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 A Crippling Spirit
I was reminded of her when I encountered another hunched and misshapen woman in our Gospel this morning. You know, this is the first time this story has appeared in our lectionary, now that we’re using the Revised Common Lectionary. For some reason it wasn’t in the Episcopal Lectionary, although there were similar stories of about Jesus healing men on the Sabbath and getting into trouble with the authorities. She was so unexpected, therefore, that when she appeared I had to take particular note of her, and I was struck by two things. One, was the way she was described, “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her who had entered the synagogue. The other was the number of times the words Sabbath and synagogue appeared in just a few short verses. It was as if the author wanted to be sure we noticed we were talking about holy place and holy time. As I pondered the phrase “spirit that had crippled her” I wondered if this was just a euphemism for “illness”. Was this a way of describing a person with osteoporosis or a severe scoliosis, or some birth defect? Or was a better translation “a woman having a spirit of infirmity”—with the emphasis more on the spiritual than the physical aspect? You know, a woman who was tired, downtrodden; disheartened and overburdened, beaten down and deformed by the weight of a difficult life? Perhaps it was both. Whatever the case, Jesus sees the woman and on seeing her, recognizes her, calls her out, touches and heals her. She stands upright, and is able to do what you come to synagogue to do, praise God. Everyone is amazed and astounded, except the ruler of the synagogue, who is indignant because Jesus violated the laws about working on the Sabbath. Of course, the leader doesn’t address Jesus directly about this, but he holds a “parking lot vestry meeting” and tells the people about it, trying to stir them against him. Jesus responds to him, but through the crowd to the leader and those who share his views. He doesn’t take the work prohibition on directly in some theoretical esoteric debate about what is permitted or not on the Sabbath. Rather he pushes it to the realm of the deeper character and purposes of God, by whom and for him there is a Sabbath in the first place. We live in a scientifically saturated society, where sciences like medicine, economics, politics, sociology inform our worldview and responses. Thus, we are likely to hear this story and ponder the woman’s medical condition. Or, taking the more metaphorical approach to the event, think of the story in terms of the economic or social or political systems that conspired to dishearten and misshape this child of God. But, unlike us, Jesus lived in a theologically saturated society, where God and God’s purposes were foremost on people’s mind and this miraculous cure is presented as a theological catalyst. It stirs up Jesus’ theology of mission, the synagogue’s theology of illness and women, and both their theologies of Sabbath. This stirring, taking place in a holy place, and on holy time as it does, reveal the intentions and nature of God, and function as encouragements to ponder God’s relationship with people as a guide to how people should relate to one another. ( See John Shea, S.T.D.: The Relentless Widow: The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers, Year C; pp. 239-40) The biblical scholar, Walter Wink, has suggested that in the biblical vision every reality has an inner and outer aspect. The outer aspect is its material shape and organizational structure. The inner aspect is its spirit that determines the purpose, direction and meaning of the outer aspects. If a social reality is part of the Domination System, those institutions that oppress people, its inner spirit is evil and is often called Satan. Therefore, evil spirits and Satan are not disembodied spiritual realities who freely roam around looking for prey. They are always embodied in individual and social realities; and they can invade people when people enter the arena in which they are embodied. That is true of the society in which this woman lived, as it was of the synagogue to which she went. Therefore, when Jesus welcomes and touches the woman he is theologically motivated. He is doing what God has done from the beginning—freeing people from what oppresses them. What God to Moses to say to Pharaoh, God says throughout history, in all places and all times—“Let my people go.” (Shea, pp.240-244) Well that’s all fine and good, but as my theology professor used to ask, “So What?” Theological statements and doctrine and scriptural are well and good and all that, but considered only in the abstract are in the end they can remain esoteric, unconnected philosophy, just so much chaff blowing in the wind. They become truly meaningful when they make us ask questions, cause us to see things we might miss, engage inner values and outer expressions. So, how does this story do that? One thing it has led me to do is consider the bent, spirit deprived women who find their way to our door each month looking for assistance. This isn’t something new, mind you, as it is something that has been happening for some months now consciously, which probably means they’ve been working on me unconsciously for a year or two. In fact I mentioned this in another sermon this summer, and now here they are again. These women, for they are most all women, who come looking for help with rent, or utilities or food. They are not physically impaired for the most part, but they aren’t erect either. They are hunched spiritually, embarrassed, often downcast and have a hard time looking you in the eye. She is at the door because it rained last week and her husband couldn’t work. The same week the woman she cleaned house for went on vacation and didn’t need her. The kids were home so they ate more, the rent was due and they made that, but now the utilities are due—and because it’s summer they owe $200.00 instead of the normal $100.00 they have in their budget. They need the extra $100.00 by tomorrow or the utilities will be turned off. They’ve been to CAM and they can help with the last $25. St. Patrick’s is out of funds as is Agape House, two other places they tried. St. Vincent de Paul, over on the west side, agreed to pay the last $50. She’s been to four places, have $75 in pledges but no cash in hand, and here she is with us. No wonder she is disheartened and burdened. Of course, we normally can help with $25 or $30 but only once every six months. This aid is important, but lately I’ve begun to wonder if we don’t need to find another way to channel our outreach to help people really get free from the bondage that holds them. This lesson causes me to ask whether, despite our best intentions to respond with Christian charity, what we are doing doesn’t have the effect of burdening and distorting those we want to serve? What we are doing now is just a finger in a leaky dyke, that’s springing more and more leaks as it continues to rain. And we have only a finite number of fingers. I’d mentioned before that one approach might be a micro lending program to establish cottage industries to increase family incomes. That might be an answer, or it might not. I’ve been meeting with a young man who works in a social service wing of the Baptist church, who tells me that current wisdom is that parishes should never spend more than 30% of their time and money on direct outreach. 30% more should go into programs (like a mentoring program to help families learn to budget, or job training programs to improve job prospects) and the final 30% should go into advocacy and lobby efforts to insure sufficient government support. The problem is huge and deeply systemic. We will not be able to solve it by ourselves, but can make a contribution to the solution. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know this. What we are doing now isn’t working and it may not be truly helpful. I hope you’ll pray about it and help us find what a better approach, a better answer might be. God’s words are Jesus’ words, and Jesus’ words should be ours. That word must be “let my people go.” And the pithy words of James Forbes ring true: “no one gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.” 
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When we visited the Cathedral in Oaxaca she was still there—an old woman, bent and misshapen, sitting by the doorway to the church underneath a statue of some bishop or pope. The statue had been cleaned up a bit since the last time I was there, but it was still missing the outstretched hand, so you really couldn’t tell what the gesture had been—blessing, welcome, or that other theological term “gimmee”. I’d notice her the last time sitting in that doorway that led into a church with gold leaf domes and impressive paintings with jewel encrusted chalices and sculptures, and I’d taken a photo of that woman. For me it was an image of those systems that “overlook, do not see, that oppress the poor and needy.” And there she was, still, some 15 years since my last visit. Well, maybe it wasn’t her, for she was ancient even back then, so maybe this was one of her sisters, sister of relation or sister of circumstance, still sitting, begging, a hunched and misshapen faceless human form trying to survive another day. Things haven’t changed that much in 15 years.
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