Bent not broken

Luke 13:10-17

Sheila married her high school sweetheart early in life. The relationship with her husband felt like a roller coaster, the peaks were exciting, romantic, almost adventurous, but when the peaks gave way to the lows, it was dark. Since the beginning of their relationship her husband sought to control her, to try to literally own her. It began with a put down here and there. Then it grew to an all consuming jealousy where he constantly needled her about who she was with and where she was going. This led insults hurled at her to make her think that he was the only man that would have her. Then after a while the emotional abuse escalated to physical abuse. Each time he told she was stupid, or insulted her appearance or hit her, she bent little by little until she was only able to see things the way her husband wanted her to see them. She believed that she could do no better than him, she believed that she deserved to be abused, she believed that no one but he could love her. She was bent so much so her soul had become accustomed to only looking down or just slightly ahead but never upward. Sheila was bent…but not broken.


In the gospel we meet a woman who has been bent, unable to stand up straight for eighteen years. The gospel states that a spirit had crippled her, bound by Satan for eighteen long years. Over the years she has become accustomed to here physical state. Imagine what it must have been like for her to be bent, to have to strain to see the sun, the sky, and the stars. Imagine how for eighteen years only being able to look down or just slightly ahead but never upward. Imagine not being able to look someone in the eye…and not questioning your fate. (1) I am sure she didn’t wake up one morning bent, unable to stand up straight. It probably happened slowly, a back ache here, a snap of the bones there, a stoop that kept getting deeper and deeper until eventually walking bent over was all she could do, and for this unnamed woman and those in her community, being a crippled woman becomes all that she is. She was bent…and Jesus called her over.

Sheila stayed with her husband for several years and even had a couple of children. It appeared that she was living the dream. The house with the picket fence, the two cars in the garage, her husband making enough money so she could stay home with her children. However in spite of outward appearances, Sheila was worn down. Having lived with the emotional and physical abuse for all these years she was resigned to her fate. Sure she knew that what was happening to her wasn’t right but she couldn’t see how she would support herself and her kids on her own if she left her husband. She didn’t have a college degree or marketable skills that would give her the economic means to support her family without her husband. Most of all she was afraid of being alone, she was afraid that her husband was right, that he was the only person who would ever love her and that she was nothing without him.

On a Sunday morning, Sheila and her children went to church. She tried to go to church as often as she could for her children. She wanted them to grow up in the faith, to know God and his son Jesus. Little did she know that one Sunday morning Jesus would call her over, to set her free from her bondage. Sheila doesn’t remember the gospel story that was being read that morning or the content of the sermon that was being preached. She just remembered realizing that she was a beloved child of God and that she did not deserve the abuse that she had been enduring all those years. As Sheila puts it, “It was as if the hands of the Lord came upon me and I was able to stand up straight again.” Her perspective changed, she was able to begin to free herself from her abusive marriage. Yes, she was bent, she was bent to the limit but she was not broken. Sheila is the first to admit that she could not have realized this on her own, that she would not have the strength to leave her abusive situation without the source of her healing, power of the Holy Spirit and God’s amazing grace as shown through his son Jesus.

I heard Sheila tell this story as her first sermon at a church where she was serving as a pastoral intern. She was preaching on Jesus healing the crippled woman, the text that I am preaching on this morning. I almost fell out of my pew as she preached. You see, Sheila and I were seminary students together. I had always seen her as a strong and capable woman. I knew that she was a single mother but I had no idea what her life was like before seminary. It is hard for anyone to talk about their dark history, especially when it involves something that we’d all like to sweep under the rug such as spousal abuse, and yet, and yet, here was Sheila up in the pulpit sharing her story of being bent but not broken, seeing only her feet and having the hand of the Lord bring her upright.

It made me uncomfortable to hear her share such personal details of her life from the pulpit. My reaction was like that of the indignant synagogue leader, “This is not appropriate for a sermon on Sunday morning, it is not appropriate to talk about ourselves from the pulpit…all our preaching books and our professors tell us that it’s not about the preacher, but about the scripture text.” Yet all of my academic abilities to interpret the gospel text from its original cultural context could not bring the word of God to life the way her story did. My perspective, my bendedness was based on my book learning, my perception of what is good and proper preaching, whereas her perspective came from her life experience and the very real encounter that she had with God on that Sunday morning years ago. I wonder if by chance there may have been someone who was struggling in an abusive situation hearing a word of hope in Sheila’s sermon.

There is a prophetic witness in Sheila’s story and the story of Jesus healing the crippled woman. These stories of healing challenge us to move beyond our limits to consider our witness. In what ways has God healed us and how are we called to praise God for our healing through the sharing of our stories.

The story of the bent woman wasn’t just about physical healing but spiritual healing. Many of us carry burdens to weigh us down, sometimes bending us to the point where we think we might break. In the midst of our burdens it is hard to see anything but the ground. However healing comes through the power of God, making it possible for us to take Jesus’ hand, stand up straight and in our healing begin praising God.

May it be so,

Amen

(1) Stephen L. Cook, David Lyon Bartlett, and Barbara Brown Taylor. 2009. Feasting on the Word. preaching the Revised common lectionary Year C, Volume 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 382-387.