Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Photo by Jan Ledermann on Unsplash

Grace and peace to you all in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Nameless and faceless we encounter a woman in scripture this morning in the synagogue where Jesus is teaching during sabbath services.

Although we never know the woman’s name, we do hear her some of her story. She’s been bent over, unable to stand up straight due to an illness for 18 years - nearly 2 decades – carrying the burden of this illness, not able to look anyone in the eye without perhaps a painful contortion to look up, not able to look up and see the stars at night.

I wonder if this woman, in our Gospel, has been a faithful worshipper at this synagogue? Perhaps it’s her local place of worship and not just a place she’s come to hear a famous new teacher named Jesus preach. I wonder this because she doesn’t seem to be out of place. Luke doesn’t describe any commotion around her presence. Jesus is already teaching when she enters the synagogue and she just comes straight in.  

I wonder if the people of her synagogue know her well. I wonder if they have already tried everything they could think of to help her? Maybe that’s why she comes in without any notice – because the people are expecting her presence and everything has been done to try curing her. Compassion has been poured out for her by her community and yet, she is still bent over. So, people do what people do, including the sick, they try to carry on with their lives. This woman carried on. Resilient in the midst of an impossible situation, doing the best she can alongside everyone else who has done the best they can, too. She’s still a part of the community, still showing up in synagogue when she is able, and she’s still bent over by her illness.

Now, I believe we’re all more familiar with this woman from our Gospel than we might at first think - even though it comes from a story written almost 2,000 years ago. We’ve met her before right here at St. Matthew Lutheran Church. We’ve met and come to know well the ones who come to this church, broken, ill, hurt, hunched over by the weight of burdens.

This faith community, and faith communities across the world, regularly welcome people who are in need of healing. We do our best to surround our beloved neighbors with prayers, comfort, support, food, and healing. We do the best we can to support one another knowing that each one of us may need care at some point and so we express care and we receive care. One of the values we hold dear here at St. Matthew is healing ministry which happens through our collective care, love and support of each other.

Because of that healing ministry, I think we also know the experience of the synagogue members in this Gospel story. We do what we can for those who are sick, and the sick do everything they can to be healed. And then we carry on alongside each other. We do not diminish anyone’s sickness, nor do we ignore it, but we carry on living as best we can together, in community. Sometimes, we cannot cure, we can only comfort and give loving compassion.

Our familiarity with the details of this story, then, is exactly why we come to the foot of this cross, to this altar, each Sunday. Because we do all that we can to heal the wounds and illnesses of the world in our daily work, but we know that we need God’s grace through Jesus to really heal our wounds.

In the Gospel, Jesus steps into this woman’s life, sees her, and immediately heals her – she stands up straight, for the first time in 18 years and praises God! THIS is exactly why we come to the cross! Because we know what Jesus can and will do for our beloved neighbors and for all of us! We have hope in Christ’s healing.

Throughout August, we’ve encountered stories in our scriptures that give us a glimpse of what God’s Kingdom looks like and what it will feel like.

We have come to understand that Jesus is the beginning of God’s Kingdom enfolding all of creation into a single piece, like a piece of cloth folding together so that all of its corners come together and are held.

This story is another one of those glimpses into the kingdom. This story shows us the Kingdom of God is a place where illness is no more, burdens are lifted and we can stand straight up once more!

This is largely what the Gospel message of Jesus Christ comes to inform us about! That God’s way of life is near! Christ’s own life and ministry is a sign that points us in the direction of God’s way of life. This is my refrain for this summer: Jesus serves the poor, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, reaches out to the outcast, and ultimately gives his life on the cross to free all of creation from sin, sickness and death.

So, the story about the woman, her experience of sickness and burden, and how Jesus lifts that burden and heals her becomes the focus of this whole passage.

Jesus’s ministry is to heal the sick – and so the woman is healed.

Jesus’s ministry is to server the poor – and she is served.

Jesus’s ministry is to FREE – free people from the burdens that life can often place onto our shoulders whether that is sickness, grief, or sin.

In other words, this passage gives us something to HOPE for!

All of us who know very well the story of this bent over woman in the faces of members right here in our midst, today Jesus gives a great and certain HOPE that the great sabbath day that is God’s Kingdom, will come and all will be healed, there will be no burdens and no death - only joy, life, and light.

We bring this hope – this promise - in deep prayer to the altar each week to lift up to God. This hope keeps us carrying on. This hope helps us provide comfort and loving compassion to each other now, knowing that God, through Jesus Christ, has promised that God’s love and compassion is enfolding us as we speak!

Jesus does this on the sabbath day, because God gave us the sabbath to keep holy as a divine interruption into the burdens we carry, an opportunity for us to put the burdens down that we can, and to gather into a hope-filled community who can help us carry the burdens we cannot put down.

We know the story of this woman. She is in our midst. Through this Gospel message today we have encountered how God wants us to live: as healed and unburdened persons. So, let’s hold onto that promise as our great hope together in faith!

As I’ve ended my last two sermons, I end again today with a line from the prayer our Lord Jesus taught: May God’s Kingdom come; may God’s will be done. Amen.

Rev. Ryan | August 24, 2025