September 17, 2000

Suzanne Luper

North Raleigh United Church

Luke 13:10-17

When Doug and I talked about this sermon a few weeks ago, I tried to describe for him what it has been like for me to deal with Jesus over the last ten years. I am a person of faith, and Christianity was the birthplace of my faith -- the cradle into which I was born. And so it has been an essential, inescapable part of my life. But I must admit to you that it has not been an easy part. I have been struggling with how to think about Jesus, the 2000 year-old peasant from Nazareth, and how to be in relationship to Jesus - if indeed I could -- for many years.

The only way I could describe it to Doug was that it's like getting married -- way before you're ready -- and then realizing that you're stuck with this person. You don't actually know them very well, and they presented themselves in such a wonderful way! You thought to yourself, "Wow! There is NOTHING wrong with this package."  And you began to imagine yourself blissfully happy. "He'll solve all my problems. She'll make me feel great all the time. We'll never be unhappy, and there will never be anything we can't overcome, as long as we're together."

And then the realization dawns. And anybody here who's been in a committed relationship for any length of time knows what I'm talking about. It's that morning when you wake up and look over at the person sleeping next to you.  Scruffy face, greasy hair all spiked up on the pillow, dirty T-shirt, and morning breath coming out of that little snore you once thought was so sexy.

And you think to yourself: "I am stuck with you for the rest of my life. I don't really know you, and I'm not sure I even like you. But since we're stuck together, I'd better start figuring out who you really are, and how I'm gonna' learn to love you."

That's when the real work of love begins, by the way. And that's how my relationship with Jesus became less of a fairytale, and began to be much more real. I had grown up with a perfect Jesus -- someone who I believed was capable of solving all my problems and directing every aspect of my life.  He was supposed to be "The Boss," and there were names for him, like Master, Savior, King and Lord. This worked okay for awhile, but as with all long-term relationships, I began to grow and change. And so my partner -- Jesus -- had to grow and change too. If he remained static -- stuck in that idealized straightjacket that I'd had him in -- then I'd have to leave him
behind. We wouldn't be able to stay together.

I needed to really look at him; to really be curious about who he was
underneath all the sappy Christian shellac. Because I can tell you that a middle-aged feminist woman living in America in the year 2000 does not want a Lord and Master. And my hunch is that an upwardly-mobile American male does not need a Savior. Or at least he doesn't know why he would.

Who are you, Jesus, really? And can I learn to love you?

I felt pretty hopeless in my dilemma until I stumbled across some books about five years ago. The books were written by scholars and theologians who were researching and understanding Jesus in a whole new way. There has been a flourishing of this scholarship since the early 80's -- writers like Crossan, Borg, Spong and Walter Wink have been helping me to SEE the man beneath the shellac. And what I see -- what I am only able to glimpse at this point -- is more exciting, more compelling, than any of the earlier bravado. But not just exciting, it is also scary. The glimpse I have of Jesus challenges me to the core, and says that I must be bolder and braver than I know myself to be.

Let me give you an example. The text, which you heard read this morning, sounds on the surface like a routine Bible story which you've heard many times. Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath. Okay, so what's new. Well, everything about it was new, but we don't hear that because we're so far removed from that culture and that mindset.  Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers, helps us to hear it as the amazing event that it was -- a revolution, happening in seven short verses.

In this little story, Jesus is once again going about his mission, which is to wake people up to the kind of life God wants for them. He's always talking about the Kingdom of God -- where people have equal worth and all life has dignity -- but in the latter part of his ministry, he also begins to act this out. The astonishing thing is that he is acting it out in a culture that is roughly 3000 years old. Hear what I'm saying: Jesus comes into the world at a time when the patriarchal culture, heavy with rules and regulations, has been solidly in place for 3000 years. In this story, he breaks at least 6 strict cultural rules -- just turns them on their heads! Luke places Jesus in the center of the synagogue, talking with the priests and elders. The synagogue had a large open space in the middle, and the learned men, the powerful men, occupied the space in the middle. Around the edges moved the less powerful people, the people of low status.  Jesus sees a bent woman walking around the edges. He also sees an opportunity to portray his message in front of the people who have power to change things. So, he calls her over, into the center. He lays hands on her and heals her. Some translations say that he heals her from a "spirit of weakness." But whatever happens, she is able to stand up straight and tall.

What are the rules which Jesus chooses to break in order to demonstrate God's compassion?

1. Jesus speaks to the woman. In civilized society, Jewish men did not speak to women. (Women were owned by men, and you did not enter into conversation with another man's woman.) In speaking to her, Jesus jettisons the male restraints on women's freedom.

2. He calls her to the center of the synagogue. By placing her in the geographic middle, he challenges the notion of a male monopoly on access to knowledge and to God.

3. He touches her, which revokes the holiness code. That is the code which protected men from a woman's menstrual uncleanness and from her sinful seductiveness.

4. He calls her "daughter of Abraham," a term not found in any of the prior Jewish literature. This is revolutionary because it was believed that women were saved through their men. To call her a daughter of Abraham is to make her a full-fledged member of the nation of Israel with equal standing before God.

5. He heals on the Sabbath, the holy day. In doing this he demonstrates God's compassion for people over ceremony, and reclaims the Sabbath for the celebration of God's liberal goodness.

6. Last, and not least, he challenges the ancient belief that her illness is a direct punishment from God for sin. He asserts that she is ill, not because God willed it, but because there is evil in the world. (In other words, bad things happen to good people.)

And Jesus did all this in a few seconds, in the middle of the synagogue, in the midst of power, standing within earshot of all the elite. In a few short verses, we see him empower the weak, strip the powerful of their privilege, shatter all kinds of cultural boundaries (especially those which serve to keep certain people in and certain people out), redistribute the power in one fell swoop, and demonstrate a new world order!

The Bible says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.  I've never known exactly what that meant. Again, it's probably just a case of old words that have lost some of their meaning. I think it means this:   that God was living deeply in Jesus, and that God's spirit was working through Jesus to make things right.

God was in Christ
    modeling compassion
    shattering boundaries
    exploding assumptions
    empowering the marginalized
    humbling the elite
    yearning for health and wholeness
    bringing about peace and justice on earth.
God is in me, and God is in you, wanting to do the very same.

Calling Jesus "Lord?" Well, I probably won't do that. But I now call him mentor, hero, and incredible guide, who points the way on a journey of transformation, out from under the lordship of culture, and into a life of companionship with God.