can share our spiritual insights with each other and the world to create a world more in keeping with Jesus’ vision of God’s realm.
It’s a bit like what Jesus said about hiding your light under a bushel. What good is the light if no one sees it? Each of us here in this room has some insight, some part of God’s holy spirit in us and each of us can share that insight with another to help unbend someone else. That’s what we do when we are healed -- share our healing with others.
In her book, No Cure for Being Human, Kate Bowler tackles the consuming issue of her life – stage four colon cancer. A historian, teaching at Duke Divinity School, she had written books on the prosperity gospel, studies of the lives of wives of evangelical preachers, and looked forward to being promoted and moving up in the world of American religious history.
Then at the age of 37, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her life now is before the healing, if it can occur. Her first book on being diagnosed, Everything Happens for a Reason and other lies I’ve learned to love, tackles the question we ask when we find we have a deadly illness: Why? Like Job, she concludes there are no answers. Now she faces being on clinical trials. And when we hear that phrase “clinical trials,” we gulp. Will there be healing? Will there be an afterwards?
Bowler went to New York to see the famous doctor, the one who put her through all these clinical trials. She demanded of him the results of his trials. It will be years before all the results can e tabulated, he responded. Why do you want to know, he asked her. “Because I want to live!”
Like Job, who was not good and patient as James’ letter says, but angry because he realized all the old promises didn’t work. He was good, and look what the Advocate tempted God to do. There was no punishment for the wicked as the Psalmist hoped and wrote. No, like old man river, they just kept rolling along.
How do you deal with after if you don’t even know before? That woman who was so bent over, as we are when our insides are twisted up and angry, just reached out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. The power of evil that held her in bondage evaporated. How can that power evaporate in us.?
We don’t know what happened to the woman whom Jesus healed of her infirmity. I like to think that she went home and shared her good fortune with others, perhaps by explaining how she had become bent, describing the forces that overwhelmed her, and then how she had been healed. Those opportunities stand before us. Each of us has a gift to share with someone else. The only question that remains is how we live after we are healed.
Let us pray: Healing God who sent Jesus to open our eyes and heal our souls, move us beyond our gratitude in being healed and to bring healing to others. In the name of the One who heals us in all circumstances, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.