Worship for the week beginning 21 August 2022

Time to Reflect

  I’ve been looking at some of my recorded TV programmes, and watched one called “When Barbara met Alan”.   Barbara and Alan were disabled cabaret performers who were both angry at the limitations they faced. So, they became very active campaigners to put things right. 

  And then I read this Gospel story, which tells us Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman who was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.  She’d been like that for 18 years.  She’s not given a name. She’s just the woman that had been crippled for eighteen years. 

  Let’s give her a name.  We’ll call her Tabitha. Nobody campaigned for her.  Did people avoid her?  Were children cruel?  And did the other women talk about her behind her back?”
Probably the answer is Yes to each of these things.

  She wanted a life.  And in the TV programme “When Barbara met Alan”, that’s what these two wanted.   They wanted a life.   And they recruited others like them to join in militant protests.  And it worked – though disabled people still meet obstacles.

  Barbara and Alan would understand this woman far better than we can.  She wanted to be like others. But no-one had any cure.  In desperation she came to this Synagogue.  And when Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”

  Then Luke tells us about the leader of the synagogue who 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.” We’ve known people like that. Those who refuse to give way – “It’s more than my jobs worth”.  The people who said to Barbara and Alan “You can’t get on the bus in that wheelchair – you’ll be a hazard”

  But Jesus said, “Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?

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?”

  What’s interesting here is that they both use the word “ought”.   The Synagogue Steward said “the healing ought to be done on another day”.   Jesus said “ought not this woman be set free, even on the Sabbath day”

  That word “ought” can lead us astray.   Refugees ought to stay elsewhere. Homeless people ought to find work. He or she ought to have more sense.  It’s so easy to use the word to condemn people – and to avoid doing anything.   But the person condemned here is the Synagogue leader.  While Jesus knows what really ought to be done – to show compassion to someone in desperate need.

  This woman’s story has a good end – she stood up straight and began praising God. And the crowd was rejoicing.  And the story of Barbara and Alan had a good end too – their militancy helped to produce the Disability Discrimination Act. Among other things, buses have ramps due to their militancy. But there was no miracle to bring that about. It was hard work that met a lot of opposition – and still does when disabled people are seen as an inconvenience!

  Now Luke is the only Gospel that tells us this story. But Luke seems to collect stories with Jesus caring for unlikely people, not holding back from them.  In this Gospel, we can’t get away from the challenge to show some empathy, to look beyond our own problems to try to understand the problems of others – and give them the help they need. Not by patronising – but by supporting and bringing real hope.