Year C

Luke 13:10-17

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

What Our Hearts Desire

I would imagine that most of us have come to church today because we desire an encounter and an experience with God. I desire today to see God, to know God, to love God, and to have God love me as I’m sure you do also. Is this not what life and our faith are all about? To illustrate this image, I ran across this short story. It was a beautiful summer evening, almost dark. As the sun was setting casting its beautiful glowing reflection upon the water, a grandfather and his small grandson sat on the edge of a fishing pier watching all of nature’s glory, as they fished. Not really caring if they caught any fish or not.

As they sat there side by side, there was a peaceful and understanding silence between the two, bridging the gap of the years, binding them together with a bond beyond understanding. There was an awareness of one another that required no words and it was good. Both gazing upon the glorious sight, the silence was broken when the lad questioned, “Grandpa, do you ever see God? “Son,” the old man replied, “it’s getting to where I hardly see anything else.” Deep down we all desire this encounter and experience with God that envelops us as the setting sun enveloped the water so we hardly see anything else.

We all desire to experience this kind of peace and love in the very being of our souls.  It’s a healing kind of love, yet it calls us to decision; to “repentance and changed lives.” The call to repentance-to a transformed life-makes sense only in the presence of a transforming power, God, that is available to all who call upon God and to all those called by God. This is why the author of Hebrews reminds his listeners today that they have access to Mount Zion….to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the presence of God, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” Through Jesus, it is revealed that God is indeed God of all.

And this God who has begun a good work us will continue it until the day when we at last they see him, face to face. Those who desire to see, know, worship, and be transformed by God’s love, when they reach the city of the living God “the spirits of the righteous are made perfect.” All this is due to Jesus’ willingness to sacrifice himself on the cross. This sacrifice for us on Jesus’ part and our faith in God makes us safe and it assures us a place on the Holy Mountain. For Luke, it is precisely Jesus and his wonderful works that reassures us of the availability of this transforming power of God for our lives.

Nothing shows this transforming power of God more than Luke’s healing story today of a woman crippled with a spirit for eighteen years and unable to stand up straight. The crowd at the synagogue have seen this woman coming to worship, shuffling painfully and bent over to experience God’s presence in her life. Jesus calls to her and sets her free from her ailment by laying hands on her. Her response is to stand up straight and begin praising God. The crowd knows with utter clarity what they have seen, the presence of God. The presence of God there in the synagogue, freely offered to an utterly unimportant woman and it gives them all hope.

Luke puts today’s story in what at first looks like a strange place. It is preceded by the parable of the barren fig tree, and followed by the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast. These parable stories are all about the kingdom of God. Before the fig tree parable, there is a series of stories and teachings about how the followers of Jesus are expected to behave, and after the parable of the yeast there is the saying about the narrow door. So the way our story today is placed, makes it clear that this story is really the heart of the Good News. Luke puts the story of the healing of the woman on the Sabbath at the center, to point out “this is the most important event in this series of events”.

A story that turns our common understanding of things on its head as Jesus’ stories often do. The woman in the synagogue belonged in the back, where she would not distract the men from their learning. But when Jesus asks her to come up, she did. He was the teacher of the day and his touch, God’s transforming power, welcomes her back into community. It is her call to the kingdom of God, and as we know, where Jesus is, the kingdom is and things are made right.

The leader of the synagogue is outraged! The authorities were not amused. They totally missed the point of what Jesus is about and could not see that Jesus fulfilled the very meaning of Sabbath in his healing—finding our wholeness in God. They must bide their time, but they would get this man, the one who keeps turning things upside-down, honoring and choosing those at the bottom of society and arguing with those at the top. No one in the scriptures probably knew more about God’s transforming power and being chosen than Jeremiah, the prophet. Jeremiah is a giant among the Old Testament prophets. Our text today, introduces us to the prophet and begins a series of readings over the next several Sunday’s, from the Book of Jeremiah.

He had the daunting task of watching the demise of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom at the hand of Babylon. Into a political whirlwind, Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord for God’s people. In today’s text, we get a glimpse into the intimate, often tumultuous relationship between Jeremiah and the God whose word he uneasily bears. We hear his call story and his reflecting back on the experience of his call. As in the experience of so many of us called into God’s service, we understand more fully what we experienced as the stirrings of God’s call when we reflect back on the experiences which strengthens our faith going forward. Giving us boldness to witness for God as it did for Jeremiah.

The revelation that we are all known by God and have been known by God since before we are formed in the womb builds up are understanding that God is not selective in choosing only certain people to receive God’s gift of life and healing. Rather God draws near to all, awaiting our response in faith. Jeremiah’s daunting task will involve both pulling down and building up. But God tells Jeremiah, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. He has been and always will be in the hands of God and God gives him what he needs to fulfill his call. Just as the God, who formed us in our mother’s womb, continues to come, to deliver and save us, to be our rock and our fortress where we can find shelter in the storm.

The good news summed up today is that the Lord calls each of us and can work through us as God worked through Jeremiah and Luke reminds us that just as he straightened up the woman who had been painfully bent over 18 years, he can straighten us up with his transforming power in whatever ways we need. Like a consuming fire, our Lord works with us and in us, not only before we were born but throughout our lives. This Holy Spirit fire consumes our souls and helps us experience God with a combination of awe and reverence because this is what we all desire, to see God, to know God, to love God, and to have God love us?

We can set out in faith knowing that he who has begun a good work in us will complete it and with confidence into the light of God’s city where we are known and expected, and where our beloved Jesus is waiting. For through the power of the spirit of the risen Christ, we are sons and daughters who stand upright in virtue and grace, and see with total clarity the awesome, loving, transformational fire of God.