"Timing is everything" - Sermon for 25 August 2019

Sermon for Sunday 25 August 2019

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev.Carrie Ballenger

Luke 13:10-17

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Photo by Redeemer friend Owe Boersma

Here in the Old City lives an elderly woman who walks quite bent over, almost folded in two. Maybe you’ve seen her—she pulls a cardboard box behind her by a string. She’s usually in traditional Palestinian dress, and the box she drags through the streets sometimes holds vegetables, sometimes Coke bottles full of olive oil, sometimes miscellaneous things it seems she’s picked up while shopping in the market.

I can’t tell you anything else about this woman. I don’t know her name. I don’t know if she has a husband or children. I don’t know how she became so bent over. Was she born that way? Could it have been prevented with proper medical care? Is she in pain?

Truthfully, I don’t know if it’s even correct to describe her as “elderly”, because her bent-over posture means I’ve never seen her face clearly.

And if I can’t see her face, I wonder what she can see of the world. I think of all the things that aren’t in her view of the Old City: Ramadan lights. Mountains of strawberries for sale. Soldiers at their posts. Clouds! The Jerusalem she sees, it seems, consists of the few steps of stones just in front of her feet.

When I imagine the woman Jesus encountered in the synagogue in today’s Gospel reading, this woman is exactly who I picture. Of course, we don’t know her name, either. The Gospel writer also only describes her by her condition: she is “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight” he says. So, while we assume she was in the synagogue that day to pray—and maybe to hear Jesus teach—she, like our neighbor here in the Old City, probably couldn’t even look up to see Jesus.

But Jesus saw her. Jesus called her over and announced on the spot,

“Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

Immediately, she stood up straight! Can you imagine what that felt like? After 18 years she could see the world, she could look people in the eye, she could give and receive a smile, she could raise her head to the skies and raise her voice to praise God. She was healed. She was set free. The word used in the Greek language is ανωρθωθι, which means she was straightened, or raised up. By the power of God, the woman bent over for 18 years was immediately raised up to health and restored to community.

But the synagogue leader was having none of this. He made it clear to the crowds that they shouldn’t get any ideas from this spectacle, saying: “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 Jesus answered:

“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?”

Ought not this woman be set free on the sabbath day?

Notice that in his exchange with the religious authority, Jesus—a Jew—does  not debate whether to keep the Sabbath, but rather how to keep it. Likewise, the synagogue leader doesn’t ask how it is Jesus possesses such healing ability.  And he doesn’t tell Jesus to stop curing people—he just wants him to do it tomorrow.

Or the next day.

Or any other day!

Just not on the sabbath.

You see, for the synagogue leader and his understanding of how to give honor and praise to God, timing is everything.

Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote about sacred timing in his book called simply, “The Sabbath”. He says:

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”

In other words, when we see our Sabbath-keeping neighbors here in Jerusalem rushing to finish shopping and cooking before the Shabbat siren, know they are not only clearing away chores and work. They are clearing time. They are making time: time for prayer. Time for rest. Time for settling in and for leaning into the mystery of being created, of being alive.

And so yes, when keeping the Sabbath, timing really is everything.

But the thing is, I think that was Jesus’ point as well in the synagogue that day: Timing is everything.

This woman had suffered for 18 years already. Would it really matter if she waited one more day to be healed?

Jesus thought it did. He didn’t wait one more day. He didn’t want her to wait one more day. On the spot, on the sabbath, he healed her and raised her up to new life, so that immediately she could join the others in praising God. He broke the rules, for the sake of the broken person in front of him.

Jesus had already been teaching the crowds that day, and although we don’t know the content of his teaching, I imagine his actions were a continuation of his sermon. He seems to be saying: What if the best way to use time—even sabbath time—is to liberate others, to help them stand, to restore them to life?

What if the best way to honor the Creator is to rest from all the other stuff that takes up precious space and time in our lives, and to simply love the people around us?

Not tomorrow, but right now?

In April of 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a letter from the jail in Birmingham, Alabama, also addressing the issue of time. He was writing to some fellow pastors (white pastors) who had criticized his recent activities protesting for civil rights. He wrote:

My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."  We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Dr King goes on to say: “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

Amen! The time is always ripe to do what is right.

And yet:

When will it be the right time to do something about climate change? When the last rainforest is burned? When the last elephant has died? Ought not these beloved creatures be set free?

When will it be the right time to do something about gun violence in the United States? After the next school shooting? The next mall shooting? The next church shooting? Ought not children, shoppers, and worshippers be set free from fear?

When will it be the right time to finally end the occupation of Palestine? Last week, two 14 year old Palestinian boys were shot dead when they attempted to stab an Israeli guard near Al Aqsa. This Friday, a 17 year old Israeli girl was killed in what appears to be a political motivated explosion. Ought not these teens be alive? Ought they not be in school this week? After more than 50 years, ought not this land, these two peoples, be liberated?

Dr. King said, “the time is always ripe to do what is right” but his namesake, Martin Luther, is often quoted (at least by the internet) as saying “How soon not now becomes never.” Too often, “not now” are the words on our lips, as individuals, as the church, as society, when speaking to our neighbors who are bent over, weighed down, or occupied. Not now. Tomorrow! Just be patient. It’s not the time.

But what Jesus teaches us through his life and witness is that every day—even the sabbath day—is a day when the oppressed are to be set free, and the bonds of illness and sin loosed.

Every day is the right time to confess our sins and receive forgiveness.

Every day is the right time to do works of mercy.

Every day is the right time to see the image of God in the other.

Every day is the right time to save the rainforests,

To speak truth to power,

To take down walls,

To learn the name of a stranger.

After all, Jesus did not wait. He didn’t wait to cure the woman weighed down and bent over by her long illness. And he didn’t wait to heal the world. He came, just at the right time.

As it is written in Romans chapter 5:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

And again, at just the right time, when the disciples thought all was lost, on the third day Jesus himself was raised up. He stood straight up from the tomb. He was restored to life—so that we too, estranged and dying, would know eternal life.

Timing is everything. By the grace of God, because Christ is today crucified and risen, you are free. You are really, really, free to be God’s people in the world. You are free to become all God intends for you. Not when you get your life together, but now. Not when you pay off your debt, but now. Not when you finish your degree, or fix your relationship, or stop smoking, or start exercising enough, but now.

What would it look like for you to stand up straight and claim that freedom today? What would it look like to live whole and healed and restored today?

I don't know what it looks like for you in your life. But I imagine it includes praising God, as the woman in the synagogue did.

I think it looks like living and loving boldly and without fear.

And I believe that as a community, it looks like using our freedom in Christ to free others from the systems, the institutions, the powers that occupy and oppress and keep them bent and bound.

Not tomorrow! Today. After all: to the ones who wait, to the ones who are bound, to the ones who hunger and thirst for hope—timing is everything.

May the peace of Christ which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.