Jeremiah 1.4-10 and Luke 13.10-17

when healing troubles

If I was thirty years younger I could say, Whasup Jesus? and not sound flip or foolish. But, alas, I’m not but I can say what in the world is Jesus up to, now? After all he has already set everyone on edge by declaring that he didn’t come to bring peace on earth and that the consequence of following him would be divisive on communities and families. As if that were not enough, he says those who are more concerned about predicting the weather than watching for signs of God are a bunch of hypocrites.

The better question is what is God up to in this Jew from Nazareth who causes trouble wherever he goes? The answer to that begins with a quick detour back to our text where the young Jeremiah describes the moment God comes calling on him.

When God calls, Jeremiah tries to take a youth exemption. “Lord, I’m only a boy.” It didn’t work. God says, nothing doing.

Actually, Jeremiah wants to retire before he’s hired or even tired. He wants to stop before he goes; to quit before he starts; to sit down before he stands up. I understand his plea; after all, he is being called to speak God’s word. The Word spoken from the mouth of Jeremiah will have the power to “pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overpower, to build and to plant.”

In other words, God is calling Jeremiah to say to people – and nations – precisely what they need to hear and the last thing they want to hear. How hard is that? It is one thing to deliver soothing speeches to adoring congregations without upsetting anything or anyone. Israel was filled such prophets who told the people what they wanted to hear as they blithely went off a spiritual cliff that would eventually lead to humiliation and exile. The leaders of the nation had surrounded themselves with just such religious voices telling them precisely what they wanted to hear as they entered in political alliances that were slowly but surely leading them to destruction. Enter Jeremiah.

Now God is calling Jeremiah to speak a Word that will bring neither adoration nor acclaim, only scorn and hostility. Why? Because the people have replaced the living God with the idols of their own making, listening only to the voices that confirmed what they wanted to hear.

So when young Jeremiah cries out, “But, Lord, I am only a boy”, we might agree. God will have nothing to do with it. In a firm voice the Lord responds to Jeremiah, “Do not say I am only a child… for I am with you to deliver you.”

In other words, no excuses. God will sustain all those whom he calls. And the Word he delivers is not always pleasant but always healing. The first and necessary word was judgment: the consequences for Israel of settling for the false gods of economic security and material comfort will be destruction. The last and necessary word is restoration. But one precedes the other. Denial is a stiff price to pay.

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So now we can ask again, what’s going on with Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth, God’s servant, who has stirred up trouble in the sanctuary? As if to make it clear that he has not come to uphold thing as they are, but is actually bringing in a whole new way of life - Jesus deliberately break the rules of the institution and goes contrary to the expectations of the leaders.

Why didn’t Jesus ask her to wait until sundown when it would not cause such a division among the people and their leaders? After all she had been afflicted for 18 years, would a few hours make a difference in her life. If he waited, the rules would be upheld, the leaders satisfied, and the woman healed. So why does Jesus deliberately cause the division? Like Jeremiah, Jesus goes precisely counter to the ways thing are supposed to be.

Robert Capon says, that if Jesus had waited until sundown, his wonderful miracle would have supported the people's expectations of a victorious and immortal messiah -- one "who is coming to punch the enemies of the Lord in the nose." We want to "see" Jesus through the lens of *our* own understanding of what a savior should be like. As long as we "see" in this way, we cannot see.

Jesus constantly announces the coming kingdom in words and deeds that run counter to the people's expectations for the kingdom.

I want to careful here of not making a mockery of either the Sabbath provisions of the law or the leaders of the Synagogue. Jesus is doing neither. He is saying the purpose of God’s reign is to set free those who are captive, to mend the broken, and heal the sick. Nothing is more important than this reign of God coming among us.

Jesus takes this action knowing full well it will divide the people - not for the sake of division but to set the captive free. The woman doesn’t seek Jesus out. Bent over. Incapacitated. In bondage to powers unseen. To this very one – the unnamed vulnerable - he comes without delay. Did you notice he doesn’t call her cripple. Daughter of Abraham, he say, and you can almost see her spine straightened just be the dignity in his words. He makes unmistakably clear nothing will stand in the way of the life giving power of God.

What about us? What about you? Do you hear your name being called; your spine straightening in God’s loving presence?

There are persons among us in bondage to crushing patterns of life bent over by burdens untold, shattering families, and destroying hope. I know them. You know them. We are them. Jesus is still about setting people free in the name of God’s coming kingdom. Isn’t this then the purpose of those who would follow in path of Jesus?

Sometimes I think Church is in bondage, too. Do you think that’s possible? That the Church could confuse its way with God’s way? In bondage to the past which disables seeing the new thing God is doing now; clinging to structures for their own sake and no other.

Jesus is about God’s way. So was Jeremiah. That’s the good news. Because in truth, it’s not about us.

It’s about God. I think the sooner we figure that the better we’ll be.

It’s about what God desires not about clinging to comfortable structures that hinder the life giving power of God to set people free. It’s not about the Church holding on tight to our status in the world. That way leads nowhere.

The way of Jesus is about giving ourselves to the purpose of God: forgiveness, hospitality, compassion, and mercy. This the way of the Church that follows in his path.

It’s about a common life whose sole purpose is setting people free to hear God call your name.

God says when you do that, Fear not -

I will be with you.