"I used to be a sad and
sorrowful woman. But I remember that day easily. It
was a Sabbath and I was praying in the synagogue. I
thought the people there felt I looked awkward and
not a part of them. You see for eighteen long years I
was bent over.
You have absolutely no idea what
it's like to grovel around never being able to lift
your head and neck, let alone straighten your back,
never being able to look up to the sky or see the
tops of green trees swaying in the fresh breeze. It
was just horrible. Complete agony really, to be
shunned by so many, it hurt me deeply. But what could
I do? Hope kept me going; it was all I had to cling
to.
I remember this man Jesus. He
called to me. He touched me. He enabled me to stand;
really stand up free and tall, to breathe easily,
filled with the Spirit. Oh, what a breath that was.
He gave me the sense of dignity I had yearned for,
for ages. And do you know what? He actually called me
a daughter of Abraham. Can you believe that? He didn't
refer to me as a son. I felt I belonged.
I remember the synagogue leader
didn't like it at all because he didn't know how to
deal with women who were standing up. You'd think he
would have rejoiced with me- but no, no.
Then someone asked Jesus what the
kingdom of God is like, and he said 'It's like more
and more bent-over women standing up and when one
woman stands up, that's like the leaven in the loaf
and causes another and another and still another bent-over
woman to stand up - until all the bent-over women are
standing up tall.'
So I reckon that if you ever see a
bent-over woman beginning to un-bend and straighten
herself you'd better give her a little standing room
because that woman's your sister and that's God's
kingdom cranking up." This
quotation is from Women's Words
pp 96 Northcote Women's Christian Book Project,
Victoria and is reprinted by permission of Andrea
McGinlay for this sermon. Down the
centuries there have been women, and men, who have
been bent over. Have you ever felt on some mornings
when you must go out... perhaps to take a child to
school, how hard it is to stand up straight? How hard
it is to look people in the eye? The spirits of
depression, or fatigue, or sadness crushing us down,
make it easier to walk stooped over.
We are so strong in our sickness. We
resist the spirits oppressing us. For most of us
there is only a slight internal stoop, un-noticed by
most people. But for many of us abuse and suffering
is piled upon our backs, and heaped up in our souls.
For some of us, it is years, even decades, of abuse
and suffering.
"You're no good," shrieks a
mother's voice in the ear of our memory in a thousand
different ways.
'What a disappointment you have
always been,' comes the heavy voice of a father,
again and again.
'You stupid child,' echoes through us
and beats down upon us, from teachers and parents,
and even strangers in the street.
And it goes beyond the verbal: 'You
slut. You bitch. You Carrier of Sin.' It is poured
out upon woman after woman, and physically pummelled
into her very being.
'Sissy. Weakling. Failure.'
Gentleness and feeling is literally beaten out of
little boys, and a burden of emotional crippledness
is loaded over their shoulders.
Of course some women are never
touched. For every woman like the one beaten up
because the minister visited, there are others who
will not be touched physically. But crockery will be
smashed, or the house keeping money cut off- mind you,
she will still be expected to provide the meals from
somewhere.
And it's not just poor, un-educated
families we are talking about. It's everywhere.
Highly educated women have their executive husbands
rip up their university assignments, or stuff brought
home from work.
Good Christian women are threatened
with damnation by God if they complain. God and the
Bible are used to justify violence. Children grow up
knowing that God is Father, and that Father is cruel.
Jesus came to take the burdens from
our shoulders. "Woman, you are set free from
your ailment. Stand up and breathe freedom, daughter
of Abraham."
And so the woman, and many people
like her down the long years have heard his
invitation to freedom. They have stood up and
breathed deeply-- And how it has hurt them!!! From
that very first leader of the synagogue, through an
endless procession of priests and ministers, and
mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and
children, there has been protest when Jesus heals.
Don't be mistaken. The leader of the
synagogue was not only worried about the holiness of
the Sabbath, if at all. He was threatened by the
freedom of a woman. Freedom is threatening. It is
safer to have a person oppressed rather than whole.
Whole people breathing in the freedom of God make the
rest of us afraid. If God will change them so
radically, what might God do to us? Perhaps God will
even bring us to account for our violence. It is
better to deny any need for healing.
And, families and friends often react
with fear and anger when we tell what has been
happening. They don't want to know. they'd often
rather be comfortable. For a while, to respond to
Jesus offer of freedom brings more pain! Women at
last escaping to freedom, from physically or
spiritually abusive relationships, are sometimes told
to go back, and given the cold shoulder by their
church, or their pastor, or family, if they will not.
But Jesus' freedom is better in the end:
There was another person who had long
been bent over. They had spent long hours out in the
garden of life, pulling out weeds. So long had she
been bent over that life had become drudgery.... but
a drudgery she had become used to. She had not seen
the beauty of the sky for many years. So low down and
bent over was she, that even the roses in her own
garden were unseen. She was able only to see the
nettles and soursobs. The plain little flower of the
soursob had for her become the beauty of life. She
had forgotten the other splendour around her, and her
early visions of life, and was even almost content.
Jesus came into the garden and
invited her to stand straight and tall. -- Do you
remember the sensation of standing up in the garden
when you back has begun to ache. Suddenly it is so
much worse as we stand; all our muscles have set in
the position of being bent over. Often we need to
crouch back down again, it hurts so much when we
stand up. -- So it was with this person. She stood
for a moment. And it hurt so much. Muscles set in the
safety of the pattern of old habits screamed out.
Neighbours, friends, parents, children, priests....
all frightened by a person standing tall and free
shouted her down again.
"It hurts so much to stand,"
she cried to Jesus as he stood beside her. "It's
easier to stay down here!"
"Daughter of Abraham, Sister....
did you not see the beauty of the sky and the trees?
Did you see the roses?"
"Yes, and so much more beautiful
than the nettles," she answered, "But so
much pain, too."
"If you will risk standing up
again, and grit your teeth to the pain, it will pass.
And you will see and taste the freedom of God more
and more. Lean on me. Stand up straight and lean on
me."
Jesus is calling out to each one of
us to stand up. Simply because we have sought to
follow him, he is already lifting off the burdens
that are set heavy upon the back of our spirit. We
are free to stand. If we will tell him of our pain,
honestly telling of our fear and hurt and shame, then
that pain in our back, which feels even worse when we
try to stand will pass away, and we will be able to
stand up free and straight and tall.
Jesus healing is there for all of us:
Whether we have been abused long in
the past, at school or at home, by strangers, or so-called
'friends of the family', or even our family members.
It's there for us if the violence was
occasional and ignorant, even unintended, or if it
was long term, calculated, evil oppression.
Jesus healing is there for even we
those carry the burden of being the oppressors. So
often those of us who oppress are handing on a
violence and abuse we ourselves suffered. Jesus comes
here, too. To heal, and to forgive. For all of us,
being healed of the burdens that bend us over, will
bring a new and different way to live. And we will
walk straight and tall. Perhaps bearing scars, but
being healed of suffocation and fear and shame.
Come to Jesus. Cling to him, and let
him place his hands upon you. We too, are Daughters
and Sons of Abraham and Sarah. Healing is for us too.
We too are meant to walk straight and tall, and free.
Life is meant to be good for us, too. Amen
© Jan Thomas
