Christianity Church of England & Ministry Sermons & Scripture

Talk / 8th Feb 2015 // A Crippled Woman Meets Jesus // Luke 13:10-17

My planned talk from The Point Church, Sun 8 Feb. 
As always this is not really the transcript more the notes I made in advance…. and in this case, actually quite different from what I actually said as I felt God saying to listen to him and be led by him in what I said. So this is what I would have said! It will be available online to listen to what I actually said here, next week.
 
 
INTRO
Word for the church – God calling us to greater freedom…
CHALLENGE/ WHY ARE YOU HERE?
So if you’ve heard me preach before, you may
know that I often like to challenge you when I’m speaking. I’ll maybe give a
challenge for the week ahead or ask some searching questions of you. Usually I
like to ease you in gently, give some
background, get into the text first… well not today.
Sorry.
Today I felt we should go straight in with
the challenge – and I want to ask you:
What are you doing here today?
Why are you here?
What are you expecting this morning?
I mean really and truly?  Why are you here?
I am asking each of you to think about that.
I’m not making a joke or being flippant, I actually want you to think about
that today. What are you doing here, what is the main reason you are here at St
Paul’s this morning?
So firstly, just in case I’ve alarmed anyone,
you might have been invited here today
by someone or you might be visiting us
right or you might be new to this church? And if so, great, you are so welcome
here. You know since my family became part of this church we have felt part of
a big family.  Welcome J
But still, I want to say to you, why are you
here?
Some of you might say, well it’s Sunday I come to church on Sunday, it’s
what we do, right? Ok but why? Why is it ‘what you do on a Sunday?’
Or maybe you come for the community, for the family feel, you get
to meet your friends, hang out, have a chat, you get to be part of something. But you can get that at a football game, with
your mates, or going to a ‘Sunday Assembly’ heaven forbid…
So why have you come here…?
Because actually there is nothing particularly special about this
place, about the coming together, about being family together – none of these
things set this place apart from any other gathering of people.
Because the thing that makes this place different is Jesus.  The thing that should make
US different,  is encountering Jesus.
So why are you here? well I hope that at the
root of all our reasons, we are all here because of Jesus. If we are visiting, or
been invited for the first time, perhaps it’s because you feel life is missing
something or you recognise something in others, the person who invited you
maybe? If you are a regular, is it because your life is committed to Jesus? Not
just because, that’s what we do on a Sunday….
When was the last time you asked yourself, challenged yourself
about your faith? About where Jesus is in your life?
PASSAGE
Because in our passage today we’re going to
see what is essentially a church, and one person in particular encountering
Jesus, probably, although we don’t know for sure, for the first time. Having
gone along faithfully to worship for years, going through the motions, obeying
the rules and yet, when she meets Jesus, it all changes…
Let’s read it shall we…
Turn to Luke 13: 10-17
HAVE YOUR OWN BIBLE!
It’s on the screen but you know what, it’s
good to have your own bible with you. I know you can have it on your iphones
etc and I am a real tech fan, but if you really want to get into this, get
deeper into God’s word there is nothing like having your own bible in your
hand, a physical book. Mine is scrawled with notes and underlinings and dates
and it’s real – living and active (Hebrews 4:12) – this is your manual for
life…
Anyway whatever you are using today…. We are
at Luke 13: 10-7
READING
So what’s going on here?
Let’s set the scene here – we have a
Jewish synagogue, not one of the big temples, but a smaller town synagogue, where
local people would be gathering on the Sabbath (Saturday not Sunday), probably in
the evening, people would come here each week, just as we do here, there would
be prayer and some teaching. But until now, until this passage no Jesus. As
Jews they would have believed in the coming of a Messiah, they would know the
prophecies, the words spoken foretelling his coming, but hey wouldn’t know him
for themselves.
This is a faith with a lot of rules and
regulations, but no Jesus.
And why did they come? Maybe because they were Jews, because the law told them to?
Because that’s what they did on the Sabbath? Because it was expected of them?
Except this day is different. On this day
they have a visiting preacher, if you like…. and that wouldn’t have been
unusual especially in these smaller places, for educated teachers to speak, but
on this day they get the ultimate guest
speaker
don’t they. They get a whole lot more than they came for.
They get to encounter Jesus,
and I say they, because although it’s
one woman who is really impacted, they all
get to hear him, see him, meet him, they
get what we need
. What we all need. Whoever you are, whatever you think or
believe, you need Jesus. And not just to know about him, to hear about him, to
read something about him, you need to encounter him, for yourself.
You know, I have been so convicted of that recently and for myself but it’s relevant for us all, that not only do we
need to encounter Jesus for ourselves, but as followers of Jesus, we need to
help others to encounter him. You can say what you like, tell people what you
like, give them books to read, bring them to Alpha and so on, but if they don t
encounter Jesus for themselves it’s empty.
OUR STORY
And you know how I really know that, because
that was me, and my husband a few years ago…. Going along to church on a
Sunday, every week, because that’s what we had always done, what our parents
taught us to do, on a Sunday you go to church. We didn’t think much about God
the rest of the time, if at all, we didn’t live out a faith particularly, we
didn’t have Jesus in here (heart).  That’s our story. For years we went to church
faithfully. We knew what was expected us, we knew the prayers how to recite
them and when. In a way we just followed the rules, what was expected of us. I
even served on the PCC, bit like our trustees, we basically helped the Vicar
run the church, make decisions about it, we helped with the youth group.
BUT despite that, despite our involvement,
despite our faithfulness in going to church, despite our desire to be part of
the church, there was nothing different about us than anyone else, Because we
didn’t know Jesus, we didn’t encounter him for ourselves. In fact if someone
had told me I needed to encounter Jesus I probably would have thought them a
bit whacko TBH. I don’t think I even thought it even possible to ‘meet Jesus’,
I thought people who went to non CofE churches were not proper Christians!! Oh
the shame…!!
Makes me laugh now – some of the people I
met, they knew Jesus, really knew him….
And yet our churches need to be places where people meet Jesus.
Truly.
So back to our synagogue, then, what
happens … v.11 – we are straight in, aren’t we, Jesus sees this crippled woman,
suffering, in pain, could she even see him I wonder, bent over… and he calls
her forward and heals her. She’s been like this for 18 years and he heals her
right there.
Who was she? This woman, the one he picks
out? Calls forward?  This woman who gets
to encounter Jesus?
Well we know that she was probably not just a
one off visitor, because Jesus calls her, v16 a daughter of Abraham. So if you don’t know, Abraham appears in the
very first book of the bible, in Genesis, he is a descendent of Noah. God calls
him and made a covenant with him (like a legal agreement) and says that he will
make him into a great nation, that he will have numerous descendants, in fact
he says as numerous as the stars in the sky. Which at the time was a pretty big
claim to make when Abraham’s wife was barren, she couldn’t have children.
However nothing is impossible for God, they did have a son and Abraham’s descendants
became the Jewish nation, he is referred to as the Father of Israel. In Isaiah
he is even referred to as a Friend of God.
So, to refer to this woman as ‘a daughter of
Abraham’ meant she was a Jew and a faithful one at that. It is likely she would
have known the Jewish law, the rules the things she had to do and would have regularly
attended the synagogue.
And yet…. v16 tells us that she had been kept
bound by this spirit,
by Satan, for 18 years. 18 years, crippled, not able to
stand, bent over and in pain. For 18 years.
And we get this seemingly slightly random
reference of Jesus calling the rulers hypocrites and mentioning untying oxen
etc. which actually isn’t so random as it looks –
Jewish law had a list of tasks you were not
allowed to do on the Sabbath, which included tying and untying things. And yet
as he points out they still untied their animals to take them to water, there
is a level of compassion for their animals, and he suggests that what he was
doing here was undoing the bindings of this woman – untying her from being kept
bound by Satan with this crippling affliction.
It’s not just a physical ailment but a spiritual affliction too.
For her here that meeting Jesus, in him
reaching out to her, he healed her. But more than that – her life was
transformed, both physically and spiritually. I think it’s really significant
that the passage talks of the spiritual side of this. In v.11 it says she had
been ‘crippled by a spirit’ and in v16, she had been kept bound by Satan’. This
is a picture of a spiritual world, one where there is so much more than we can
imagine or understand – what’s that line from Hamlet:
There are
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.
There are more things on heaven and earth than we an even begin to
understand, and there is a spiritual world, a level of things going on that we
can be completely oblivious to.
FREEDOM
Here’s the thing, if we are not walking in the freedom
of Christ then we are bound by Satan –  the enemy, the devil, force of evil, whatever
you want to call it.
Bound by addiction maybe? and not necessarily to
alcohol or gambling, or drugs – the obvious, what about or work, addicted to
work to achievement, finding our identity in the things we do, the money we earn?
Our title? What about porn.
It’s not nice
to talk about, but for men and women it can be something that binds us,
secretive, we can’t talk about it, exactly what the enemy wants, us to be bound
in a world where no one knows what we’re doing, feeling thinking… Alone and
fearful.
Or we can be bound by things from our past, rejection
– you know not feeling loved enough, not feeling good enough, or are we bound
up in rules and regulations? Even in the church – in religion – this is the way
we do things…?
If you don’t think you are bound by anything, or you
don’t know what binds you then just think, what do you spend the most amount of
time thinking about or doing? What are the things that worry you, keep you
awake at night?
What is binding
you? Because I’m telling you, Jesus brings us freedom. True freedom, transforming
freedom. Like this woman experienced
,
So, why did you
come here today? Do you want that freedom?
Our lives – so I told you about us, we were definitely
bound by the things we ‘should’ do – like going to church and yet when we met
Jesus (too long but happy to tell any of you over a cuppa!) that our lives were
transformed.
And the reality is that nothing has really changed in
our lives (apart from me training for ministry! That’s a biggie!!) but the
essential elements are the same, same house, phil same job, family etc. But
what has changed is that we know we are walking in the freedom of Christ and
that feels so different! Like a
different world!
It’s kind of like that picture of the left
and right brain – don’t know if you’ve seen it? So the left brain is
analytical, logical, regulated. The right is creativity, spontanaiety, crazy
almost! And the thing is if we just had the left side, with the regulation and
the right way of doing things life would be just that, ordered logical, and
methodical.  But with Jesus, you get this
too. The full technicolour picture! Both not one or the other! You need the
left too…. We don’t just discard what the Jewish faith teaches, it largely
forms our OT (not going into specifics but largely the same will do!) Jesus is the fulfilment of what the ancient
scriptures teach us.
So we are not just casting that aside, not at all. But
without the fulfilment of those teachings, well it’s like this…
You know a while back we booked to go to
Bills restaurant for breakfast. You know Bills? Local restaurant, now chains
all over the place. Anyway they do good breakfasts. So this day we had booked a
table and they called to tell us that they had no gas and so they could not do
any hot food or hot drinks. Right, so restaurant famous for breakfasts, hot
food, hot drinks.  What are they left
with, a nice looking restaurant sure, very pretty, on trend, but its main
focus, is missing. I mean its like going to Starbucks and them saying sorry
we’ve got no coffee! You see where I am going with this right?
I heard a quote the other day that said if
God was removed from our churches, 95% if them would stay the same! Let’s
reinforce that – if God were removed from our churches, most of them would stay
exactly the same!?  Pretty depressing
thought and I happen to think as a church we’re doing ok, but how about you? You
personally.
Are you a Starbucks without the coffee, Bills
without the breakfast – are you living a life in black and white? And when was
the last time you even thought about it? Even questioned yourself on it.
If God walked out of your life would you even know?
Why have you come here today?
I have been privileged over the last few years
to get to know Yvrose from Hope House a little bit. Yvrose lives a life utterly full of Jesus and
you can see it in her, she overflows
with joy and love and compassion. And they have so little. They could be bound by
anxiety and fear. Where is the next meal coming from? What if a child gets
sick? They could be bound by the fear of those who
practise witchcraft in the area. They have been threatened, people holding
voodoo ceremonies on the edge of their land. Yvrose could be bound by the fact that she
could never have biological children of her own, she could be bound by
insignificance and pain. But she isn’t, because she knows Jesus, She is
committed to Jesus, every single day is lived for him, through him and with him
and as a result she walks in the freedom of Christ and it is clear and pain as
day for the world to see…
We have so much here, we are so blessed, but
when I spend time with her I want to give it all up and live with nothing,
because they encounter Jesus every day. And that is more precious than anything
else…
I mean, come on, what are we settling for?
Are we just going through the motions?
Do we want to step into a season of greater freedom, of encountering Jesus more than ever before…?
 This is a new season, God wants to draw closer to us as
a church and as individuals.
He is calling you, calling us like he called the woman – so
are we going to go forward for all he has?
Why you here? Want to be part of this new
season?

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