August 25 — Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Listen to this sermon HERE.


[Chloe, ashamed]

It’s a powerful image this week as we gather around the story of the woman who was bent down, pushed down for 18 years.  

The text says it was a physical ailment, but the people of that time and the many people today too, believe that our physical ailments are so often only manifestations of much deeper spiritual ailments — stress, pent-up anger, bitterness, shame…

And the way those religious leaders were used doing business, there’s no question in my mind that they spoke to the people in tones similar to how I speak to Chloe when she’s misbehaved:  “N-n-n-no.”  And that woman cowered physically for 18 long years (half a lifetime for most in those days).  Can you imagine?  

We religious ones had better be careful how we speak to those who are not in and of the religious establishment...because that imposition of shame, I’m afraid, is not outdated.  (Pew study about a year ago: top words associated with Christians — judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay). I’ve got relatives myself, who aren’t afraid in the least to shame you if you haven’t been to church in a long time.   (Now, I happen to think everyone should go to church every Sunday too, but not because they’ll go to hell or something if they don’t.  I just think the church always needs you, and you always need the church.  We are the church; it’s really not an us in here and them out there...the church is the people.)  

But as soon as we get up on our high horses about church or spirituality or religion or non-religion, and push others down — the one we follow and call Jesus has no time for that.  
There’s an amazing reversal in this Gospel text for today — very characteristic for the Gospel of Luke.  Holy flipping.  Jesus takes the poor and the lowly, sick and the sorrowing, the outcast and the stranger, the weak and the bent down...and Jesus raises them up.  Think of poor, young Mary; the 10 lepers; the Samaritan.  Jesus takes them and raises them up.

And Jesus takes the proud and the strong, the rich and the showy, the arrogant and the judgmental…and he brings them down.  The text today says, “he puts them to shame.”  The one who’s ashamed is lifted up, and the one who is used to shaming others is brought down.

In other words, Jesus has no time for compassion to go by the wayside.  Whenever mercy is not being shown, Jesus steps in.  Our God is a God of mercy and compassion — showering down on us and on this world like an ever-flowing stream.  And woe be to the one who’s getting caught up in judging and shaming others, especially the weak and the lowly, the sick and the forgotten.  It’s like Jesus has this radar for judgmental and powerful types.  And he hones right in on them, and he eats with them, and he teaches them.  He stays with them.  

I think we all have our moments in both camps, don’t we?  Sometimes we are pressed down with shame and pain, and even our own self obsession, unable to stand up straight and look around to see our neighbors in need.  (Luther’s definition of sin: self curved inward.)  Can’t see anyone else...

And other times, oh, we can see others just fine.  We can see them mis-behaving, we can see them being lazy or irresponsible, or not going to church, or not being Christian enough — basically not being as good of people as we are.  
Yeah, we’re not curved inward, we’re out and up in everyone else’s business.  And failing to take a deeper look at our own lives and souls.  I think we all have moments in both camps.
And that’s where Jesus moves in.  He levels us when we’re full of ourselves, pious, hard-working, little “holier than thou’s”.  He says, “Hey, cool it, let it go, come down here with us.”  Maybe there’s someone in your life for whom your good judgment seems perfectly appropriate, but your anger and frustration with them is so overwhelming, you’re so high up on your horse, you’re so right...That’s when Jesus steps in and says: “Hey, cool it; let it go, come down here with us.”  Jesus brings the temple leaders down, he shames them, and in so doing perhaps there’s even a hidden gift there.  “You guys are getting so obsessed with the law that you’re starting to use it as a weapon.”  Remember: they were only defending the Sabbath.  Nothing wrong with that.  But they had started to skew it.  When the keeping the Sabbath is a weapon not a gift, Christ steps in.  When the Bible is used as a weapon, not a gift, Christ steps in, and says, “Where is mercy, where is compassion?”  I wonder if there’s any way Jesus was actually giving a gift to those high-and-mighty religious leaders, even if they failed to see it right away.  And Jesus brings us down too — has no patience for our lack of compassion and mercy showing toward our neighbor.  Jesus steps in to crush our pride and to lift up those we have hurt.

Thank God.  There is forgiveness for the sinner, for the proud and the arrogant, and the rich, and the nosey; there is forgiveness for the judgmental and the cruel.  

And there is hope for us when we’re down.  When we’re bent so low by life.  Burdened by sorrow and pain, spiritually crippled, physically hunched over, hurting and longing for a better day.  Jesus steps in and gives us peace.  Jesus steps in and calls us what we are:  “Daughter of Abraham, child of God, stand up straight.  Look around.  You are set free of what ails you.”  

Jesus comes to you this day sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus arrives in this place in wheat and wine, water and Word, and offers us new life, a new day.  The resurrection is real.  You have been raised with Christ, buried with him and therefore raised with him — not just after you die, but right now.  God has turned the world on its head, through Christ Jesus!  We are given new life this day, and even you are free of your ailments — free to live in hope, free to live in trust that God is with us, that God forgives us, and that nothing can separate us from the love that God has for us.  We no longer have to shame others or cower (like Chloe) in fear, for we are children of God, released to live as the people that God has molded us to be in this world, for this world.  Alleluia!  AMEN.