No matter what Gospel you read, one thing is abundantly clear—while taking on the religious system of his day, Jesus continually indicted the religious politics of holiness.  In story after story, and in confrontation after confrontation, we see that the Israel of Jesus’ generation, bound by a restrictive ethos of purity and polity, was no longer what it was meant to be—a beacon on a hill, a vineyard yielding good fruit, a light to the nations, a healing and hope-filled place for God’s people to live out their lives. Look out—but Jesus characterized the religious teachers of his time as ‘bumblers’ and “blind guides”, “hypocrites” and “hucksters”.  He accused the scholars of the Torah of having “taken away the key of knowledge” rather than unlocking the rich and restorative promises of God.  He attacked the Pharisees for their picky purity codes and their cautious calculations of who were clean and unclean, pure and impure, righteous and outcast, rich and poor, neighbor and enemy.  And more telling still, I think, Jesus found many within the religious system of his generation to be insidiously preoccupied with “business as usual”—totally blind to the crises and the opportunities that faced them!  “Though the politics of holiness,” as Marcus Borg observes, “was intended to make Israel ‘pure’, Jesus ironically and dramatically described” the religious practices and procedures of his day as having the “opposite effect upon Israel and its people”—causing defilement instead of healing , destruction instead of restoration, and separation instead of reunion! [i] And yet it was amidst such irony that Jesus continually called folk to a new way of life, a new way of being, a new way of relating joy-fully one-to-another—a way that was not bound by the practices of ‘business as usual’ or burdened by the platitudes of ‘conventional religious wisdom.’ 

And so it is that we have before us today this unique passage from the Gospel of Luke—unique in that this story appears only in Luke and is the last time Jesus is present in a synagogue before his death.  But don’t miss it –for to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath day was to be at the very heart of first-century Judaism in its most prevalent and well-practiced form.  When Luke’s gospel was written, Jerusalem and the temple had already been destroyed—but synagogues were present in every town and city—and it was their duty to kept religious traditions intact even as the Temple lay in tatters.  The synagogue was the “local church” to put it in Gentile terms—and Jesus, as Luke’s story-world recounts, had made a habit of “stopping by” these local synagogues throughout his ministry.  And I don’t mean to be sarcastic here, but obviously, as a guest in these various synagogues, it had not played out real well when Jesus called the religious teachers he met “hypocrites” or “viperous broods” or “ridged doctrinal dolts”. And thus, by the time we get to our story today, the religious authorities were watching Jesus’ every word, and his every action, and his every move so that they could pounce upon him when given half the chance—hopefully silencing once-and-for-all this heretical teacher in their midst. 

“And so it was,” as Luke’s author tells us, “that Jesus was teaching in one of these meeting places on the Sabbath.”  We don’t know what he was saying.  We are not told anything about the topic of the day or what trouble he was getting himself into.  But we are told that there was a woman present there—a woman so bound by her afflictions that she couldn’t even look up!  But Jesus saw her, stopped his lesson, and called her forth.  Then laying his hands upon her he said, “Woman, you are free!” And suddenly she was standing up—straight and tall—and she gave glory to God! 

But here was the problem!  For in the well-lawed religious landscape of “business-as-usual”, Jesus had now healed on the Sabbath.  Healing was clearly categorized as an act of “work” by the religious leaders of the day—and thus Jesus had blatantly violated Sabbath law.  The synagogue president was furious that this had happened on his watch—we are told—and he quickly chastised the people present for not following proper procedures!  “Six days have been defined as work days,” he screamed!  “Come on one of these six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath!”  But Jesus answered the synagogue president using another Sabbath law—and don’t miss this—for Jesus knew that the religious leaders of his generation abhorred cruelty to animals and thus, under their Sabbath laws, it was perfectly legal to loose thirsty or troubled beasts from their sheds so as to lead them to water.  And it was out of this knowledge that Jesus shouted at every one of the synagogue’s leaders, “You frauds!  Each Sabbath every one of you regularly loosens the ropes on your cow or donkey freeing it from its stall.  You lead it out for water, and think nothing of it!  So tell me—why isn’t it all right for me to have loosened what held this daughter of Abraham back and to have led her from the stall where Satan had her tied and bound for eighteen years?  Tell me!” 

And then, we are told, this “loose talk” on Jesus’ part suddenly left the religious leaders of the synagogue looking “quite silly and red-faced—but the people who were gathered there for healing were delighted and cheered Jesus on!”  

So do you see?  As this story from Luke highlights, the leader of the synagogue—and those like him—loved systems more than people.  The religious leaders of Jesus day were focused on rigid policies and fixated on right practices rather than focused on caring for the broken, and the burdened and the bound in their very midst!  And as the author of Luke points out with stark clarity, these leaders were more concerned that their little laws should be observed and upheld than they were with helping a troubled and twisted woman in need of healing and restoration. 

But let’s not stay in Luke’s story-world any longer.  For throughout my own ministry, I have seen the worship of systems and policies and the adoration of “business as usual” alive and well and stringently protected by present-day leaders of the church while the broken and the bound are ignored and pushed aside.  These leaders wrangle over writing laws to make it clear who should be in or who should be out rather than being about the faithful task of freeing folk unjustly oppressed and ostracized, bound and broken.  And more troubling still for me is that in church after church, the dominant consciousness of conventional religious wisdom refuses to embody the radical teachings of the very one it claims to follow—this one who said “love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you” . . .this one who said “Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you” . . this one who said, “Do not judge, do not condemn, forgive and you will be forgiven!” . . .this one who said “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and bring the homeless poor into your midst. . and this one said “Do to others as you would have them do to you by loving your neighbor as you love yourself!”  What is needed, I dare say, in the church today is a “shaking,” a thorough housecleaning so as to get rid of all the historical and religious junk so that these unshakable essentials can stand clear and uncluttered before us!  Maybe we need a little pulling up and tearing down so that these radical teachings can become the tap-root of our actions in, and reactions to, the world around us—as people and as communities of faith. 

But there is one final thing I want to say today—and it is this.  If I am going to point a finger at others, then I also need to point a finger at myself as a pastor—and at us as a church.  Very often I do not like the words the Spirit puts in my mouth—but I ,we, need to listen diligently to Jesus’ change of fraudulence in the midst of our own practices of faith.  Do we love our systems, our way of doing things, more than people?  Do our  “business as usual” practices blind us to those in our very midst who are bound by fear or pain, stigma or sickness?  Do we understand the difference between a pulpit and a podium, between being truly inclusive and subtly exclusive, between worshiping God and worshiping our own ideologies?  Do we need a through housecleaning to get rid of some of the historical and religious junk that holds us back and weighs us down as a community of faith?  

If these questions make us uncomfortable then maybe, just maybe,  you and I can begin to understand why Jesus was such a threat to the religious practices of his generation—and why he is still a threat to our own religious practices today!  Yet even in the midst of such a threat we must not forget that Jesus continually calls us to a new way of life, a new way of being, a new way of relating joy-fully one-to-another—a way that is not bound by the practices of ‘business as usual’ or burdened by the platitudes of the ‘conventional religious wisdom’ of our day!   

May such truth be loosed in our midst—and may such a truth be lived out in our lives!  AMEN