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Luke 13:10-17 The Woman Bent Double
This was the text for Amy's message last night at the Georgetown Service of Wholeness and Healing [click here to listen to one held in 2011]. While Amy was reading the text (which is different from the NIV used in study guide) she read:
The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be cured on those days, not on the Sabbath day.”
What I heard her read is that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, but the synagogue leader could only cure on the other six days. I always find it interesting that it was not doubted that someone could be healed, only the rightfulness of doing it on the Sabbath.
Last night as part of Communion, we offered each person the chance to be anointed with oil, a station next to where the wine was offered. Generally anointing is offered in a back room, or in the foyer, and maybe one person will show up. But last night, everyone who came for communion asked to be anointed, and to be healed from some sort of brokenness.
I wonder if anointing has become our "healing on the Sabbath," something that is only done in the back room, away from other people to protect their privacy. And we wonder why it does not always happen? When Jesus healed, it was for the glory of God, not for the person receiving it.
This text from John 9 is one of the classic text I have preached on several times, usually in times of national disaster, when people will ask "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
It is a classic text in that this is the question people deeply want to ask in times of national disaster, who sinned, that this terrible very bad thing happened? When Jesus was asked, they could have been asking about generational sin, what this the sin of the father manifest in the son? Or was the blindness due to his own sin? Four chapters later, in a different gospel, Jesus will be asked a nearby question twice, but this time he answers so differently:
Luke 13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. 2 He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. 4 What about those twelve people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem?5 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”
"Unless you change your ways, you will die just as they did," Jesus says, twice, but in this week's passage he replies "This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him."
Both times people are asking about the relationship between sin and suffering, if suffering is the punishment for our sin. In the week of the Boston Marathon bombing, and a fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploding it is a question a lot of people are asking. "Why did this happen?" "Who sinned?"
The both answers seem harsh:
"so that God’s mighty works might be displayed" in the rescue efforts?
"if you don't change your ways, you end up just as dead?"
Back to the story, there is an investigation launched by the Temple authorities and after the man gets thrown out the Jesus finds him and asks him if he believes, "Tell me," he says not using the language of the sighted, "so that I may believe in him." Jesus replies him, "You have now seen him"
In the healing story about the blind man at Bethsaida, Jesus does something that is a good reminder for me.
- Ask do you want to be made well (not in this story, but others)
- Pray for healing
- Ask is anything different, (what do you see, instead of can you see).
- If less than desired, goto #2 and repeat.
I was observing a prayer for healing back in 2003, when I was an apprentice in an existing healing ministry. These two men had been God's healers for 20 years, and had reunited after a 5 year break. A friend of mine was dying of ovarian cancer. We had gone to seminary together, were in the same ordination class, and together drove to Glen Lake about every six weeks for years. During nine months of those drives, the cancer was in remission, and we talked about ministry, and her dreams for the future. But then it came back, and our drives were more about making the most of those minutes. After she was ordained early, and it was clear she would be making one final trip, I asked if I could invite my teachers to come pray with her.
We all fasted before going to her house, and thought we would be there with her, but it turned out there was a large presence non-believing friend how would not leave her side. She sat in the room while we prayed for her, glaring. Our prayers were empty ones, they felt powerless at the time, and I wondered at the time if it was the friend who belligerent in her no belief (at the time it felt like it was more important for her to be right, than my friend to be healed).
So these two men of God, who did not know my friend, but had a vast knowledge, experience and track record of healing prayer, fasted and prayed for my friend in her sitting room. After the prayers were finished, one asked "What did you feel?"
He didn't ask it of my friend, but of the other man praying, who said "No." I felt nothing. I had to agree. And then he turned to my friend, "maybe a little bit of tingling," she said, not wanting us to be disappointed.
So we prayed again, and to no difference. What I remember about this time of prayer was his courage to ask, "What did you feel?" Like Jesus in this story asking "Do you see anything?"
I hope I can always to remember to ask, "What do you feel, or see..." and if the healing has not occurred to maybe ask how the prayer could be more on target, and then pray again.
Ultimately my friend was healed, but not in the way we were praying for that day. Her healing came May 11, 2004.
Godspeed Susan.
