Luke 13:10-17; Of People and Power I

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, 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.’ 15 But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 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?’ 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing."

Introduction

This passage is a fine study of people, power and passion. The people are either portrayed as individuals or in groups. The woman, for example, is by herself, with no family or loved ones named. Jesus is still probably with his disciples, even though they are not mentioned in the passage. Jesus' opponents are in a group. Even though it appears that only the ruler of the synagogue opposed Jesus, v. 17 talks about how "all his opponents" were put to shame. As to power relationships or struggles, the primary one presented here is between Jesus and the religious leaders. They previously had frosty encounters (ch. 6, for example), and this encounter no doubt intensified mutual suspicion and dislike. Power is taken from them, however, as Jesus gives some of his power to the woman. Power is almost a "zero-sum" game here (i.e., the "total" of all the power is 100; if the religious rulers have it, Jesus doesn't, and vice versa...); the story shows how a "power transfer" brings all kinds of problems in its wake. Finally, this is a story of passion--of Jesus' passion for wholeness and release for the oppressed, of the rulers' passion for control and enforcement of rules. My comments below will focus on the people and the dynamics of encounter described in the text.

I. Jesus

The first words of the text give us the interpretive frame for understanding the story. Jesus was in a synogogue on the sabbath day. Synagogues haven't been mentioned by Luke since Luke 4. Jesus taught in synagogues (4:31), and he delivered his opening sermon to a group in his home synagogue (4:16-30). Thus, the alert reader is drawn to those texts as the way to understand Jesus' work in 13:10ff. The major point to recall is that Luke 4, especially vv. 16-30, is about the release of the captives. Jesus' work on this earth will be a ministry of release--from sin, from physical ailment, from debts. Thus, we are to understand Jesus' teaching in the synagogue in 13:11 in this context. He is about to "release" someone else. That is fundamentally why he had come.

But the other important word from v. 10 is "sabbath." It appears five times in this story, so you have to conclude that Luke was trying to get our attention with it. Even though the word "sabbath" is used 5X here, Luke hasn't used it since Luke 6. In the first two stories of that chapter, Luke tells the story of Jesus' "harvesting" on the sabbath and his healing of a man with a withered hand on the sabbath. Both of his actions sparked controversy, even as they resulted in either the satisfaction of human need or a healing. Thus, Jesus must have known what he was "in for" in ch. 13. He isn't just naively healing, unaware of consequences. Indeed, by mentioning the sabbath 5X, Luke is saying to the alert reader that Jesus is, in fact, courting opposition or picking a fight. Power will come up against power.

Jesus' importance in this passage stems not only from what he does but from what he says. His language in v. 12 is literally, "You have been set free from your debility." The command, in the imperative mood, is in the perfect tense. The significance of the perfect tense is that it expresses an idea which already has begun in the past but which has continued implications and effect on the present. That is, the meaning of the term is that the woman had already been free from her weakness and she was still free from it when she encountered Jesus. What this means is that the physical healing was the culmination rather than the initiation of her freedom. When did her freedom begin? Who knows? All the text says is the mysterious "there appeared a woman" (v. 11). Perhaps she appeared because she had already decided in her mind that she was healed, or, to use Luke's language of release, that she was set free. Jesus' encounter with her, as it were, only added the "icing to the cake." Jesus' encounter with her gave her what she already had.

This is a significant point about healing or release which ought not to be overlooked. We find in our own lives that significant points of connection with people (like the woman with Jesus here) occur after we have taken steps to "clean up" our lives or to establish a new and helpful direction in life. That is, we often think of healing or of deliverance as something that inaugurates a new life with God. Quite the contrary. The healing happens after the person has already decided that life is different. So many people are sitting around in life waiting for some miracle to happen to them; waiting to win the lottery of life. But this isn't the way that lives are changed. They are turned around when the decision is made by the woman to show up in the same place where Jesus was; they are turned around when we decide to take those stops that put us in healthy relationships or a good flow of our life. Thus, when Jesus says that "You have been set free from your debility," he is saying that her being set free began well before Jesus pronounced the words and touched her back. She was set free in the private spaces of her mind when she wanted to be set free.

Jesus has many other words to say in this passage, but I will treat them under his encounter with his opponents. The next essay looks at the woman and Jesus' opponents.

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