10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. [Luke 13:10-17, NRSV]
Christ healing an infirm woman, by James Tossot, 1886.
The Gospels narrate many healing miracles performed by Jesus. As varied and striking as they are, they all carry the power of a symbol in pointing to and bringing to life the compassionate and merciful heart of God.
We are here spotlighting one particular episode for demonstration.
Variously described as “infirm”, “bent over” or “crippled”, the woman featured in Luke 13:10-17 who encounters Jesus in the synagogue is one who suffers from kyphosis, a sickness of excessive outward curvature of the spine, causing hunching of the back.
This encounter demonstrates the mercy of God in the presence of the legalistic minded pious people and their religious leaders. It yields multiple pointers for reflection.
1. A “spirit” that cripples
This Scripture, we notice at the outset, focuses not on the woman’s symptom as we tend to do. Rather, it stresses the underlying cause of her ailment, namely, “a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.” This surely is an important detail.
But, “a spirit”? What would that be?
You see, with her physical deformity, this woman would also be socially deformed. Shunned almost like an outcast, there was every risk that she might also have lost her family support and become poor.
The narrative, we notice, does not indicate her name, suggesting perhaps her “namelessness” in a pious and religious community that deemed people plagued by sicknesses as having been cursed by God, or at least disfavoured by the Almighty. “Piety” and “religiousness”, we all know, can be a thin veneer beneath which is a powerful but cruel spirit that would demean, exclude and ostracise those who are already suffering in life.
The poor woman was shrouded under this vicious spirit. For 18 years, whatever hope she might have entertained in other people’s generous human spirit would have been seriously tested and, chances are, badly dented. She would have in all probabilities retreated into herself, and by and by developed in her heart a negative spirit of shame, of unworthiness, and of fear of rejection. The crippling spirit of which St Luke wrote is a negative spirit that exerts from without and reacts to from within.
This crippled woman has to be “released” from that crippling spirit both from the community and from herself. In mercy, Jesus wants to set her free.
2. A healing that is “freeing”
When, then, St Luke says that Jesus sets the woman free from her ailment, we are at once alerted to the fact that this is not ordinary “healing” as we understand it. This is a woman who has for the last eighteen years experienced life difficulties precisely because she lived a life shrouded in social stigma. She was a person everyone else would try to avoid, to make snide remarks of behind her back, who is embarrassing to be seen together with. So, in healing her, Jesus does an even more crucial thing, and that is, freeing her from the ‘spirit’ that had crippled her physically and socially for so long.
In this healing-and-freeing undertaken by Jesus, he demonstrates mercy in three important dimensions:
- First, Jesus demonstrates the mercy of understanding. He notices and calls the woman over. He takes the initiative to reach out to the woman, even when the woman, with severely reduced capacity on account of the crippling spirit, was unable to seek Him for help. Jesus knows the woman’s suffering and understands her fear. He hears the suffering woman’s silent cries. Even deeper yet, he hears her fear as well. This, is the mercy of understanding. Our Lord shows an understanding heart. Thus we see that divine mercy does not leave the suffering woman unattended; it searches her out. Does it not remind us of Jesus Christ symbolized by the Good Samaritan who, regardless of costs and what other travelers refuse or neglect to do, would not leave the suffering and death-bound human victim unattended?
- Second, Jesus demonstrates the mercy of acceptance. He initiates a conversation with the woman. In speaking to the woman, Jesus thus initiates a relationship with the woman which others would not attempt with a ten foot pole. He demonstrates the mercy of acceptance through direct conversation and close encounter – matters which Pope Francis repeatedly emphasises we all must do. And Jesus does so in public, in full view of those who are afraid that they cannot avoid the old lady fast enough. And in speaking to her directly, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment,” Jesus addresses the woman as a human person both in her physical reality as well as in her social reality. In his public acceptance of the woman, therefore, Jesus thereby restores both her social and physical well being.
- Third, Jesus demonstrates the mercy of touch. Jesus touches the woman. Human touch is so crucial in human relationship. It is tactile. It is real. It bridges the gap between human persons. Jesus is sending the message that this woman, no matter how much she is shunned by the rest of the community, is acceptable to Jesus and loved by God. This is an utterly public display of God’s love and mercy. It at once brings the woman into the realm of acceptable, decent human society, overturning the exclusionary ways of the so-called pious and religious personalities of the time. Like everyone else, she too is a daughter of Abraham and a beloved of the merciful God.
3. A healing that “remembers”
The third thing I want to say is that this is a healing that remembers.
Notice that the woman, upon her healing in verse 13, immediately praises God. She shows gratitude because she remembers. Gratitude follows an acknowledgement of mercy.
As the healing of this kyphotic woman is done on the Sabbath, the leader in the synagogue is not amused and raises his indignant objection. But Jesus brings to everyone’s attention the woman’s true and essential identity: she is a daughter of Abraham. The fact that her true identity is revealed by Jesus on the Sabbath, in public, and in a place of worship is hugely significant as well. For right here, Jesus does not stay at the legalistic level of “what we can or cannot do”, as the leader of the synagogue wants the people to focus on, but on the level of “who we truly are and ought to be”.
The leader of the synagogue cites God’s commandment about the Sabbath rest in Exodus 20:9-11. Jesus, however, answers along the lines of the same commandment in Deuteronomy 5:13-15 which, significantly, explains the meaning of the Sabbath rest in these terms: “so that you may rest, and remember that you were once a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out from there.”
- To rest in God is in the first place to remember.
- For the Israelites, it means to remember their time of slavery.
- For the Christians, it means seeing our life not through the prism of what we produce, but instead what God achieves, especially through our weakness. It reminds us of our true identity in creatureliness and opens our eyes to see God’s goodness towards us and others.
To recall the Commandment of the Lord on the Sabbath rest is to understand why this kyphotic woman has to be “released” from her slavery precisely on the Sabbath. And now, she becomes a living sign, recalling God’s merciful deliverance today.
Finally, we return to where we started, namely, Jesus’ understanding heart stands at the origin of this demonstration of the mercy of God. Seeing all this, Christians would rightly want to pray for an understanding heart as well. In doing that, we would be like King Solomon who prayed for “an understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:3-9). Here, a word of caution is in order. Indeed, to ask for an understanding heart is to desire an essential gift of the Holy Spirit. Recall the Pentecost, as the gifts of the Holy Spirit became powerful tools that first helped the Apostles unlock the room full of fear so they could move out to banish other people’s fears, reducing unwarranted and crippling fears to ashes in the fire of love. Those tools are ours for the asking, but they come with a price. For before we can hear with our hearts the other’s fears, and go on to bring the person into the peace of God’s merciful heartbeat, the spirit of understanding requires of us a heart that is truly open to Jesus to learn from the Master himself. There, we see that understanding involves time and patience, a willingness to stay serenely silent so as to listen deeply. It demands a conscious effort at suspending snap judgment, to assume the best of the other, to see the person as God sees and hears.
Pope Francis has repeatedly shown that he knows what an understanding heart entails. Again and again at every possible forum, he asks all Christians to “listen”. We must listen with our hearts. The Lord Jesus unmistakably teaches deep listening as something that stands at the origin of mercy. If we but listen, we will understand each other’s fear better. From the Good Lord we each has received mercy. We, too, can learn to be a little bit more merciful to each other.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, June 2016. All rights reserved.
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