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| Image by Luke Holdsworth |
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A GREETING
I praise God, who guides me;
even at night my heart teaches me.
(Psalm 16:7)
A READING
One Sabbath, when Jesus came to eat a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees, the guests watched him closely. Directly in front of Jesus was a person who suffered from edema. Jesus asked the experts on the Law and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they kept silent. With that, Jesus laid hands on the individual and healed the swelling, then sent the person away. Jesus said to the guests, “If one of you has a child—or even an ox—and it falls into a pit, won’t you rescue it immediately, even on the Sabbath day?” They had no answer to this.
(Luke 14:1-6)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
Search me, God, and test me;
examine my heart and my mind.
(Psalm 26:2)
A POEM
Somehow we survive,
and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.
Investigating searchlights rake
our naked unprotected contours...
Patrols uncoil along the asphalt
dark
hissing their menace to our lives,
most cruel, all our land is scarred
with terror,
rendered unlovely and unloveable;
sundered are we and all our
passionate surrender
but somehow tenderness survives.
- from "Somehow we survive," by Dennis Brutus.
found in A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile.
VERSE OF THE DAY
Give strength to your people, O God!
Bless your people with peace!
(Psalm 29:11)
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| "Medicine Man," by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (2019) Hwami is a Zimbabwean artist who has lived and worked in both Zimbabwe and South Africa, before making her current home in London, England. Her paintings investigate race and identity and reflect her own spiritual journeying. Drawn to the shamanism of her own Shona people of Zimbabwe, this painting was inspired by the assistant to a shaman she met while doing her research. Hwami's painting underscores how much the whole body is involved in the shaman's work; and here the plants and the human being are almost as one. |
In today’s reading, we hear a familiar tension among Jesus and the temple leaders about breaking the rules of the sabbath, and in particular the prescription against work on that day. In the eyes of the authorities, healing is work and therefore Jesus is working on a day that is intended for rest. Jesus is disrupting these customs to restore wellbeing to someone who is afflicted. He then explains himself by asking if they would not break the rules themselves if the lives of loved ones were at stake. It is not a rhetorical question -- in the oral laws of the Torah, there are exceptions to the rule about work -- especially when it comes to saving critical farm animals and human beings in danger.
The setting of this scene is the home of a Pharisee temple leader. The first extraordinary thing about this encounter is that Jesus is sharing a meal with those who have been most critical of him. He then appears to seek their input, asking if it is lawful to do what theoretically they all know is not lawful according to custom. It's significant that they don't reply. Perhaps they are waiting for Jesus to incriminate himself, or perhaps they are genuinely trying to figure him out. Jesus comes from heritage that includes Pharisee leaders. It is like attending a family reunion where you are the only one in the family voting for a different political party than everyone else. You have still showed up. The Jesus who loves all, who hangs out with those on the margins and eats with the oppressors --- loves these leaders as well.
The healing stories of Jesus can be challenging for us in our own time. Even after intense prayer for healing, many of us experience disappointment and even setback. We might feel pressure from others to believe that if we just had enough faith, our challenge will go away. When we do this to each other, our own ways of engaging scripture can be just as harmful as the Pharisees were who clung to a specific code of righteousness at the expense of others. Whenever we want to apply one set of rules and expectations to all situations, we run the danger of being exclusionary. We know that each journey of healing is unique and God is always present no matter the outcome.
In this story, the missing point of view is the person being healed. The text says that they were "sent away." The focus moves instead to this rabbinic debate between Jesus and the leaders. But what is going through the racing mind and heart of the one who was just healed? We might wish that they too had a seat in the conversation.
Today's music speaks of a kind of righteousness that is not about who is right and who is wrong, but how God lives in the world. The community God forms becomes the visible expression of God’s justice in the world. "We are your righteousness," can then mean "we are your embodied witness." Poets, artists and musicians are embodied witnesses. Dennis Brutus' poem about life in a South African prison challenges us to hear with the ears of the one who experiences injustice.
In this way, being a witness can mean listening more than talking. How can we uphold those who suffer by helping them to tell their stories? How can we advocate for them, even as we also hold them in prayer?
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| Image by Meraj Chhaya |
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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.
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LC† From Dust, Still Holy is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!