Fifth Sunday in Great Lent (Kfiphtho / Crippled
Woman) Sermon / Homily
Rev. Fr. V.V. Paulose
source - www.malankaraworld.com
Gospel: St. Luke
13:10-17
Luke
13:12When Jesus saw her, he called her near and said, "Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness." -
"Jesus
will always care for you."
In
this hectic pace of the modern world, you and I are miniscule items among the
millions who feed the selfish 'me world' to flourish. In the churches,
communities, offices and everywhere else, people are approached as machines.
But Jesus sees, calls, touches and heals us in compassion with real love for
his children. We see here two approaches - the compassionate and genuine way of
Jesus, and the hypocritical way of people.
It
took 18 years for a crippled woman who was a regular church-goer to be
accepted, loved and healed from her infirmities. The religious leaders could
not and did not do anything for her. But the first day Jesus saw her, he called
and healed her thus freeing her from shame and sickness. The temple priests
were upset that Jesus had healed her on Sabbath day, to which Jesus out rightly
called them “You hypocrites”. He did so because they would untie their animals
and care for them on Sabbath Day, but refused to rejoice when a human being was
freed from satanic bond and healed.
The
religious leaders saw healing as part of a doctor's profession for money. So
practicing one’s profession on the Sabbath was prohibited. They could not see
beyond the law to Jesus’ compassion in healing the crippled woman. Actually
healing is the work of God. And the root cause / source of all the illness
sprouted from the bosom of the Satan, the serpent who cheated Adam and Eve, the
first couple.
In
a nut shell, we should be in Jesus and Christ should be within us. We should
say goodbye to all our hypocritical church attendance and faithless
non-Christian way of life from Monday to Saturday. No human effort can
eradicate the sickness of cancer, heart failure, diabetes, HIV and Aids etc.
Even if Science can find a solution, then some other more deadly sickness will
emerge. So the only solution is to look up to Jesus who was crucified for our
infirmities and to crush the face of Satan.
I
saw Christ in action healing a bent woman in the parking lot of Tim Hortons in
the intersection of Elsmere and Birch mount one Sunday after Mass. One
literally crippled woman was held by her hand and led by an old man to their
car from Tim Hortons. The man was very patient, smiling and concentrating all
his attention on each and every step to avoid any fall or injury for his
companion. They came to the car and very carefully he made her sit on the seat.
Then he closed the door and went to the driver's side and they drove away. In
all this time, her face was beaming with love and there was not an iota of
bitterness, pain or any sign of her sickness. I was literally dumbfounded and
happy to witness such a scene. I strongly believe that Christ is still in
action through this kind of millions of compassionate living human beings.
"The Kyphotic Woman"
by The Rev. Dr. Jana Childers,
Dean, San Francisco Theological Seminary
source - www.malankaraworld.com
Gospel: St. Luke
13:10-13
"Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
And there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen
years. She was bent and quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her,
he called her over and said, ‘Woman you are loosed from your infirmity.' He
laid his hands on her and immediately she stood up straight and began praising
God."
In
those four brief verses, Luke tells us a great deal about the life of faith.
You can hardly imagine a more vivid picture of helplessness than the one
suggested by Luke's story about the Kyphotic Woman. Kyphotic. The original
Greek word used to describe her gives a fascinating clue to what Luke wants us
to see. The word translates not just "bent" or "bent over,"
but a better translation would be "bent together" or "bent
with." This is a woman who is bent in on herself. It's a picture of
someone who has not only born the yoke but bought it. She is not just a woman
with an infirmity but, as Luke says, with the spirit of an infirmity. Whatever
it was that had bent her, whatever emotional or physical burden she had born,
Luke suggests, ultimately became part of her until her very body was conformed
to its image. There is nothing she can do now to help herself out of the
spiritual pretzel her life has become.
I
don't know if you have ever known anybody like that. Have ever been anybody
like that. Somebody, perhaps, who has started to believe that the job or the
break or the ship is never going to come in. Somebody who has bought the idea
that all the problems in the marriage are her fault. Someone who can't even
imagine being debt-free. Some one who can make his mouth say, "God loves
me," but cannot say it in his heart. Some one who every day runs a race
against a low self-opinion and every day loses. I don't know if you have ever
known anybody like that. Have been anybody like that.
If
you have ever been caught on the horns of the faith dilemma—knowing that the
one thing you need to straighten yourself out is the very thing you can't seem
to come up with—maybe you can understand. Maybe you can imagine how astounded
she was by Jesus. "Startled" or "surprised" doesn't really
begin to say it. She was bumfoozled, she was gobsmacked, not by what Jesus
said, but by what he did. Did you see it? Did you see what he did?
"And
seeing her," the text says, "Jesus called her near and said to her,
‘Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.' And he put his hands on her, and
instantly she was made erect."
Did
you see it? Maybe the movie that is playing on your mental motion picture
screen is not exactly the same as mine – so let's see. Let me ask a couple of
questions.
"And
seeing her, Jesus called her near..." How near do you suppose he called
her? Near the text says. It's like saying "he called her to him." But
how near do you suppose he called her? Near enough that a moment later he
touches her. So near enough to look her in the face, don't you think?
Now
let me ask you, do you think he would have pronounced those words without
looking her in the eyes? "Woman you are loosed." Would he have said
that looming over her? This is Jesus we're talking about here. He called her
near and looked her in the face, don't you think?
How
do you suppose he looked her in the face? If she is bent together, as the Greek
so picturesquely puts it, I'm thinking he had no choice but to get down on his
knees—way down on his knees, down in the dirt on his knees—and crane his neck
up to look into her face.
Now
here's the last question and the kicker. How do you suppose he touched her?
Where do you suppose he touched her? How could he have, as the text says, laid
his hands on her? If you are kneeling on the ground, looking up into somebody's
face, what are your options?
Do
you know what I think? I think he put his hands on her feet. Tenderly on those
dirty, broken toe nails and scabs that were the only thing she had seen for
eighteen years. I think he put his hands on her feet. Now, if Luke hadn't said
"he put his hands on her," I would have said he kissed her feet. I
would have said he let his hair fall over them the way the Alabaster Jar
Woman's hair had fallen over his. I would have said he wept on the Kyphotic
Woman's feet. But Luke says hands, so I'll just say maybe he wept on or kissed
her feet. Maybe he just held them.
The scene Luke describes is a dizzy one—a familiar picture taken
out of the frame and put back in upside down. Ancient Israel had a very nice painting of
the God whose feet we grasp. The God whose ankles we throw our arms around. The
God to whose skirts we cling. Luke introduces the God who gets down on hands
and knees with us. Luke's God is a God who runs to fall on the neck of the
prodigal and the feet of the broken. A God who bends to us…when we cannot even
lift our own head!
We have a God, Luke assures us, who is soft, empathic, gentle;
whose kindness is unfathomable. We have a God who cranes, who reaches, who
loves us before faith kicks in and when it gives out. Don't let anybody tell you that you have to
scrape yourself together and run to God, that you have to screw up your will to
do the right thing, that you have to dig deep and find your faith and offer it
to God before God will speak to you. You have a God who loves you, who yearns
for you, who, as the poet Roberta Bondi remind us, is in love with you.
It
may be possible theologically to overstate God's power. I don't know. It's an
interesting theological problem. But I'll tell you what I do know. According to
Luke, there is no overstating
the tenderness of God's love. There
is no overstating the tenderness of God's love. There is no overstating the
tenderness of God's love. Or the healing power of tenderness.
I
heard the story told recently about a little girl living in a rural community,
light years from where I live. It was just a few years ago, but it was one of
those towns where driving down Center Street is like driving back into the
thirties. She lived in a little house and went to a two-room school. She had
loving folks and, from time to time, a good teacher. But the way she was
growing up was not the way you would want your little girl to grow up. She had
a cleft palate and the money for the repair hadn't been there. By the time she
was seven, she knew what the world was. She had heard the phrase, "only a
mother could love that" and she understood it.
One
day a special teacher visited the school and put the children through some
basic speech tests. When it was her turn, the little girl went into the
classroom that had been set aside for the exams. "Just stand over there by
the door," the teacher said from her desk at the far end of the room.
"I want to test your hearing first. Turn your back, face the door and tell
me what you hear me say."
"Apple,"
the teacher said in a low voice.
"Apple,"
the little girl repeated.
"Man,"
the teacher said.
"Man,"
the little girl repeated.
"Banana."
"Banana."
"Okay,"
the teacher said, "Now a sentence." The child knew that the sentences
where usually fairly easy—she wasn't the first child to take the test, after
all. She'd heard you could expect something like, "The sky is blue" or
"Are your shoes brown?" Still, she listened very carefully.
So
it was that standing with her face against the door, she heard the teacher's
whisper quite clearly, "I wish you were my little girl."
The God who saw a daughter of Abraham in a Kyphotic Woman, is the
same God who sees God's own child in you. Before, between and after you reach
out in faith; before, between and if you never deserve it, that God is reaching
out to you. You have a God who loves you as her own. Because you are. From the
top of your head, right down to the bottom of your feet.
About The Author:
The
Rev. Dr. Jana Childers is Dean of San Francisco Theological Seminary and
Professor of Homiletics and Speech-Communication. She is the author of several
books, including Performing the Word: Preaching as Theater, which incorporates
her training as an actress into the art of preaching. Dr. Childers is a popular
and frequent guest preacher at gatherings throughout the country.
