What Do We Bring With Us?

Luke 13:10-17

August 22, 2004

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept 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.”

But the Lord answered him and 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?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Jesus was preaching and a woman walked into the synagogue.  For 18 years she had been crippled and paralyzed.  Bent over, she had been unable to stand up straight.

Each Sunday, all sorts of burdens are carried into churches all over the world.  Some are more visible than others.

In the church in which I grew up was a blind family who rarely missed a day of worship.  Husband and wife, both sang in the choir and they brought their seeing-eye dogs right up into the chancel with them, up where the choir sat.  Many old time Armenians and newcomers from the Middle East had problems with a dog up on the “altar,” proving their own ignorance to the fact that in a congregational church there is no altar, only a communion table and a pulpit.  This blind couple and their dog and their two adopted children, rarely missed a Sunday.  Nor did their children ever miss Sunday School, nor did they ever miss very many board of Christian Education, Deacon or Trustee meetings where they each served.  This man is currently the Moderator of that church.

I can only imagine the burdens they carried.  The whispers and attitudes from visitors and old-timers alike when they processed in their blue robes up the center aisle into the choir’s pews in the chancel being led by their dog.

In that same church, was another woman who was extraordinarily burdened over the years.  The woman who was Sunday School superintendent when I was about eight or nine years old, a parent of one of my Sunday School classmates and a profoundly energetic and dedicated woman of that church, contracted Muscular Dystrophy sometime when her sons and I were teenagers.  Over the years we noticed as this strong, vibrant woman began to slow down, walk with a cane, then was rarely able to come to church and church events as she was bound to a wheelchair, then was able to come again, many years later when the church installed an elevator in what was once a coat-room.

Can you imagine the burden this woman carried into that church?

When you look at our congregation, or if you looked up and down the pews in any church congregation, what would you see?  Perhaps not so many burdensome stories quite like these, but inevitably we would see the weight of many years of suffering on one person’s face, the crushing hurt of a new and painful reality in another’s eyes; divorce, the loss of a loved one, financial worries, poor health, a child who has run away, physically or emotionally.  Perhaps there are people here today who know pain and suffering and oppression.

But physical and personal hardships aren’t the only things that weigh us down.

Sin itself, the darkness, the brokenness, the imperfection, the shame, the guilt, the wrong we do, the things we regret, the sadness and the pain we cause or find ourselves wrapped with, weigh us down immeasurably as well.

A man tells the story of driving by a great big church with a lighted sign out in front of it.  On their big board this church put slogans and sayings for the edification of locals and travelers alike. That week the motto was, 'If you're done with sin, come on in.' As the man got a little closer, he noticed that someone had written in lipstick or some other bright red marker, 'But if you're not quite through, call 272-0200.[1]

Neither of these messages, the one put up by the church nor the one added by the heckler with a magic marker, are biblical. 

Not only does Jesus accept this woman bent over and burdened and paralyzed and crippled, she heals her smack dab in the middle of the teaching time.  Imagine a bible study, we’re all sitting around a great pastor and preacher, come from out of town just to lead us, when he interrupts what he’s doing to speak to one woman, to touch her life, to heal her and give her renewal.  This is what Jesus does.

Jesus not only accepts all those who come into his church, with whatever burdens they carry, but he lifts their burdens and he heals their pain and he saves them from their sin.

One poet writes about God’s healing power like this:

God gives more grace when the burdens grow greater;

God sends more strength when the labors increase.

To added affliction he adds his mercy;

To multiplied trials, he multiplies peace.

His love has no limit; his grace has no measure;

His power has no boundary known.

For out of his infinite riches in Jesus,

God gives, and gives, and gives again.[2]

No matter what the burden, no matter what the ailment, no matter how deep the separation from God, and how heavy the sin, God gives relief.

The prophet Isaiah preaches to all who would listen:

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners;[3]

The Prophet Ezekiel says, “I will put my spirit within you, says the Lord, and you shall live.”[4]

In a vision to Solomon, God appears and says to him,

“¹⁴if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Jesus himself said:

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In a book I look forward to picking up from the library called the Testament, author John Grisham writes about a lost soul, an alcoholic lawyer who can’t stand what his life has become:

The young man [in the pulpit] was praying, his eyes clenched tightly, his arms waving gently upward. Nate [the alcoholic attorney] closed his eyes too, and called God's name. God was waiting.

With both hands, he clenched the back of the pew in front of him. He repeated the list, mumbling softly every weakness and flaw and affliction and evil that plagued him. He confessed them all. In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God. He held nothing back. He unloaded enough burdens to crush any three men, and when he finally finished Nate had tears in his eyes. I'm sorry, he whispered to God. Please help me.

As quickly as the fever had left his body, he felt the baggage leave his soul. With one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean. He breathed a massive sigh of relief, but his pulse was racing.

He heard the guitar, the church music, again. He opened his eyes and wiped his cheeks. Instead of seeing the young man in the pulpit, Nate saw the face of Christ, in agony and pain, dying on the cross. Dying for him.[5]

Forgiveness and redemption, healing and renewed strength are all blessings of God from above.  Sometimes repentance and full restitution is necessary; sometimes all it takes is a prayer offered in one’s own heart, most often however the grace of God occurs within the community.

The Bible refers to Christians as children of light.[6]  Yes, we are individuals, but biblically there’s no such thing as a child of light.  There is no one “person of light.”  We are all members of one body.  What makes us light, what makes us children of the Way the Truth and the light, is that we zip along together, like many individual photons of light and becoming a wave of light, children of light, who can make a real difference in this dark world.[7] 

Christian salvation similarly comes to the community.  Yes God says to Solomon, “humble yourself, pray, seek my face and turn from you wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive sin and heal the land…  But he doesn’t say it to Solomon alone, he actually says:

“¹⁴if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God calls his people to repentance and promises to heal them as a whole.

How?  God, through his Word in the bible calls us to care for each other.  We are called to be our brother's brother, our sister's sister. We are called to be our brother's keeper, our sister's keeper.

In Deuteronomy (15:11) we read, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor.”

Jesus says, “I was sick, and you visited me,”[8] and “Do to others as you would have them do to you”[9] describing what he expects the community of his followers to be like.

The Apostle Paul preaches, “Speak the truth in love”[10] – to whom?  To each other of course, not just to God or in Prayer but the implication is to “Speak the truth to each other in love.  Paul also says “Carry each other's burdens.”[11]

In the book of James we hear “Pray for each other that you may be healed.”[12]

Healing, salvation, renewal, restoration comes to the community as a whole; and often healing, salvation, renewal, restoration comes to individuals through other individuals in the community.

The poet W. H. Auden wrote, “Nobody can carry his own burden; he only can, and therefore must, carry someone else's.”

God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves and so constructs human life that we are allowed to help, to give life to each other’s. We bear each other’s burdens.  The wind carries the seed, the bee the pollen, the mother the child and friends one another. So life is borne (carried) and born (begun).[13]

But sometimes it’s hard bear each others’ burdens:

There's a Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown is complaining to Lucy: “Everywhere I go trouble follows me!” Next frame: “No matter what I do, someone is always bringing problems to me.” Next frame: “Sometimes I just feel that I can't take it any more the way everyone unloads all their burdens on me.” And Lucy replies: “What you need, Charlie Brown, is an unlisted life.”

A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor's office. After his checkup, the doctor called the wife into his office alone. He said, “Your husband is suffering from a very severe disease, combined with some horrible stress. If you don't do the following your husband will surely die.

Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant, and make sure he is in a good mood. For lunch, make him a nutritious meal. For dinner, prepare an especially nice meal for him. DON'T burden him with chores, as he probably had a hard day. DON'T discuss your problems with him. It will only make his stress worse. And MOST importantly, make love with your husband several times a week and satisfy HIS every whim. If you can do this for the next 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely.”

On the way home, the husband asked his wife:

“What did the doctor say?”

“You're going to die,” she replied.

I think that doctor had a little scam going with that “sick” husband, and this is one time when doctor’s advice should probably be ignored. 

However, we can often refuse to take one great healer’s advice and avoid caring for one another.  We can sometimes refuse each other care.  Like the leader of the synagogue who complained about Jesus’ healing, who would have prevented Jesus from performing the miracle on the Sabbath - during their teaching time, like the old timers in my former church who would have kept the seeing eye dogs and with them their blind companions away from the so-called Holy places. 

Like us last week, ushering two black Labrador retrievers out of our sanctuary during worship, we sometimes keep God’s blessings away from each other and ourselves.  Usually because we can’t face the reality of the burdens represented.  We don’t want to see the weakness and frailty and imperfection of the world boldly enter our midst, like two big black dogs that have wrestled with a skunk on a wet rainy day.  We hesitate to allow our sin and our frailties and our imperfections into our sanctuary because it introduces an element of chaos, of being reminded that we can be out of control, and that we don’t have all the answers.  So we say, “stay out!”

And if we are unable to turn such things over to God, to the body of Christ, sin wins.  Pain wins.  Suffering wins and we are unable to minister to one another or to ourselves.

A medical missionary in Africa recounts the following story:

One day the chauffeur of our hospital pick-up truck in Africa was driving to one of our health centers. He noticed an elderly lady struggling along the road carrying a very heavy load of firewood on her head. The chauffeur stopped and offered to take the lady and her firewood to her village. He helped her into the back of the truck and then proceeded on his way. However, when he glanced in the rear-view mirror he was astonished to see this lady sitting in the back of the truck with the load of firewood back on top of her head!

We often refuse to take the doctor’s advice and care for ourselves and put down our burdens and let go of our sin and suffering.  How often do we Christians fail to accept the promise and gift of God to carry our burdens?[14] How often do we refuse to ask for help, either of a friend, or of God himself?  How often is our pain prolonged, our sin not cleansed or our suffering borne in silent martyrdom and God’s gifts refused?

“She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

What is our ailment?  What is our burden?  How am I preventing God from working his grace in my life or in the life of another?  Is it simply because I am not asking?  Is it simply because I am not receiving?

I pray that we can each receive God’s grace and accept God’s love, and that we might know the miraculous blessings God has to offer and that we too might stand up straight and begin praising God.

Amen.