January 18, 2009
“Loosen Up”
Luke 13:10-17
Ken Olson was an outstanding high school athlete here in
But things got worse before they got better. The next morning Ken saw his picture on the front page of the Sports section in The Arizona Republic, which showed him leaping into the air with arms outstretched, the football just above his fingertips falling into the arms of the opposing receiver.
Monday morning when he returned to school he was called to the coach’s office. Ken Olson entered with fear and trembling and, as he lowered his eyes, he saw on the coach’s desk the telltale newspaper photo. The coach asked him, “Have you seen this?”
The young player, with eyes glued to the floor, replied, “Yes, and I’m very sorry, coach, I’ll try harder.”
The coach interrupted his apology. “Look at that photo again, Ken. Look closely at your face. Look at your muscles. Can’t you see that trying too hard is your problem? What I want you to do is relax, to loosen up and be the great player you are.”
Trying harder is often considered a virtue, and rightly so, but it can also become a flawed performance, a pain in the neck, ulcers in the stomach, strained relationships, and a miserable life. The people who caused Jesus the most trouble were those who were trying too hard to be religious, who were uptight about keeping the rules of holiness, and who were rigid in their beliefs and judgmental around those who weren’t.
In this morning’s reading from the Bible, we have an example of the kind of encounters that Jesus experienced again and again with people who were trying too hard. This time it was with the leader of a certain synagogue where Jesus was teaching on the sabbath. In the congregation was a woman who had suffered for 18 years with what we now call Marie-Strumpell arthritis, a condition that results in the fusion of spinal joints until persons are bent over, some at a 90-degree angle. In one of the churches I served, there was a man who suffered from this condition, and the only way he could look into anyone’s face was to scoot way down in a chair, and then lift his head and eyes as high as he could.
Anyway, this woman caught Jesus’ attention and he called out to her, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Then Jesus laid his hands on her and the miracle happened. She was straightened up by God and, overcome with joy at her release, broke forth in praise to God.
But not everyone was praising God that day, especially the leader of that synagogue who was indignant at Jesus’ healing miracle. He was so annoyed that he called the people to order and declared to them, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” His remarks were really addressed to Jesus who had broken a sabbath law by healing the woman, for healing was considered work, and work was forbidden on the sabbath. The leader wasn’t going to let Jesus get away with treating sabbath laws lightly. Rules were rules, no matter how wonderful a healing miracle might be, and when rules were broken God was dishonored, not glorified.
Jesus listened to the leader’s accusation and then said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” Luke says Jesus’ reply put his critics to shame, and prompted the people to continue their celebrative response to God’s miracle.
In this incident, Jesus reveals how the religious leader himself was paralyzed and bound by Satan as the woman had been—perhaps even more so—and, therefore, needed release as much or more than she did, that religion practiced in the wrong way can cripple us rather than make us whole.
It’s a good word for us today, especially for those of us who try too hard to be religious, who try too hard to do the right thing in order to feel worthy before God, or who are so rigid in what we believe that we condemn and attack those who differ or disbelieve. It’s what William Sloan Coffin referred to when he said that some people have just enough religion to make them mean and miserable. Or as a character in one of Graham Greene’s novels puts it, “Why is it that the wrong people believe?”
Jesus’ concern for the woman and his act of healing, contrasted with the narrow, complaining response from the religious leader of the synagogue, reveals three (3) kinds of paralyses that can affect (or if you prefer, “impact”) congregations and individual Christians today.
The first is paralysis of
perception, when our religion and its practice blind us to the truth
and keep us from seeing what’s real. The
leader of the synagogue, in his religious zeal and his eagerness to condemn
Jesus’ act of healing, missed seeing who Jesus was. In his over concern for traditions,
regulations, rules and protocol, he didn’t sense the presence of God in the
miracle of love that released the woman.
In his rush to judgment, he didn’t behold the
The history of the church has been marred by such paralysis when concern for structure and tradition has blinded people to how God was at work in their midst with growing edges of miracle and surprise. Recall the early church’s struggle with whether to admit Gentiles into its fellowship. Then there were the purges and trials for heresy, when other Christians burned dynamic and loving Christians at the stake. Recall, too, the Protestant Reformation that became the infighting between groups, with violence, separation, bloodshed, and suppression.
Today the church still suffers from paralysis of perception, when Christian groups write each other off as unchristian, and engage in violent battles over the issues of pro life and pro choice, evolution and creationism, human rights and racism, and economic injustice, and whose interpretation of the Bible is valid. When we get so uptight in comparing ourselves as to who is most Christian or in defending whose belief is the true Christian belief, we can miss Jesus standing in our midst.
A certain man decided he wanted to live a long time. He started to diet and exercise, and gave up smoking. He lost his gut, his body firmed up, and, to make the picture complete, he bought a toupee to cover his bald scalp. Then he walked out into the street and was hit by the first car that came along. As he lay dying, he said, “God, how could you do this to me?” And God responded, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize you!”
The point is, sometimes we’re so concerned with outward appearances, with the letter of the Law and in our efforts to be right, that we neglect the spirit of the Law that would imprint itself upon compassionate, loving hearts. No wonder that God doesn’t recognize us.
A second form of paralysis can be found in our attitudes. The leader of the synagogue didn’t understand what Jesus was doing and why, because his own preconceived attitudes got in the way. The leader presumed he was more religious than Jesus because he kept all the rules and Jesus didn’t. That prejudice prevented him from seeing in Jesus God’s mighty power at work, breaking Satan’s hold and healing the woman of her affliction. What the leader saw happening was religious sanctions being betrayed by an itinerant teacher who had no credentials.
Such attitudinal paralysis in Christians today keeps us from recognizing Jesus’ presence and how God is at work in the AIDS crisis, in the challenges of health care for all, in the media revolution, in new art forms and creative expression, and in unconventional ministries to the poor and oppressed. Too often the church’s attitude sees only cherished traditional ways being changed and replaced, and cannot believe God could be present in such upheavals.
It was such an attitudinal
paralysis that drove William and Catherine Booth out of English Methodism. William Booth wanted to be a traveling
evangelist ministering to the people of the streets of
This leads to the third form of
paralysis—spiritual. The leader
of the synagogue, in giving more importance to keeping the law than to healing
someone in distress, set himself against God and made himself an opponent of
Jesus. The same thing has occurred again
and again in the church through the centuries, and the pages of history are
stained with the tragic results. Not
that long ago in the violence of the conflict in
Our founder, John Wesley, was a
man who tried hard at being religious, stressing rigorous self-discipline and
strict performance of good works not only for himself, but also for those who
came into the Methodist societies. But
Wesley’s good works and high conduct gave him little joy. John and his brother, Charles, traveled
across
To follow Jesus is not so much being religious as it is receiving Jesus and God’s love in him, and living it out with joy. To follow Jesus is to not take yourself so seriously (but to take God seriously), to loosen up (or as some say, “to chill out”), to calm down, to relax, to not be so uptight, to celebrate life in all of its wonder, to laugh, to dance, to let God work God’s miracle of love in us and between us. Then we can see what’s real, and live in the freedom and joy of God’s salvation in Christ.
Let us pray: Great God of Love, your abundant grace makes our lives graceful—freely lived and freely given. You shatter the illusions of our self-importance and challenge us to do something truly significant with our lives. You are the One who not only dances with us in the meadow and kisses us with your morning sun, but sits with us in the darkness, stays with us in our despair, shivers with us through cold, troubled nights, and stands beside us in our pain, grief, and sorrow. O Giver of Life, strengthen us that we might pass along to others your gift of love. Amen.