GodSprings - 26, March, 2017

Am I A Thriving Christian or Surviving Christian?

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.

14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”

Luke 13:10-17

We have all heard the statement, “Let go and let God.” Have you ever thought about where it originated? The story goes something like this: A college student back in the nineteenth century took six postcards and wrote a large letter on each one of the postcards: L–E–T-G–O–D. He then put them on the mantelpiece in his room where he was living at school. One evening a draft blew through the window and the “D” blew away. As he picked it up, what he saw seemed to be a message from God, the secret of the Christian life. Only by letting go can you let God carry out His will in your life.

Life is good. Life is hard. Sometimes life is more good than hard. Sometimes life is more hard than good. Many of us live our lives in a context where we experience some degree of both. There are people, however, who face such overwhelming hardships and difficulties in life that their trials overshadow what goodness there is. This inequity and imbalance is due to two realities. One, it’s due to the randomness of life, which we cannot do much about. We have no control over many of the circumstances that affect our lives. That’s one factor. The second reason is due to the injustice and evil in the world, which we can do something about if we are willing.

In the read portion we find a woman who has been crippled for eighteen years and unable to stand up straight. The text says she was bound by a disabling spirit or Satan. This disabling spirit can be taken as a symbol for the oppressive system.

In our story, the misuse of religion is symbolized in the leader of the synagogue. His concern is not for the crippled woman. Nor does he particularly care that Jesus has healed her and restored her sense of personhood and dignity as a true daughter of Abraham and a daughter of God. His concern is that Jesus did this on the Sabbath.

For these religious gatekeepers, religion, had become a way to control who they would let in and who they wanted to keep out. They cared very little it seems about the plight of the oppressed and destitute. What they cared about was their own position and power and authority to set the rules and maintain the status quo.

Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of this kind of religion. He points out how the synagogue leader and his fellow gatekeepers make exceptions to their Sabbath rules to lift their own ox or donkey out of a pit, but will not lift a hand to lift this crippled woman out of the pit she had been living in for eighteen years.

Jesus says, healthy religion can be the most transforming force in the world. That’s what he came for. The best of our tradition and scriptures teaches us that Jesus longed for a world marked by grace and hope, love and mercy, peace and justice, where all people have the capacity to thrive, not just survive.

This lent can we

a. Look into our community to find those who are oppressed by our systems?

b. Ask for the will and courage and heart to translate that longing of the oppressed into the actual practice and pursuit of mercy and justice?

*This homily by me has been published in Darshan (magazine of the Delhi Diocese)