Monday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 25, 2021

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.

Here is the Zoom link for Monday night’s Bible Study on the Gospel of St. Matthew:

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/3806645258?pwd=MUNuU0ZxNFM3NnpiclZCcFF6SFhyQT09

Meeting ID: 380 664 5258

Passcode: 140026

“Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.”  The Greek says, “He was in one of the synagogues, teaching, on the Sabbath.”  He was teaching in a Judean synagogue on the regular day of the assembly.  On a Sabbath he went to one of the synagogues and was invited to teach.  The Jews did not worship God in their synagogues — they worshipped only in the Temple.  The synagogue had for its purpose the reading and discussion of the Law.  A prominent Jew owned the building and might lead the discussions, but he was not a priest.  This man would be known as the “ruler” of the synagogue, a title he might hold in conjunction with others who contributed to the funding of the building.  We see how this worked in Acts 13, 14–15: “But they [Paul and Barnabas], passing through Perge, came to Antioch in Pisidia: and, entering into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, they sat down.  And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue invited them, saying: Ye men, brethren, if you have any word of exhortation to make to the people, speak.” 

We can think of the Lord Jesus sitting before the crowd of men and women.  They would have felt eager to hear this stranger teach, for he had a reputation as a masterful teacher and as one who healed, confirming his teachings.  Yet, he would have appeared and sounded unlike themselves for he was a bit tattered from his traveling through Galilee and Judea, and he spoke with a thick Galilean accent.  We can surmise that he taught for a normal period of time there, though St. Luke tells us not a word of what he said.  At the end of his teaching, he looked into the congregation and rested his eyes on “a woman . . . who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit . . . bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.”  The Greek text says that she “had a spirit of infirmity”.  The Greek text shows the Hebrew text that lies beneath it.  We might almost say that the Hebrew slip is showing under the Greek dress.  There is no “spirit” of infirmity for the Greeks.  They understood all injuries, sicknesses, and weaknesses as physical in nature.  The Hebrew implies that a particular spirit had possessed her so that she could not stand upright.  Nor does this indicate a figure of speech, for when Jesus encounters a blind man or a lame man or a leper, he is not customarily said to confront a spirit of blindness or lameness, or a spirit of leprosy.

“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”  The Lord does not say “healed”, here.  The Greek says, “You are released from your infirmity.”  Now, she has made no request.  The Lord sees her, knows her suffering, and releases her.  It is almost as though it had been permitted for the spirit of infirmity to hold her until the Lord came so that he could release her at that time.  Perhaps we have a hint at the mystery of human suffering here.  That it had been part of God’s Providence that she should suffer this terrible condition for so long so that his Son could show his love for her and for all humanity in releasing her in this public way, in the place of the learning of the Law.  We might question the “need” for her to suffer like this, but we must recall that none of us is owed a life without suffering.  Besides this, a single serious sin causes the death of the soul.  It might be that the imposition of her condition prevented her from committing sins which would have left her damned.  The Lord releases her, laying his hands on her.  We might see this and think whether it might be worth eighteen years of suffering to feel the hands of the Lord Jesus on us just once. “She at once stood up straight and glorified God.”  She is released immediately.  The Lord, literally, raised her up.  We can consider how this sums up the Lord’s life: he comes, he teaches, and then he raises to life.  And when he raises to life, the Jewish leaders respond with outrage.  “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the Sabbath day.”  The synagogue ruler was “indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath.”  Here again, we see a Hebrew text beneath the Greek, for healing on the Sabbath would have meant nothing to Luke’s Greek audience.  The synagogue ruler exposes himself to us as a Pharisee, whose interpretation of the Law forbade almost any activity on the Sabbath, though the words of the Law say nothing about the performing of miracles.  The Pharisee might have known this (although unwilling to admit it) and so he tries to blame the woman for coming to the synagogue for healing.  But this is not what she did, nor, as was pointed out before, did she so much as ask to be healed.  She came to the synagogue for the same reason that the ruler (presumably) had: to learn about the Law.

The Lord takes up the woman’s defense: “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?”  Now, “hypocrites” did not mean then what it means now.  The Greek word was a translation of a Hebrew word that meant “the godless” or “faithless”.  Understanding this helps us with what the Lord is saying.  Indeed, he says “Faithless men” in the plural, as though addressing the congregation or, at least, its leaders.  Then rather than argue the Law with them, as though they were not worthy of it, he speaks about the ordinary experience of caring for one’s animals on the Sabbath. “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?”  Far from breaking the Law by coming for a healing on a forbidden day, he calls her a “daughter of Abraham”.  The Lord also confirms the nature of her condition.  The Lord  says that Satan had “bound” her, that is, had possessed her and had chained her in such a way that she could not stand erect, a typical punishment for those awaiting trial.  We can think of St. Peter in prison, chained in this way (cf. Acts 12, 6).  And just as the Jews were free of servile labor on the Sabbath so as to study the word of God, so she is freed from her servile condition.

“When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.”  The rulers of the synagogue were “disgraced”, “shamed”, “put to confusion” by the Lord’s words.  In short, they lost their credibility.  In such a way the Lord showed that the Jewish leadership as a whole, including the priesthood, was finished.  He stood alone as the Teacher and Fulfiller of the Law.  The crowd rejoiced on behalf of the woman, on behalf of the overthrow of their tyrants, and in Jesus, who had come to raise them up.