“Hope For The Hurting”

“Hope For The Hurting”

Text: Luke 13:10-17

© August 26, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

I don’t think too many people here would disagree that in our world today some people are considered to be more valuable than other people. Take, for example, an ad that was recently placed in the school newspaper at the prestigious Harvard University. The ad said that if you are a young woman at Harvard who is intelligent, healthy, very attractive, between 5’4” and 5’7” tall, with a small to medium build, and brown or blue eyes, you are a valuable person. You are a valuable person because a company is willing to pay you between $5,000 and $50,000 if you allow them to remove some of your eggs so that they can then be sold for use in in vitro fertilization. And apparently quite a few women at Harvard are taking advantage of the value that that company says they have, choosing to sell their eggs for those lofty prices as a way of paying off their sky-high tuition bills.[1] In our world today, there is no doubt that some people are considered to be more valuable than other people.

Well, in the story that we heard this morning from the Gospel of Luke we met a woman, a woman who by the standards of her day certainly was not considered to be a valuable person. She was so insignificant, in fact, that we aren’t even told what her name was. Instead, she’s simply identified as the woman who was all bent-over, the woman who had been all bent-over for 18 years. And so as people looked at her, most probably had one of two reactions to her.

First, quite a few people probably reacted to that nameless bent-over woman by blaming her. Quite a few people probably reacted to her by saying that she was suffering the way she was because of some sin that she had committed. After all, throughout history there has been a tendency to blame people and accuse people when they suffer from some kind of affliction.

For instance, during the 1600s, when a child died – which unfortunately was a rather common occurrence back then due to the spread of the plague and other deadly diseases – people usually blamed the child’s parents for the death, often claiming that the child undoubtedly died as punishment for the spiritual or moral failings of the parents. In fact, when a child died, the parents were required to hang a sign on the front of their house that said, “Lord, have mercy on us.”[2] And in the same kind of way, when people looked at that bent-over woman, certainly a large number of people blamed her for the affliction that she had.

But for those who didn’t outright blame that woman for the problems that she was suffering from, the other common reaction that people probably had to her was that they simply brushed her aside and ignored her. And that’s something that people still do today. After all, with there being so many problems in the world, so many heartaches, so many tragedies that we hear about every day, a defense mechanism that we have is that we just look away and pretend that those people and their problems aren’t really there.

But is that the right thing to do? Is it right to treat suffering people like they’re nobodies and to treat their problems like they’re nothing? A writer who was investigating the many problems that children in our country face today – problems ranging from hunger to neglect to abuse – said that when you look at those kids, you need to remember that their lives are just as important, to them, as your life is to you. No matter how shabby or insufficient their life may appear, it’s the only life they have.[3]

And that’s the attitude that Jesus had as he looked at that bent-over woman. Although virtually everyone else dismissed that woman as a nobody, Jesus looked at her as someone who mattered, as someone who mattered to God. And so Jesus did what he could to bring hope and healing to her. And when his encounter with that woman was over, her life was changed – changed for the better.

But instead of celebrating the fact that that woman had been healed after suffering so much for eighteen long and painful years, some of the religious leaders grumbled about what Jesus had done. They complained that that woman shouldn’t have been healed on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was supposed to be a day for rest, they said. Why couldn’t Jesus have healed her on one of the other days of the week, the religious leaders asked.

The reality is that debates about what should and shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath have been going on for centuries. For instance, for a long time here in the United States many different laws were passed, commonly known as Blue Laws, that dictated what sort of things could and couldn’t be done on Sundays. But after a while the Blue Laws became more and more absurd. For example, until the 1960s here in Pennsylvania the Blue Laws said that you could buy a tricycle on a Sunday, but you couldn’t buy a bicycle. Or the city of Philadelphia had laws that said you could buy seat covers for a car on Sunday, but you couldn’t buy slip covers for a couch; or that you could buy a real football on a Sunday, but not a toy football. Or in Massachusetts the Blue Laws said you were allowed to dig for clams on Sunday but you couldn’t dig for oysters.[4] Just like back in Jesus’ time, it seems that throughout history people have always gotten into all kinds of debates about what’s the right way to observe the Sabbath.

But on that Sabbath, as Jesus was teaching the people who had gathered there about the ways of God, he understood full well that God doesn’t want us to spend all our time just thinking and talking and learning about what God wants us to do. No, God wants us to take our thinking and talking and learning, and put it into action, to put it into action by bringing hope and healing to people who are hurting. And so that’s exactly what Jesus did as he went ahead and healed that suffering woman there on that Sabbath day.

What about us? Do we spend all our time thinking and talking and learning about God, or do we eventually put our faith into action? You see, that’s a question we need to ask ourselves, because there’s a whole brand of Christianity out there that tells people that all that really matters is whether you believe or not. And as far as that brand of Christianity is concerned, whether you actually ever get around to putting your faith into action is almost a non-issue.

Back in the early 1900s there was a popular preacher in Chicago by the name of Billy Sunday. And Billy Sunday used to say that the best thing that could happen to you was for you to go to one of his revivals, get saved, walk out into the street, get run over by a Mack truck, and go straight to heaven.[5] But is that what the Christian faith is really all about? Is the object of the Christian faith simply to get to the point in our lives where we believe, and then hope to die as soon as possible afterwards?

I don’t believe so. No, Jesus teaches us that while it certainly is important to believe, we also need to take our beliefs and put them into action. And we do that by doing what is in our power to bring hope and healing to the hurting people that are all around us every day – by doing what is in our power to bring hope and healing to the people around us who are hurting physically, who are hurting emotionally, who are hurting spiritually. After all, that’s precisely what Jesus did when he encountered that woman who had been bent-over for eighteen years.

In what ways can you bring hope and healing to the hurting people in your life? Chances are that you already know what you ought to be doing. Chances are that you already know who you should be praying for, who you should be giving some sort of help to, who you should be offering some kind and supportive words to. All around us are people who are hurting in so many different kinds of ways. But the good news is that Jesus invites us to join with him in bringing hope and healing to those who are hurting. So don’t delay. Don’t make excuses. Because there’s someone out there who’s waiting, who’s waiting for you to make a difference in their life.