Compassion and Ideology

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 22nd 2010
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Luke 13:10-17
“Compassion and Ideology”

Westminster is a congregation with some very talented singers. Westminster is also a congregation with people who are afraid of singing. Yet singing is at the heart of our faith. “Sing a joyful noise to the Lord.” Yet somewhere along the line too many of us heard the voice of someone who told us to keep our voice to ourselves. But I believe each one of us has a song to sing. I believe God wants each one of us to share our song.
For eighteen years this woman was bent over. The weight of the world had pushed her over and kept her down. Why did she not come on the other days to be healed? She was probably afraid. Or she began to believe that this bent over and stunted life was all she was ever going to have. She had lost the belief that healing might come in the house of God. So day after day she walked, bent over believing this is all there was to her life.
Have you ever tried to sing bent over? Have you ever tried to sing when you are afraid? When we are full of fear and when we are bent over the sound of our song is pinched and shallow and weak. In the end our song becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Let me show you what I mean. When you bend over and pinch off your voice in fear the sound is actually held back. But when you stand up straight and breath deeply from your diaphragm and open your throat the sound is rather different. While bad posture can cause this to happen, more often than not fear will lead us to hold back the deep song inside us. Whether you are a singer or not, there is a song inside you waiting to be heard, waiting to break through the fear.
The leader of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus would heal on the Sabbath. How could he do such a thing? It is easy to heap criticism on the leaders. We can set them up as people unlike us or people we see as our opposition. But, that will not lead down fruitful paths. It will allow us to find ourselves as righteous and on the side of Jesus, as people who are naturally going to be the healers. If this story is to be about us, we must recognize and admit that we are both people in need of healing and people who are indignant at healing that is out of order. In this story, for true compassion, the love of God, to overcome any ideology that has become our idol, we have to see parts of ourselves in the voice of the leader and in the place of the bound woman.
One of the techniques for dealing with stress is to breath. Sounds overly simplistic, but when we are under stress our respiration drops. When we our bent over it is not only difficult to sing but even to breath. If the leaders of the synagogue had taken a moment to breathe and to realize what was going on, they might have joined the woman in her healing and praising God. While it is not possible for all people to physically stand strait up we can take an internal posture the moves us from being bent over.
When our song becomes pinched or even silenced we need to take a deep breath. We need to ask ourselves why? Are we being held back by some external force? Is what is happening to us because of our race, our gender, our sexuality, our speech, or disability? If that is case, we must also ask ourselves where have we taken those soul killing externals and taken them and made them our own. Saint Louis’ own author Debra Dickerson wrote a blog for a while called: The Last Plantation is the Mind. It was a poignant reminder of how we can internalize the systems of oppression around us.
The woman who had been bent over for eighteen years never thought she could find healing in God’s own house. It never occurred to the leaders of the synagogue that she didn’t come for healing on the other six days because they made it clear she wasn’t welcome. On that day the woman, the leaders, and all those gathered were invited to see freedom born of compassion. A deep cleansing breath was taken by all.
This passage of healing is one that does not allow us to walk away unchallenged. It forces us to ask the hard questions. Where has our song been silenced and where have we silenced our own song? We are all in need of life, healing, connection, love and purpose. But instead we put up with far less. Let us take a deep breath, relax our throats and let out our song so that true healing can come. Amen? Amen!