Deceiving Ourselves

Luke 13:10-17

Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath. By Matthias Gerung c. 1530 Public domain

Having been a homeowner, father, and husband, living in a dorm during a semester of seminary away from my family, wasn't the most pleasant experience. 

It was formative, however. 

It is where I met one of my dearest friends. 

Away from my family, we supported one another during a time when we didn’t know many of our classmates. It was his first semester and I had just transferred from Union. 

Adapting to the surrounding culture was difficult for me and one day a classmate offended me so greatly, that I returned to the dorm room, completely enraged. 

As I paced my floor in the tiny dorm room, frustrated and overwhelmed by anger, my friend came knocking on my door. 

He asked if I was okay and when I explained how offended and angered I was, he asked if I had prayed for this particular classmate. 

Shocked at his suggestion, especially given the explanation of the exchange, I simply asked, 

“DO WHAT!?”

“It’s up to you” he replied “but I’ve always found it is healing for me when I pray for those I feel the greatest contempt for.”

There is a reason he is such a good friend to this very day. 

I took his advice, and it actually helped. 

He came back to see how I was a few hours later and I told him how much it had helped. 

It was amazing how my prayer for someone I resented so much, helped me to feel invested in that person, despite the certainty that this same person would chastise and antagonize myself and other classmates many more times to come. 

I shared all of this with my friend and a few days later, I came knocking on his door. 

That day, I found him pacing his room, throwing things, red faced and enraged, while sharing a few choice words. 

When I sat down to talk with him, I found that he had been angered by the very same individual who had angered me a few days prior. 

As my friend took a breath between his rants and descriptions of the same classmate I myself had previously confronted, I seized the opportunity to ask him, with a smile on my face, 

“Did ya pray for him?!”

The response to my advice was a far cry from “thank you” in case you were wondering. 

~

Today’s Gospel tells us the story of a woman who has been disabled by sin, bound to it in fact, for 18 years.

Regardless of her bondage, she enters the synagogue seeking a place to pray, a place to worship. 

She never asks Jesus to heal her. 

She just comes to the synagogue to worship, to be in communion with the Divine.

She doesn’t seem to have come seeking Jesus and she doesn’t seem to know that it is through him that she will be healed.  

She comes to the synagogue, however, to be changed -healed- through worship, through prayer,  because the function of prayer is not to influence an immutable God, but it is to change the nature of the one who is praying to God.

She comes to the synagogue seeking the same thing we should all be seeking when we come to God on the Sabbath, in prayer, and especially in worship. 

God’s redemptive change in us, all of us, no matter who we are, no matter what role we play. 

It is why I, myself, turn to face that altar during the order of confession, because I too am seeking God’s redemptive change in my own sinful self during the order of confession and forgiveness. 

SACRAMENTUM POENITENTIA
By Francesco Novelli - Amad. Gabrieli c. 1800 Public Domain

And although she may not know the change that is about to take place through Jesus, she comes longing for that change. 

Because she knows she should be condemned by her sin, even if we are not told just what sin it may be. 

Her symptoms are irrelevant, but the disease is clear, when Jesus proclaims that she has been bound by the adversary; sin. 

Yes, she is bound, enslaved, tethered to this disease of sin and could justifiably be condemned by it, just as we all could be. 

BUT… She knows it and she does not deny it.

Sisters and brothers, if the Church is called to be a hospital for sinners, who can we expect to come to such a hospital?

Because it is only the one who knows that they are sick who seeks the healing care that is needed. 

The first step in being healed is to know that we are all diseased by sin, afflicted by it, bound to it. 

~

No one likes getting sick, when we initially begin to feel the symptoms of our own ailments, we try to deny what those symptoms are pointing to. 

I am not certain that there is ever a time when this is a greater reality than with children. 

A few years back, my daughter kept rubbing her ear, crying, complaining, and acting agitated. 

I was home, spending a few weeks experiencing the single parent life my wife had been living just prior to taking a trip to Israel. 

Something seemed obviously wrong and my first assumption was an ear infection, but she wasn’t talking yet so I couldn’t ask. 

I called my wife to let her know I was taking my daughter to the doctor, only to be informed that I had NO idea what I was talking about. 

While we were on the phone arguing about my limited medical expertise, my daughter became sick to her stomach. 

Both of us being in such a rational state of mind, I delivered the mature response my wife anticipated upon hearing the commotion through the phone. 

“I told ya SO!” 

I hung up and immediately took my daughter to our pediatrician. 

Whenever I took the kids in to see him, we would always wind up talking about music and Torah. 

Maybe that is why I liked visiting the doctor. 

But on this day, obviously frustrated and angry that my wife belittled my vast medical knowledge and parenting skills, he gave me some sound advice. 

Upon discovering my child’s burst eardrum which is what caused her vast symptoms he advised; 

“Look man, give your wife a break! I’m a doctor. I studied medicine for EIGHT years. 

I’m a partner in a private medical practice. I’ve received awards for pediatrics. 

But when it comes to my kids, my wife still believes that Google will provide the best medical advice she can find, because I’m her husband and all wives KNOW, we are idiots!

I mean, do you really want them to believe we are smart? Consider the expectations that would carry!”

He was right, but I’ve also found that the more we deny the symptoms of our own disease, the tighter the grasp of the illness that takes hold, until eventually it cripples us. 

The Sick Child By Edvard Munch c. 1907 Public Domain

~

The greatest denial of our own symptoms and sickness is to project it onto others.

Sometimes by just proclaiming that another is sicker than we are, believing that if someone else is suffering symptoms greater than our own, we are given the chance to deny our own sin. 

Sisters and brothers, this is nothing more than cheap law. 

God’s law is given to us as a gift, just as God’s grace is a gift, freely given. 

It is meant to be used as a scalpel, a medical tool to cut the infection of sin out of our lives with God’s grace freely given to be the balm that heals those wounds. 

But when we use the law to condemn other’s bondage to sin, the law becomes nothing more than an accusatory broadsword, striking others down maliciously while masking our own sin, denying the reality of our own symptoms. 

It turns the gift of God’s law into a cheaply bought form of illusory self denial.

Perhaps herein lies the cardinal sin associated with the human institution of the church; self righteousness. 

But it is by that truth that we are all equally condemned, not you, not me, but WE, we all. 

This is the reality that the leader of the synagogue clearly denies when he abuses the law by not recognizing that if he too has come to the synagogue to truly commune with the one true God, 

he too has come to seek the redemptive change that this woman undeniably receives.

But it is not the change one can receive if they do not first acknowledge that it is needed in the first place. 

The leader of the synagogue does not directly confront Jesus because he knows that is a fight he isn't going to win.

So he picks on the one whose sin has already been exposed, the one who is most vulnerable to being accused, because it is her sin, fully exposed that has brought her to the synagogue in the first place. 

But Jesus’ response is about as straight forward as it can come. 

He calls it like he sees it, not only comparing their own care for animals to the lack of care they show for this daughter of Abraham -abusing the sabbath as a day off rather than the most important work day of the week-but Jesus is comparing the close attention to the care of animals to their own lack of attention to unbinding their own ties to their own sin. 

It is in that moment that the leaders are not necessarily put to shame, but they are given the opportunity to recognize their own shame. 

The leader is not condemned by the words of Jesus, but he is now freed by Jesus, because he recognizes the shame of his own hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy of denying his own sin. 

And in that recognition he is freed to be healed himself knowing that he himself -although not physically buckled over by the symptoms of his own sin yet- suffers the same disease and is invited to come to the table and be healed by the same hand. 

~

Last week, while attending Churchwide Assembly,  we stayed in a hotel, on the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

While I attended numerous seminars, speeches, and networking opportunities, I couldn’t resist my walks into the French quarter daily, especially Bourbon Street. 

It was probably the most enlightening experience of the entire week.

I’ve been many places in my life; 

But out of all those places, I’ve never seen a place where such an air of permissiveness prevailed. 

It was any wonder why many delegates, Deacons, and Pastors locked themselves in their rooms at night. 

I won’t describe the sights, or even the sounds -although the blues band I heard three nights in a row was amazing- but as I walked among masses of people engaging in behaviors that certainly wouldn’t spruce up a job resume, 

I had to ask the question, what makes me different?

Intersection of Bourbon and Orleans in the French Quarter of New Orleans

As I crossed the intersection of Orleans and Bourbon Street, asking myself this very question one night, I was almost drawn to tears. 

Standing in the middle of this intersection, immersed in the filth and dabauchery of a nighttime Bourbon Street party, I looked straight down Orleans Street where I saw the shadow of Christ -with his hands raised high above us all- a mere block away being reflected on the outer wall of St Louis Cathedral. 

It was in that moment that I realized, in the midst of all the sights and sounds of Bourbon Street there is NOTHING that separates me from the behaviors and actions I was surrounded by. 

But in taking off that Mardi Gras mask that denies just how susceptible I am to sin, maybe I can reach out in faith, vulnerable and exposed, just like the woman in our gospel lesson today, and accept those gracious hands that are reaching out to me. 

Maybe we all can. 

Amen.