© Rev Rex A E Hunt, MSc(Hons)
Luke 13: 10-17

WHEN THE RULES OF SOMEONE ELSE MUST BE PROTESTED…

After half a century,
Americans’ constitutional right to get an abortion
has been overturned by the Supreme Court in a ‘conservative’ 6 to 3 majority.

The ruling, handed down on 24 June this year (2022) has far-reaching consequences.
Not the least of which is the life and death of many women.

This was a huge moment.
The court’s ruling has done what reproductive rights advocates feared for decades.
It has taken away the constitutional right to privacy
that protected access to abortion.

Unintended pregnancies and abortions are more common
among poor women and women of colour,
both in the USA and around the world.

Research also shows that people have abortions whether lawful or not,
but in nations where access to abortion is limited or outlawed,
women are more likely to suffer negative health outcomes.
Infection,
Excessive bleeding
Uterine perforation.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at protests
objecting to the ruling. In the USA. In Australia. In other parts of the world.
The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful
but some—especially in the US—have seen incidents of police violence,
including attacks on protesters.

Law enforcement crack downs on protesters has occurred in multiple states.
Shortly after the decision was announced I rang a colleague and friend in Phoenix, Arizona.
He reported that police wielding batons
had forcibly removed protesters—some from his own congregation—
from public spaces and firing teargas.

Journalists reporting in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington
were also involved in violent incidents at the hands of police,
despite clearly being identified as ‘press’.

Even though some people reckon Australia is the 51st State of America,
abortion in Australia is not a crime.
It is regulated by state and territory legislation
and the overall trend in the 21st century has been
to enshrine abortion as a legal right.

Yet women seeking a pregnancy termination are often confronted
by anti-abortion activists
participating in vigils outside clinics.

oo0oo

In today's gospel story Luke tells an imaginative, rather than an historical story,
of Jesus supposedly breaking the law.

Luke says Jesus was teaching when he saw a ‘bent-over’ woman,
and he immediately stopped what he was doing,
called the woman, and heals her.

We have heard this story many times in our life-time,
but can we imagine the woman in this story.

About 15 years ago a colleague did just that.
Listen to her reflecting on, or re-imagining, the story:
“18 years she had been growing smaller, into herself, face down, 18 years she had been bound by this spirit and made quite unable to stand up. And here she was, on the Sabbath, in the synagogue, bent and all, but close enough to the front to catch his eye.

“She must have longed for something, otherwise she would not have come, would not have tried, would not have risked meeting the eyes of this man. Was there still hope in her somewhere? A tiny wisp of a hope, that could have been blown away very easily? Was there still the un-bendable conviction that somehow she was worth more than being the woman weighed down by sorrow and pain?” (Oppewal-Worship/rcl email list).

Then the words, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment’.

My colleague continues:
“What did those words, those hands do? Did they awaken anger and revolt in her that had been slumbering inside her all along? Or did they make a jolt of electric energy course through her, making her, suddenly, realise that she was alive and that she wanted to live… tall?... What was it?

“Was it a coaxing ‘you can do it’ or was it a commanding ‘come on woman, get yourself together’ type of statement that made something inside her decide that it had been enough, that she would stand tall, that she would unfold herself, unbend and open herself to him and to the world? (Oppewal-Worship/rcl email list).

Luke’s story says the leader of the synagogue was indignate,
and has him rebuking Jesus for healing her,
against the Law, on the Sabbath.

Overhearing such a rebuke did it tempt the woman, urge her,
“to roll up in a tight ball again… What is so threatening about her? Is it the tales she might tell or is it the eyes they don’t want to meet because they know what bent her in the first place?...

“How did the people around her react to the look in her eyes, the tallness that suddenly stood over them, the power and strength that seemed to ooze out from somewhere deep inside her. Did they like the new woman? Or would they have preferred the curled up version? (Oppewal-Worship/rcl email list).

Luke continues to craft his story by having Jesus respond
to the leader's complaints by attacking.

The story’s crowds and Luke’s house group, would have been delighted.
There's nothing people enjoy more than seeing a pompous
and pious official put in their place.

But the untold bit of this story is: Jesus gained another enemy.
For virtuous public service officials don't take kindly to being humiliated.

And Luke weaves this clue into another story later on.

oo0oo

What statement was Luke intending Jesus to make by his actions in this story?
That people are always more important than the law?

That if through the application of the law some innocent human being
comes in for unnecessarily harsh treatment,
then that law should be ignored?

Perhaps too he was saying something about the interpretation of law.
That laws are often capable of wide interpretation,
and should always be interpreted for the good of individuals.

Despite all the hoo-har often reported in the media,
Christianity isn't about keeping the rules, moral rules, so-called biblical rules...
It works in a totally different ball-park.

It's about giving of oneself in love and compassion,
and if that challenges the rules of someone else,
go with the love and break the rules.

It's about risking oneself and one’s reputation,
if that should become necessary.

It's about standing up for people,
even if the rules sometimes condemn those people.

The most powerful and life-giving action I believe Jesus took
was to give the ‘bent-over’ woman a new sense of who she was.

After years of being beaten down with the belief that she was of no value,
Jesus affirms her whole sense of being.
What a gift!

But I wonder if our storyteller called Luke also went on to re-imagine the woman.
In his storyteller’s heart, did she also discover
“that once you have started to unfurl, once you have set foot on the path of healing there is no way back and there is no stopping either. It will fight itself free, rip things open, tear the bonds asunder, and that it will hurt?” (Oppewal-Worship/rcl email list).