The famous mid-20th
century theologian Paul Tillich said that church history can be understood as a
movement between charisma and order. He said whenever charisma—the need to stir
things up—and order—the need for stability and predictability— meet up, that’s
when the Holy Spirit shows up!
And that is what we see in
today’s Gospel. The tension— the conflict! —between order and charisma.
To tell you the truth, my
heart kind of goes out to the leader of the congregation, who was just trying
to maintain order when Jesus healed the woman on the Sabbath in the middle of a
worship service.
More than once in my
ministry, I have found myself in the position of that local synagogue leader.
Two of my former parishes
hosted soup kitchens in small industrial cities, and every now and then one of
our soup kitchen guests would show up at Sunday worship, all scruffy and rough
from living on the street. It was… well, let’s just say it was challenging. And
uncomfortable.
So I kind of get where the
leader of the synagogue in today’s Gospel was coming from. I mean, here was
this itinerant rabbi from God-knows-where walking in and offering to heal
someone without so much as a by-your-leave. The leader hadn’t read ahead to the
ends of the Gospel of Luke yet, so what did he know?
But even if he was trying to
do the right thing, he was going about it in the wrong way.
Instead of going to Jesus and
asking him directly what he was up to, he goes to everyone…well, more
accurately every man… in the
congregation and complains “Couldn’t she
have waited until after the sabbath to be healed?” he asks. “Couldn’t she
have gone someplace else besides the synagogue?”
I mean, the whole thing
wasn’t even her idea! The man is mad at Jesus, but he blames the woman! Never
mind that she didn’t even ask to be
healed in the first place! After 18 years, she was probably pretty used to
being stooped over like a bent matchstick. Jesus invited her to come over to
him. It was all his idea!
So, the Leader of the
Synagogue has committed a trifecta of wrongs: first, he triangulates—instead of
talking to the person he’s mad at, he brings in a third party, the congregation;
second, he focuses on the wrong person—the woman and not Jesus; and third, he
stirs everyone up in the process. All in
all, he brings out the worst in everyone except maybe Jesus and the woman who
was healed…and she was apparently too busy praising God to notice all the hoo-rah
going on around her!
So let’s cut through the
triangulation, the grumbling and the blame-game, and go right to the Leader of
the Synagogue and ask him some questions. We can’t do it face-to-face, but
let’s pretend. Besides, given what’s going on in the world right now, they are
questions worth pondering anyway.
When would be a good time to
show mercy? Tomorrow, maybe? After all, today is a day of rest. We don’t want
to do work on a day of rest. After all, even God rested on the seventh day,
right? But as Jesus said, even the most observant of Jews will lead their
animals to the feeding trough, milk their cows, and gather up the hen’s eggs on
the Sabbath. Why? Because animals don’t know about the Sabbath and they don’t
care. If you don’t believe me, ask any hungry cat or dog at about 5:30 or 6 am.
All they know is that it’s time to be fed or walked and they don’t know or care
about your customs, calendars or your need to sleep in. And, you know what?
feeding, watering and milking your animals on the Sabbath was all allowable in
Jewish law. It was the right and sensible thing to do.
Jesus asks: if it is okay to
show mercy to your livestock on the Sabbath, then why can’t we show mercy to a
daughter of Abraham on the Sabbath?
Put another way, when is it a
good time to show mercy? Now is a good time to show mercy. Right now. That’s
when.
And where is the right place to show mercy? Underneath his complaint about the Sabbath, the unhappy man who stirred up the congregation with his grumbling about the place of the healing is saying something like “This is a house of worship, not a clinic, take it outside.” But Jesus’ invitation to the woman and healing her brokenness tells us that if our worship doesn’t drive us to mercy, then we are not really worshipping God at all! If our worship doesn’t call out compassion, then we are not listening. If our rituals only reinforce our fears then we are only huddling against the cold instead of turning ourselves to God.
So… Where is the place to show mercy? Here is the place to show mercy. Right where we are, right now.
Over four hundred years ago,
the first slave ship arrived in an English colony, landing in Virginia with a
cargo of about twenty slaves purchased either in Africa or in Brazil, after
having been brought over from East Africa by Portuguese merchants. This began a
trade in human beings that fed not only the plantations of the Southern states,
but eventually the mills and cloth factories in the North. The slave trade not
only staffed the plantations across the South but made bankers, investors,
inventors, ship-builders, and ship owners in the North quite wealthy. Of
course, no one can speak for the spiritual lives of anyone other than
ourselves, but I suspect that many a devout Christian took part in the
buying, selling of these persons, and benefited from their labor.
A few years back, the Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, Bishop Nick Knisely, led his diocese in study, prayer, confession, and repentance for their part in the slave trade and the way the Church in Rhode Island benefitted from the mills, shipping, and banking that depended on the slave trade and made some wealthy and employed many
others. (Read more here.)
It took over three hundred
years for this country to abolish slavery, and it took a war to do it. And in the
century and a half since then, we are still sorting out its meaning and
repenting from the consequences.
When Bishop Knisely did this,
for the most part, he got a lot back-patting atta boys. But there were some—not
a few—people whose families got wealthy from that industry, and Universities, hospitals and private schools who all had wings
or halls or scholarships named after people who owned those ships and those
trading houses and held shares in stocks that once speculated in human flesh. And
they weren’t too happy. It was a long time ago, they said. That was then. Why
bring it up now?
Like the leader in the story
today, too often we hear people say that now was not time, and church was not
the place, to talk about such things. But Jesus’ response now is the same as it
was back then: the time for mercy is now. And the place for mercy is here.
Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus’
words were so effective that no one dared challenge him again. Sure. If only. That’s
only true if you ignore big chunks of the Passion.
People still challenge Jesus
right down to today. They still get annoyed and grumble. They still blame the
victim and look for scapegoats. Jesus was condemned to death and went to the
cross because human beings will look anywhere, anyplace in order to keep what
scares them at arm’s length. And it
still happens today.
We hear the same complaints:
why here? Why now?
You know why we have these responses, right? Fear! Fear is the opposite of faith. But there are always people who use our fears to build up their power. There are people who only feel big and strong when everyone around them is terrified, or angry, or shouting. Like the Leader in today’s Gospel who stirred up the crowd with his grumbling—and he didn’t even have the internet and Twitter and the media—who build themselves up by bringing out the worst in everyone else.
It’s true. We do live in an uncertain and often dangerous world, and we do everything we can to maintain some order and create some safety, but here we are living smack dab in the place where charisma and order meet! And that is the place where the Holy Spirit is found! And, as Jesus demonstrates over and over again in the Gospel of Luke, we can show mercy where we can. We might not be able to save every victim of disaster, or stop the suffering of this world, but we can reach out with healing to the person right in front of us, the stranger God gives us, or the sick, injured, or lonely person in our midst.
So…. When is the time to show mercy? Now is the time to show mercy!
Where is the place to show mercy? Here is the place to show mercy!
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Scripture for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year C, August 24, 2025
Website for St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Dade City, Florida
Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here
Here is the bulletin for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, August 24, 2025, St Mary's Episcopal Church, Dade City, Florida.
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