Imagining the Story

 Luke 13:10-17

My name is Sarah[i].  My mother is the woman in Luke’s story that you have heard today.  And even though you have heard her story already, I kind of wanted to tell you again—but this time, from my perspective.  Well, and from her perspective too.  Because I don’t know if you noticed, but my mother does not actually speak in the way Luke tells the story.  You never get to hear her voice.  But as her daughter—trust me, my mother spoke and she spoke often.  And she did not always tell me what I wanted to hear.  I heard a lot of “no’s,” “stop that,” and “because I said so” as I grew up.  Looking back, I can see that I was a bit of a handful when I was younger—always doing things for attention, no matter what kind of attention it was.

 But I bet you would have been a handful too if you had been me.  Because as much as I love my mom, before she met Jesus that day, it was hard to be her child.  My mom wasn’t like anyone else’s mother.  The Bible says she was “bent over.”  In reality, my mother was almost bent in onto herself. Let me show you. This is what it was like to be my mom.

 But it was not the physical pain of living that way that really got to her.  It was not the constant ache in the back, or the constant strain in the neck.  The worst part was what she could see.  For when you are bent together like my mother was, all you can really see are your own feet and the feet of those who get really close to you.  And when you are bent together like my mother was, the truth is that the only one who ever dared to get really close to my mom was me—her only child.  Everyone else assumed that mom had a demon in her that made her this way, or that God was punishing her for some awful sin.  And I would not be telling you the truth if I did not say that both mom and I sometimes wondered the same thing.  I used to hear her ask God what she had done to deserve this kind of a life.  What had she done to deserve having such a deformity, living in such pain, carrying such a burden.  Now, mom never prayed that way in front of me.  She only verbalized prayers of gratitude in my presence.  But when she thought I was asleep, that was when she got honest and raw in her prayer life. 

 She would wait until she saw my feet walk off in the direction of my bed.  Then, she would wait until I got comfortable and the creaking of the boards had stopped.  And when I was finally quiet, she would assume I had gone to sleep.  Remember—she could not look up to see.  She had to just listen. And sometimes, after she thought I was in the middle of my dreams, she would cry and pray and ask God why.  And as I lay there in my bed, very careful not to make a sound, I would also cry and pray and silently ask God why.  For her affliction wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair to my mom and it wasn’t fair to me.

 Since everybody thought my mom had done something very bad to deserve being bent together, no one wanted to be around her. Everybody was afraid that my mom’s unclean spirit would infect them too if she got too close. So we really were not able to go and do much out in public.  And she was not physically able to do much on her own at all.  She had to heavily rely on me. 

A few times, my mom tried to go to the market by herself, but the owners of the stalls took advantage of the fact that my mom could not see what she was buying or how much it was really supposed to cost.  “Here,” they would say, putting their puniest or ruined pieces in a bag that got tied before she could hold it underneath her face.  “This is what you want.”  Then they would charge much more than the advertised price.

 But she would pay it.  She had to.  She had to trust that they were telling the truth.  But some of them weren’t.  So when I found out what was happening, I made her let me go with her.  I could stand straight.  I could see which grapes were big and plump and which ones were bruised and sour.  I could see the sign and how much everything cost.  When I was with my mother, they could not cheat her.  But that did not mean they were any nicer.  They still did not really address her, speaking only to me about her like she was not there, or acting like she was a freak.

 And those experiences made me so angry.  Hot tears would run down my face as I walked and she shuffled back home.  “Hush, child,” my mom would say as we got back. “Come over here close so I can see you.”  I would walk over to her so that my feet got into her line of vision—my scruffy, blistered, kid feet.  And she would take a cloth and wash them and pat them.  And then she would ask me to look at her.  So I would get down and put my face right underneath her eyes so she could really see me.

 I was the only one who ever did that—who got down on the ground so that she could really see me.  And I know I did not do it enough.  Frankly, it was hard.  It was hard to look into her face and to see her pain—her physical pain of living life bent together and her spiritual pain of living life as an outcast.  It hurt me to see her face in all that pain so I would not get down that much, even though I knew how much it meant to her whenever I did.

 Because, as I said earlier, unless I did that, all my mom ever saw were her own feet or my feet or the dusty, rocky ground.  She was never able to look my father in the eyes when he was still around, or to see the sun rising in the morning across our village, or to watch the stars shimmer late at night when everything was still.  All she could see were her feet, or my feet, or the dusty, rocky ground.

 And, likewise, no one, no one, ever saw her— at least not how you would want to be seen.  And my mother lived that way for 18 years.  Voiceless, faceless, nameless.  She lived that way until that day – that Sabbath day.  Mom calls it her freedom day.

 My mom and I were religious people.  We believed in the God of Abraham and Sarah. We knew the stories of the Exodus and the words of the prophets.  Before my mom had become so bent, she had regularly gone to the synagogue for worship.  But when mom became so bent together, she had to stop going because they stopped letting her in.  Remember—everyone thought she was either possessed by a demon or some huge sinner.  So mom and I never went to worship. 

But things changed on that Sabbath day, Mom’s freedom day.  We were walking by the synagogue on our way to the park, just like normal.  But when we got to the doors, my mom stopped.  At first, I did not notice because I always walked in front of her, to keep her safe, to make sure she did not run into anyone.  But then I realized that I could not hear the shuffling of her sandals, so I turned around.  My mom had stopped in front of the entry to the synagogue. No one else was really around because services had already started and there was a new rabbi in town named Jesus who was reading and teaching Torah that night.  The place was packed. 

 “Mom?” I asked, not quite knowing what to say.  “Hush child,” she responded.  And then she slowly shuffled her way in.  I tried to hurry and catch up so that I could walk in front of her and protect her from any more pain or hurt.  But she got swallowed up by the crowd and I lost sight of her.  Then, I heard it.  I heard that new rabbi Jesus say words that scared me to death.  “Woman, come near.”

 At first, no one moved.  No one knew to whom Jesus was speaking.  But then, I heard that familiar shuffling.  And I saw my mom going over to Jesus and I thought I was literally going to be sick.  What did he want with her?  What was he going to say?  Was he going to shame her like everybody else?  Was he going to embarrass her and kick us out of God’s house?  What was he going to do to my mom?

 I wanted so badly to get up there—to walk in front of her—to protect her from any more pain and hurt.  But there were too many people.  All I could do was watch with everybody else.  And then, as the moment unfolded, all I could do was be stunned with everybody else.

 My mom shuffled over there, slowly, painfully.  She stopped just before his feet came into her view.  She did not want to get too close—that would not be proper.  But when she stopped, Jesus stepped in.  She saw his feet near her own—his dusty, scratched up feet that looked like they had traveled miles and miles.  She says she will never forget the sight of his feet.

 And then, the most amazing thing I have ever seen happened right before my eyes. Jesus got down on the ground on his knees—and craned his own neck so that he could look up into my mom’s face, into her eyes.  I have never seen such powerful tenderness in my whole life.  He did what I did not even do much anymore—he got down in order to look at my mom in her face. 

 “Woman,” he said, staring in my mother’s eyes, “woman you are loosed, set free from your ailment.”  But that moment was not over yet.  After pronouncing her healed, Jesus then he took his hands and touched her feet.  He touched those feet that she had stared at for 18 years – feet that were reminders of her pain, reminders of her captivity.  He took his hands and touched her feet—holding them for a moment, studying them—and then he looked back up into her eyes.

 And my mom stood straight up – straight up and threw her arms into the air and began singing and praising God in a voice I had never heard before—a voice strong and clear and healed.  And as she sang and worshipped, Jesus stood back up too.  And with tears running down her face she looked at Jesus in the eyes again.  And he looked back at her and everybody who was paying attention could see that her healing meant just as much to him as it did to her.

 And in that moment of joy and celebration, I finally broke through the crowds and ran to my mom and we did not let go of each other for at least 5 minutes.  And then my mom, still praising God, said she had to go and tell others about what just happened to her—about the Jesus who healed not only her body with his power, but healed her heart with his eyes and his touch.  So we left—a crying, joyful, singing, emotional mess.    And from that day on, our lives were so dramatically different that I cannot even describe it to you.

 Later, we heard that Jesus had received some criticism because he healed my mom on the Sabbath.  We just shook our heads when we heard what the leader of the synagogue had said—about how Jesus healing my mom was like doing work and that was prohibited by God.   We shook our heads because that was the most outrageous thing we had ever heard.  For the God we saw that day—the God who saw my mother all bent together, standing on the edge of the crowd, calling her near—the God we saw stepping into her line of vision, getting as close as family—the God we saw getting down on his knees to look her in the eyes—the God we saw gently touching her feet and pronouncing her healed—that God would never prohibit setting my mother free.

 That God celebrated my mother’s freedom and new life.  And I know God enjoyed my mother’s songs of praise and joy and was just as moved as we were.  And to me and mom, that is what the Sabbath is all about—praising God for God’s healing, God’s power to set free, God’s mercy and tenderness.  The Sabbath is about taking the time to praise and rest in the God who loves us from the “top of our heads right down to the bottom of our feet”[ii], who will not leave us in captivity, but who sets us free again and again.