My son Wade has been on a train kick recently, and has already decided that his birthday party in October will be hosted at our house with a train theme. In preparation for that, he’s begun setting up train sets in various rooms of the house – wooden train in the playroom, Lego train in the dining room, Lionel train in his bedroom.
Last weekend, we dug out a half sheet of plywood from the garage, and spent hours together covering it with paper, drawing scenery, and using tape and string to attach various buildings and trees and people to the layout. Later, after going to do something else, I returned to find that he had used the tape and string to construct an elaborate barrier around the table, to “keep the babies at my party from touching it”. I’m not sure what babies he’s planning to invite, but he’s made it clear that only he and his friend Logan will be permitted to touch the train sets - everyone else can just look.
 |
| Photo by Alex Gorin on Unsplash |
As I was thinking about today’s Gospel passage and the themes of bondage and freedom, the tape and string from our weekend project came to mind. At some times, tape and string are used to bring things together, providing strength, connection, and freedom. At other times, though, string and tape are used to create barriers and boundaries.
Just as tape and string can be used for various outcomes, I think rules and customs and traditions can be, too. Sometimes rules and customs and traditions keep us safe, connect us to one another, and provide comforting familiarity. At other times, though, rules and customs and traditions can be used to create barriers and boundaries.
In today’s Gospel reading we encounter a woman who, for 18 years, was bound by a spirit that had crippled her. Her muscles and joints were tied up, knotted in such a way that she could not stand up straight. In addition to being painful and uncomfortable, I imagine that this posture was not conducive to moving through the world – physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. In this state of being bound up and bent over it must have been difficult to sustain relationships, to worship God, to take in the beauty of a sunset, and even to do something as simple as eating.
With all the ways she is bound up, I appreciate Jesus’ language in speaking to her. Seeing her, and taking the initiative to call her over, Jesus doesn’t tell her that she’s “healed” or even “made well”. Instead, he announces, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Set free! Free from gazing at the dust, free from the poking and prodding of doctors, free from the weight of shame, struggle, and pain.
The leader of the synagogue, too, was bound up. Bound up by his responsibilities, bound up by his hyper-focus on order and correctness. Bound up by an interpretation of Sabbath that seemed in this case to leave little room for healing and flourishing. There are SIX OTHER DAYS on which to do work, he tried to tell the frenzied crowd. The Sabbath is for worship, and rest, and praising God, is it not?
It’s interesting that Jesus and the leader of the synagogue are holding the same string, so to speak. But where the synagogue leader sees something that binds us up, Jesus sees something that sets us free. The Sabbath is for worship and rest and praising God – absolutely! But maybe that looks different than we’ve always imagined. Maybe God delights in worship that connects us to one another, rather than isolates us. Maybe rest looks like the ability to gaze at the sky, rather than the dirt. Maybe the praises that rise up from newly-freed bodies are just as sweet in God’s ears as the praises sung in hymns and proclaimed in prayers.
Just like tape and string, rules and customs and traditions are tools, meant to be utilized in service to something greater. No rope is tied across an entryway just because. No, it’s meant to communicate something: Don't cross, go another way. Similarly, we don’t uphold tradition or follow rules for their own sake. Instead, our rules and customs and traditions here keep us safe, help us connect to God and one another, and highlight those means through which God’s presence is revealed to us.
But, how do we know? How do we know when our rules and customs and traditions are aligned with the way of Jesus? Well, when they are life-giving, not death-dealing. When they connect us to God and one another, rather than dividing and distancing us. When “all” really means all. When our rules, and customs, and traditions help us communicate how Christ has set us free and drawn us in, rather than creating a story that falsely proclaims a God who desires to keep us bound up and far away.
It’s worth our time to look with curiosity at the things we do as church, and to ask these questions of ourselves. Do we use our traditions to bind up ourselves and others? Or do they designate spaces and ways to experience the freedom and wholeness that come from God? Are we receptive to all the ways that God is praised? Are we able to rejoice with those who are set free, even when it’s not on our timeline or in the way we expect?
Rules and customs and traditions are not the only things that bind us up. Perhaps you are feeling bound up and constrained and tied by illness; or guilt; or grief; or resentment; or obligations; or expectations. Perhaps you’ve felt that the church is a place for worshiping God only, and there’s no space to be honest about your failings or to share about your struggles. Perhaps you feel bound by the image of a Christianity or a God who is too small, too angry, too indifferent, or too far away. Perhaps there doesn’t seem to be a place for you.
It is good news for us that freedom, and liberation, and unbinding, and setting free are hallmarks of Jesus’ ministry, hallmarks of who God is. The God we worship and praise is a God who calls you by name, who frees you from sin and death, who lifts you out of bondage and into the glorious delight of freedom. By the grace and mercy of God, we are freed to love, freed to serve, freed to bless one another, freed for life in relationship with God and one another. With the strings that have bound us, God instead draws us in and connects us to one another, leading us together in the way of abundant life.
Comments
Post a Comment