Bowed down

Clare L. Hickman

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale

August 21, 2022—Proper 16C

Luke 13:10-17

          What is it that’s bowing you down?

Like the woman we just heard about, perhaps it’s a physical pain that eats at you. Something obvious, with your suffering as visible to the world as hers was to Jesus, or some hidden ailment: something that would get you side-eye if you used an accessible parking space, but that does in fact weigh you down with fatigue, or shooting pain, or an ache that rests so deep in your bones, even you aren’t surprised that doctors can’t find anything to do about it. Lying heavy on you, so that even when it ebbs, the fear of its return pulls on you.

 Has anything ever doubled you over, so that you cannot meet people’s eyes? If you are free from physical pain, there might still be things that keep you on the margins, unsure of your place, not knowing whether you’re safe or welcome, whether you’ll have any protection if things go wrong, That vulnerability might be emotional, because you are somewhere where you are unknown, out of place, just a little bit different. Or it might be structural (legal even), because you are far from power and influence, and your voice is unlikely to be heard. Either way, your insecure position keeps you wary, cautious, fearful of calling attention to yourself.

          So many things that people carry around. Grief, depression, addiction. Things that eat at them, causing shame that they aren’t stronger, that they can’t somehow manage to carry it all, haven’t managed to kick it yet. And so they walk around with it inside them. As bowed over as this woman in the synagogue, even if they’re trying desperately to hide it. Bowed down and hiding, even if their deepest longing is that someone might actually notice, and reach out a hand.

          Someone to show the face of Jesus to them. Someone who looks and sees, and in the seeing, Christ is there between them. Reaching out a hand. Speaking healing and release to them as he speaks it to this woman: “You are set free."

Set. free. With a word, and with a touch, his healing power changes everything. It flows into her, and immediately, she stands up straight. Her world, which her affliction had narrowed down to the ground in front of her feet, opens up. Raising her eyes, she begins to praise God.

It's her first instinct. Just as healing flows from Jesus, natural as breathing, praise flows out of her. But we aren’t told exactly what that means. What does she do, exactly, to give praise to God for what she has been given? What does it mean, to praise God?

Our imagination, quite naturally, begins with words. Words that recognize and declare God’s goodness, God’s power to heal, God’s care for us, God’s vastness, and God’s glory! Especially that last one, since “to praise” is literally “to glorify.”

To God be the glory. Which, at base, means, the credit belongs to God. Like the football player who points towards heaven; when we give praise, we recognize that God is the source of every good thing that happens. In every good gift, God is there.

It is about the gift, Which means that there is something in praise that centers on gratitude as well. When we recognize good fortune in all its many forms, when we allow ourselves to feel joy in response, that thankfulness and joy are themselves a way of praising God (cf the ten lepers, Luke 17:11-19).

So, praise is found in our attitudes and words, in our acknowledgment of God’s goodness and power, and our gratitude for all that flows to us through that goodness and power. This aspect of praise forms our hearts, and orients our minds towards God.

But scripture teaches us that there is more to praise than this.

And so I wonder … what if that woman Jesus healed didn’t actually cry out, extolling God’s goodness and giving great thanks? And if she didn’t speak her praise, what else might she have done? How else can praise be expressed?

In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of our bodies being temples, and if we dishonor ourselves, we dishonor God (1 Cor 6:20). We bear the image of God within us, and one of the ways we give respect to God is to give respect to ourselves. I wonder, then, if this woman might praise God by moving beyond the shame and resentment that she bore towards her body after years of disability. Perhaps part of her praise would be to learn to appreciate her body, to accept its fragile strength and beauty, and learn to recognize God in it. In this, God is praised.

Then, too, in the gospel of John we hear that God is glorified by the ways in which we are in God and God is in us (e.g. John 17:10). Which suggests that the best way to praise God for healing us would be to turn our newly-healed selves towards the world in ways that bear witness to the power of God at work in us. So perhaps she began painting beautiful portraits, picking up a gift she had long had to abandon. In this, God is praised.

Elsewhere in John, Jesus tells us that we glorify God by doing the works of God (John 17:4). Works of mercy. Works of forgiveness. Works of creation. Works of welcome, and healing, and feeding. All of them powerful ways to praise God without saying a word. So perhaps this woman praised God every day of her life from then on, as she sat with lonely widows, or cared for the sick, or taught the children.

We do not know how this woman praised God after Jesus healed her. We just know that she had been bowed down, imprisoned by her pain and limitations, and Jesus freed her. And immediately, she began to glorify God.

You too might have ways in which you are imprisoned, ways in which you are bowed down. Some pain or illness (whether physical or mental), some shame or social circumstance, some pattern of life or way of thinking has narrowed your world down, made it smaller, duller, and harder. And you too might be torn between wanting to hide that fact, and longing for someone to notice. Longing for the face of Christ to turn towards you and see you, longing to hear him call to you and feel his healing power flow through you. To ease your pain, to bind your wounds, to quiet your shame, to lift up your eyes.

God’s healing power moves powerfully and mysteriously through this world. Flowing through the hands of doctors, nurses, and therapists. Flowing through support groups and recovery programs and houses of worship. Flowing through the people who work tirelessly for societal change, and through the person who thinks to invite the new kid to sit with them. Flowing from the Source of everything that is, to transform the pain of the world.

Jesus moves powerfully and mysteriously in our lives. Seeing where we are bowed down and imprisoned, and reaching into that pain to free us. May we now praise God. Amen.