Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, August 24, 2025
Imagine that you are a woman with a chronic disability that most scholars would compare to something like spondylitis, which is a fusion of the bones and the spine that creates this ongoing stiffness and pain and inflammation and fatigue. And for 18 years, what you see is not God's confetti of stars sprinkled in the night sky. For 18 years, what you see is not the branches of a willow tree wrapping their arms around each other as you look up. What you see is not the eyes of your neighbor as you look into someone's face. No, you can hardly look up, cowering from the pain of your disease. What you see is dirt and dust and trash. Bound by this disease, you move through the world in a lot of physical pain, but you also move through the world in social pain. Many think that your disability is the result of God's judgment, which was true 2,000 years ago and in some areas of our world is still true today. So most people won't touch you. They won't talk to you. They're disgusted by you. They think your disease is contagious. And so they expect you to stay home, hiding away so that you do not get others sick with something that is causing you such chronic pain for almost two decades. Imagine feeling invisible. And you are so resigned to your illness at this point. You are so accustomed to the pain that you don't even dare consider asking for help, asking for healing. What good would that do? You've heard whispers of this man. This man who healed someone with a withered hand. This man who reached out and touched lepers. This man who healed a woman who was hemorrhaging blood for 12 years. This man who raised a little girl from the dead when everyone else thought she was gone. You've heard about him—Jesus of Nazareth—but there's no way he would heal you.
And this is who we meet in our passage today. Most theologians call her the bent-over woman. But if you know me, you know every time we have scripture with a nameless woman, we’ve got to name her, church. So, let's get a name for this woman. Evelyn. I love that name. Evelyn, for whatever reason, that day, despite the fact that she wasn't allowed to talk to rabbis and they weren't allowed to talk to her, who doesn't expect to be healed, appears at the synagogue that day. Did she leave her house wringing her hands in fear of people's judgment, taking a big resolute breath as she started to approach this place of worship? I don't know. But regardless, she arrives on the Sabbath looking down at the dust, perhaps even wondering why she showed up. And then she hears the voice of a man, and she cranes her neck to the side and she sees Jesus of Nazareth, and he is looking right at her. He is looking right at her, and he speaks right to her, and he invites her to come to him. And perhaps she shuffles over, scared, confused. And perhaps—I want to believe—Jesus kneels in front of her and gets on her level and looks right into her eyes and sees Evelyn. Maybe he wants to truly see her before he heals her. And then she finds those loving eyes of our holy healer. But she wonders why he has called her over and bent down to acknowledge her. No one talks to her. No one looks at her. And yet he does. He does. And he speaks these words to her: Woman, Evelyn, you are set free from your ailment. And then he touches her, knowing many would call him unclean for this action. He's risking his status by doing this, but he doesn’t care. He lays his hands on her. She hasn't received a loving touch in God knows how long. Feeling his weathered hands on her shoulders or neck, she feels the pain leave her body—a freeing experience she will never be able to quite articulate to people. And immediately, immediately she stands up straight and she praises God. She praises God because of this holy healer who sees her, who calls to her, who lays hands on her, who invites her, who speaks to her, who sets her free.
This isn't just about healing someone from physical pain. It is about a holistic healing of bringing someone back into the wholeness of community. And we’ve got to put a pin in that because what happens is our holy healer very quickly becomes our rebellious rule breaker. Have you heard of that Jesus? Healing on the Sabbath wasn't allowed because healing, church, takes work. Amen. And work was prohibited. And Jesus, ever the rule breaker for the sake of mercy, decides to piss some people off. And while it's easy to villainize this leader of the Sabbath, as I often do when I read this story, I actually get what he's saying. He's got a good point. Sabbath is reserved for rest. God rested on the Sabbath. God commanded us to rest on the Sabbath. We follow that God. We obey that God. He wasn't following some arbitrary cultural custom that he had made up. He was following the covenant that his ancestors had made with God. But sometimes, sometimes y'all, in the name of God and in the name of rest, we make rules and then we forget the reason for some of those rules. Sometimes our obedience, church, gets in the way of our mercy. And Jesus, he recognized that mercy and healing were more important in this moment than keeping a rule. And so, in true Jesus form, he raises his voice a little bit and he looks at the leaders of the synagogue and he says, "You hypocrites." And then he rolls up his sleeves and he puts on his attorney hat and he's ready to make his case. And he uses this argument which the Jewish people call kal va-chomer. And it basically means lighter to greater. Lighter to greater. He says, "Don't y'all untie animals from the manger and lead them to water on the Sabbath?" And this is the lighter part of the argument. And then he says, "Shouldn't this woman be set free on the Sabbath then?" And that's the greater part of the argument. If then so this. He's got the rule followers scratching their heads, doesn't he? And not only were they stumped, scripture tells us they were shamed. And I have felt that same shame before when I choose procedures over people. And scripture tells us next, the entire crowd—and maybe that means the leaders of the synagogue and the people following Jesus—the entire crowd rejoiced at the wonderful things he was doing. Imagine that. I wish I was there. For a woman on the margins who, as Lynn Japinga writes, tiptoed around the edges of worship spaces and marketplaces.
For years, Jesus's act of healing was not only physical, it was communal, it was spiritual, it was social. Elizabeth Caldwell makes it plain. She is both healed and restored to community through the one who sees her, through the one who invites her, through the one who speaks to her, through the one who lays hands on her, through the one who frees her. Y'all ever heard of that Jesus? This isn't just about her spine. Although, what a beautiful testament to Jesus's healing that is. This is about being seen and acknowledged and known, church. Surely the crowd witnesses this—I hope they do. And they see his work of mercy and they begin taking notes and they are ready to usher her back in. He sets her free. And just as the Sabbath is a reminder of the ways in which God set the Israelites free from captivity, Jesus is reminding us that sometimes the work of mercy means freeing people, untying their knots, from a loneliness, from a disease, from a way of not being seen that only he can. He allows her to once again marvel at the stars and see those branches of the redwood and look into the eyes of her family and friends.
Every so often during the week, we have folks who come to our doors asking to be seen. Perhaps they need a gas card or a bus pass. Honestly, sometimes they just want to talk and be heard. And this week, we had a really lovely young couple grace our doors. And they needed help paying for a few more nights at a hotel. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes these interruptions are very annoying. I had a lot to do. I wasn't in the mood to sit with folks and listen for I didn't know how long. And sometimes, I'll be honest with you, my skepticism, my weariness, my wondering if they're telling the truth or not, gets in the way of my mercy. But God is annoying. And God invites me, invites me, a broken woman, to look at others and see them and choose mercy over work. And so we sat in my office and they were petting my dog Joe. What's really interesting is they told me about their kids and their dog that they had to give away because of their financial situation. The woman said, "This is so comforting, this dog. This is such an emotional gift to me right now that this dog is loving on me." My dog Joe doesn't know who anyone is. She doesn't know where they came from. She doesn't care. She extends that loving nuzzle to everyone. And it may seem trite, I don't know. Maybe it's cheesy to you. But her excitement at seeing anyone from anywhere of any walk of life is convicting to the ways in which I limit my grace. Would I have given this couple a hug on their way out if I hadn't seen Joe do it? Would I have offered them the same grace and financial help if I hadn't felt that nudge from my holy healer, my rebellious rule breaker? Church, I don't know. That's why I keep coming back here.
As Professor James Alcantara writes, "For those who are religious, you've got to remember that when you do not see others, Jesus confronts you. The church is not meant to be a gated community," he writes, "but rather a place where those who are seen and freed by God are empowered to see others with—listen here—eyes of faith." Say it with me, eyes of faith. These aren't regular eyes. These are eyes of faith. These are eyes who know about a different savior and a different God. Who invites, who sees, who speaks to, who lays hands, who frees. Church, there are people in our community who feel invisible. And maybe they're sitting next to you right now, who may be in chronic pain without anybody who they feel gets it, who may feel in psychological pain, swallowed by the loneliness of depression or grief. There are those who may find themselves on the margins of society, maybe the margins of this church, and we’ve got to know better. We’ve got to do better, for those who feel like they are not being welcomed in and seen and healed in the ways that they wish. And they want to be desperately, desperately seen and known and invited to lunch and listened to and heard. And it is easy to overlook them and put our hurried lives first.
But there is the one who looks around. Y'all know who I'm talking about. And he slows down and he invites us over and he offers a gentle touch to our lonely or bitter or resigned souls and he says, be made well. And he says, I see you. And he says, come back to community. And he says, I’ve got you. He sees us. He calls us over. He speaks to us with love. He lays his hands on us and he frees us. And the question today for you and for me is whether we are willing to break some rules for the work of mercy.
Are we willing to go and do likewise? Are we willing to scramble after the one who says come? Are we willing to see each other with eyes of faith? May it be so. Let's make it be so.