Monday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 30, 2023

Luke 13, 10-17

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.” He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?” When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.

“Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.”  Normally when Jesus went to a town he did his teaching in the town’s synagogue on the Sabbath.  As a famous visitor, he was invited to read from the scrolls containing the Law and the Prophets and then he would comment on them, teaching the congregants about the Kingdom of God.  He is teaching in this way in a synagogue in an unnamed town, probably in Galilee, at the beginning of the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass.  “And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.”  Women prayed and listened to the reading of the Law and the commentary on it alongside men in Israel at that time so this woman could have been seated anywhere in the synagogue.  Jesus, sitting up front and facing the congregation would have seen her easily.  St. Luke remarks that she was “crippled by a spirit”.  Based on what the Lord says of her condition after he has cured her, she has been crippled by an evil spirit.  Very likely she endured other torments as well.  The woman suffered from her infirmity for eighteen years, perhaps half of her lifetime.  

“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”  The verb here carries the meaning of “set free” or “loosed”, and the sense is that she is loosed from a heavy burden she has been carrying like a pack animal or a slave and is now free to walk about on her own.  She is loosed, unbound.  It is Jesus who sets her free, who looses her from her burden.  We can think of him as gently removing it from her stooped back and helping her to stand upright again, even aiding her first steps in freedom.  “He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.”  Luke implies that the Lord left his place as commenter on the Law and went into the congregation to lay his hands on her.  The effect on her is immediate.  She does not strain or hesitate due to pain, but straightens up right away as if it is the most natural thing for her to do, as if she had never been afflicted in the first place.  And she glorified God.  We often hear of the Lord healing people but seldom hear those who are healed glorifying God.  This too comes naturally to her.  The synagogue must have rang loudly with her praises while the congregation would have been thrown into commotion.

“But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, said to the crowd.”  The leader of a synagogue was not its pastor or ever someone trained in religion.  He was the owner of the land on which the synagogue was built or of the building itself, or funded its operation.  He did not perform any official function during the services on the Sabbath.  Here the synagogue leader takes it upon himself to rebuke Jesus for an action he deems inappropriate for the Sabbath.  This would be in accord with what the Pharisees taught about keeping the Sabbath but not in accord with what the Law actually taught.  The leader fears to rebuke Jesus to his face and so he rebukes the people of the congregation, meaning the healed woman, for coming to Jesus on the Sabbath to be cured.  Oddly, the leader is not impressed at all with the miracle or consider that this display of divine power supersedes human customs regarding the Sabbath.  

“Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering?”  The Lord does not counter the synagogue leader’s rebuke with theology but with an example simpler and easier to understand.  “This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?”  The Jew’s proudest boast was of being a descendent of Abraham.  Here the Lord reminds the leader of her state.  If even animals were untied on the Sabbath then certainly this child of Abraham, so superior to any child of the Gentiles, should be freed.  The Jews in the synagogue probably did not know of the demonic origin of the woman’s condition.  We should note that she was not possessed but that the devil had gained certain power over her physical body.  Because of this demonic slavery, the Lord declares that the Sabbath is the perfect day for her liberation, as it was the time when all the Jews set down their work to rest and to pray.

“All his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.”  The leader of the synagogue certainly opposed Jesus on this occasion but Luke indicates that others took his side.  But they could not explain the miracle or rebut the Lord’s plain words.  The whole crowd rejoiced over this sign of divine power, and also, it would seem, over their liberation from the tyranny of those who thought like the Gentiles and who had enslaved them with their narrow and pointless interpretations of God’s word.