Luke 13:10-17
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.
The passage talks of Jesus healing the crippled woman who was crippled for 18 years. The setting free of the woman is questioned by the leader of the synagogue who tells the others there that there are six days to help people and the Sabbath being holy should not be used for such things. Jesus notes the hypocrisy of the statement and says that people give water to their ox or donkey on the Sabbath and what then is wrong of helping the crippled woman.
Though it seems an open and shut case of Jesus healing the crippled woman we could also interpret it from the perspective of lent as a case of Jesus healing the woman of the complex she may have had because of how people looked at her. It seems to offer a good case of how we treat people and create a system where children and adults alike are graded in a certain way to suggest what success is and isn’t.
The education system that we have and the way we bring up our children and look at the aged are determined by certain factors in the capitalist system that we are a part of. Children have to fulfill certain criteria right from the time of getting an admission to play school and Kindergarten. This is a system that has been founded on old perspectives of right and wrong. Such systems and grading will make a person shrink inwards instead of coming out and expressing themselves. Such shrinking leads to a crippling of the self and makes a person bends inwards. Perhaps this could have been why the woman was bent over.
The mind to tell the crippled woman that she has been set free could be seen from this perspective. It tells us that the very way we look at people is flawed. It leads to inferiority in people that they do not measure up to our expectations. This makes people quiet, walk with their heads down, stammer while they talk, not look people in the eye, not write and do everything different from whatever is called and understood as mainline and traditional. Parents will only be looking at how many marks their children score instead of seeing what ability they have. They will look to make them what their neighbour’s children are instead of what their children want to be and will always talk of what they are not instead of celebrating what they are. Jesus becomes a graceful and understanding parent, guide and brother to the crippled woman telling her that she is free to do what she wants rather than have the burden of what others want her to be. This burden has loomed over her for so long and it is time to bring a stop to that.
We can use this lent season to understand the gifts of people rather than harping on what they could have and should become. It is a time to stop being hypocrites and become human beings who care. It is also a time when we can turn churches and seminaries into places that accept people how they are instead of having difficult exams and grading systems to check whether they have learnt anything and become what we want them to be. The question that we need to pose here is “What does God want them to be?” rather than “What do we want them to be?” This brings in a change in perspective wherein it does not matter anymore as to what we want but it matters a lot as to what God wants. Such a commitment is necessary in true places of worship and teaching where we not only commit our children and students to God but then listen to and discern God’s plan and wish for them.
The synagogue leader had several six days in the week to make a difference in the life of the woman but he does not do anything. When Jesus does something he quotes the law and tradition. We will have similar instances to deal with when we would want to change the system and people will question us saying that it is against the constitution, syllabus, curriculum and whatever else. Lent brings about a time when we should feel strengthened and emboldened to take a step towards what God wants and not what we want. Truly that will bring about a setting free of those who have been crippled in society due to our wrong methods of looking at them. It will also set us free of our narrow mind sets and attitudes.
Picture courtesy scripturehandmaidens.blogspot.com
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