The sabbath is made for humanity,
not humanity for the sabbath.
That’s what Jesus says
near the beginning
of Mark’s gospel.
Today in Luke,
we have a different confrontation
between Jesus and synagogue leaders
about the role of the sabbath
in people’s lives.
Early in Luke we’re told
that as part of his deep Jewish devotion
Jesus was found in synagogues
on the sabbath.
Today is the last time in Luke’s gospel
that Jesus appears in a synagogue
as he’s set his face
toward Jerusalem.
As Jesus is going about his business
so is a woman that the text tells us
has a spirit that has cripled her
for 18 years.
Luke is telling us
that something has oppressed this woman.
There is a demonic force at play.
There’s no suggestion that
she came to be healed.
Perhaps her custom,
like Jesus’,
is to spend the sabbath at the synagogue
praying for those she loves,
learning about the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and maybe asking to be able to stand up straight.
Nevertheless,
Jesus calls her over to him.
She doesn’t go to him.
She doesn’t pick heads of grain
from a field.
She doesn’t try to touch
the hem of his garment.
Jesus calls her over,
lays hands on her,
and tells her she’s been set free.
The leader of the synagogue
loses his mind.
Indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
he keeps saying to the crowd,
“There are six days
on which work ought to be done;
come on those days and be cured,
and not on the sabbath day.”
This leader of the synagogue
is trying to keep the law.
He’s trying to keep the sabbath holy,
and wants those under his spiritual care
to remember that God has given us
a day of rest
to set us free
from the cares and occupations of this world
that bind us and hold us back.
In his frustration, however,
he’s collaborating with those
same evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy
the creatures of God.
Trying to forbid Jesus from healing on the sabbath
is saying that her demon should have the upper hand
against the son of God
because of a commandment God gave.
Because of The Exorcist
and the Satanic panic about
ritual Satanic abuse –
which were backlashes against changes worlds
where the Church changed its worship
and more women were working
and using daycares –
we don’t talk a lot about demons.
When I do,
there’s usually something tongue in cheek
to what I’m saying.
The wifi is down,
and that can’t be fixed
with tools in my hands?
Demons.
The printer and copier go down
the Thursday before Holy Week?
Definitely demons.
In the Chrsitian worldview, however,
there are evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy
the creatures of God.
We renounce those at baptism, along with
Satan and all the spiritual forces
of wickedness that rebel against God.
The American system of chattel slavery
while not necessarily being orchestrated
by fallen angels who have their own thrones
was demonic.
Slavery’s most current successor –
mass incarceration,
primarily of Black and Brown people –
is demonic.
People being kidnapped by unidentified
agents of the state and put into unmarked vans
is demonic.
Trying to lie about how about that slavery was –
in museums of all places –
to focus solely on so-called American progress
is demonic.
Please note that I’m not saying
that those carrying out these actions
are demons.
I’m not even saying
that they’re consorting with demons
like in the Satanic panic.
Many of the leaders
and those just following orders
are trying to do what they think is right
and just trying to enforce the law as they understand it
like the synagogue leader
insisting on healings six other days of the week.
But there are evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy
the creatures of God.
Jesus has come
to set humanity free from those.
When Jesus lays hands on the woman
and she’s healed
she begins praising God.
She didn’t ask for healing,
and through God’s grace
she’s healed nonetheless.
Jesus replies to the synagogue leader
by asking if he doesn’t himself
untie, unbind, loose his work animals on the sabbath
so they can get water.
Shouldn’t a person, then,
be able to be untied, unbound, loosed
from that which holds them back
on the sabbath too?
From the same passage where we learn
that Jesus’ sabbath custom is to be at the synagogue,
we learn that his mission
is to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Even believing that God’s power working through us
can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine,
we often shy away from the word
miracle.
It’s a loaded word
that gives people hope
and can make us act irrationally.
God’s grace, though,
is God’s miracle to us.
Jesus proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor
and good news to the poor
and release to prisoners
and liberation to the oppressed
is God’s stepping into time
and defeating the demonic forces
in the world around us.
Through Jesus’s taking on flesh,
we are able to renounce
the evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy
the creatures of God.
Lying about the horrors of slavery,
lying about how the New Jim Crow
of mass incarceration came to be,
and lying about people being kidnapped
and held in secret places
without access to attorneys or their families
is demonic
because all those lies corrupt and destroy
the creatures of God.
As a new school year begins
we pray and work
for our students and society
to be told the truth.
We shall know the truth,
and the truth will make us free.
Through telling the truth,
we are loosed like the woman
who couldn’t stand upright.
Through telling the truth,
we bring God’s liberation
to the oppressed. Amen.