Jeremiah 1.4-10
Psalm 71: 1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13.10-17
©Suzanne Grimmett
What does it mean to you to be seen?
We have today a story that begins with seeing.
How easy it would have been for Jesus to continue his important work of teaching those gathered and not pay attention to the older woman who quietly came in, bent over and not able to raise her own eyes to the teacher. She was a woman we could surmise without status or power, without anything that might lay claim to being worthy of such an interruption to the program.
I love the fact that in South Africa the Zulu word of greeting someone is literally “I see you”. How much we appreciate when people actually attend and we feel seen. To feel seen and feel heard can be some of the most powerful good medicine we can offer.
Do you ever wonder how much you don’t see?
I know I do. I often think of that term ‘unconcious bias’ and how it affects my ability to see clearly. I think of how we may not understand the barriers to worship and community experienced by many who live, work and pray here. I wonder how much I am assuming about others, and how much my perceptions need to be altered by greater attention. I wonder sometimes too, how a religious lens might actually be getting in the way. How might our community on occasions be caught up in well-meaning hypocrisy?
It is clear that Jesus saw the woman as more than an interruption, and more than an appropriate subject for physical healing. As soon as Jesus sees the woman, he calls her over, lays hands on her and heals her, proclaiming that she is set free. She did not ask for the healing and we can infer that after 18 years she has grown accustomed to her pain and limitations. Likely she has also grown accustomed to not being seen. She is a survivor.
The word survivor is an interesting one. The roots of the word combine super or ‘over, above, beyond’ with vivere as in ‘to live’. To survive is to live beyond. Perhaps this woman has continued to live beyond people’s expectations of her, even as her life was so constrained by her disability. If that were true, she has survived to live beyond even her own expectations, lifted out of her expected struggle by the God who sees. And her response? Immediately she stands tall and begins praising God, like this freedom is what she knew she was made for all along. She is claiming her place at the table- a place that has always been hers.
Of course, this woman is set free from more than her constraining posture. Jesus is dealing in prophetic revealing work as much as he is dealing in physical healing. By setting this woman free, Jesus reveals the socio-political systems that would keep her oppressed and the religious systems that resist the expansive abundance of God’s kingdom.
When challenged about healing on the Sabbath, Jesus reacts saying;
‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’
Now we might be distracted by the reference to Satan in Jesus’ words and the idea that this was some kind of spiritual bondage. Certainly, at the time many would have interpreted this woman’s suffering as a sign of God’s judgement, creating yet another barrier to fullness of life in community. But it is not too much of a stretch to consider how much evil is present in all systems that oppress and devalue. The shackles of all structures which overlook and devalue the lives of others using the metrics of gender, race, age, class, education or any other human characteristic can truly be called systemically evil. How many lives are never offered the opportunity to stand tall and praise God with their authentic voice because they have had to bear the crushing weight of not being seen or heard? Jesus’ mission to overthrow evil is always there in the Gospels – and this is another story where Jesus reveals the presence of evil and drives it out, proclaiming a new day of freedom.
It is tempting to read Jesus as the 60’s hippie-type who doesn’t vibe with the rules and wants to forget religious law and just go with love all the way. This, however, doesn’t do justice to the deeper meaning of the law Jesus is challenging all to honour. The sabbath was made for human flourishing- as Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath’. (Mark 2:7) Someone truly keeping the sabbath is one who would act for the welfare of others, honouring God by caring for their neighbour. And what are the origins of Sabbath teaching? While we may think first of the creation account where God rested from the labours of bringing life into being, Hebrew teaching positions the Sabbath as central to the Exodus story where sabbath rest would have offered a humanising gift after enforced labour and the loss of selfhood in slavery. We read in Deuteronomy 5:15, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”
So when Jesus names the woman he has healed as “daughter of Abraham who has been bound”, Andrew McGowan points out that this is a clear evocation of the theme of Sabbath as liberation, and the reference to Abraham is making clear her stake in God’s deliverance. [1] Jesus sees her, not just as a woman in need, but as a child of God who has been called to abundant life as much as all the assembled religious leaders who themselves are trapped in prisons of their own making.
One of the things that can get in the way of truly seeing and hearing one another is that idea of need when it gets mixed up in identity and we reduce another to the title of ‘needy’. How might we begin to see one another as needed rather than needy? One leader in a church in Indianapolis described a discussion where their community was exploring how their church might be a better neighbour. They came to the conclusion that;
We fell short on the value end of the work because our best answer to people’s needs was the food pantry, financial literacy and tutoring for children….we completely missed mutuality. We missed the need to be needed. We didn’t see that there were entrepreneurs, teachers, cooks, gardeners and healers in our neighbourhood. We were blind…[2]
So many of us have had the experience of not being seen…whether that, through our cultural lens, means a teenager whose social media posts are ignored, a man who has lost job, income or social position, or a woman experiencing the invisibility that comes with ageing. Perhaps it was a moment when we strayed from ourselves and felt judged or shunned, or maybe a time when our grief made us withdraw more into isolation. We are reminded in this story of the Jesus who sees us, and longs to speak a word of healing and liberation. May we also be reminded of the gift that is ours to share in the simple act of attending to one another with curiosity and not judgement, offering the precious gift of being seen and being heard. And as we attend, may we recognise in our neighbour someone not just needy, but one whom we need to take their place at the table if we are all to be free- to love, to serve and to praise.
+Amen
[1] Andrew McGowan A Daughter of Abraham Freed on the Sabbath (Andrew’s Version)
[2] De’Amon Harges It’s Good to be Seen, in Pathways to Belonging, Dustin D. Benac, Erin Weber-Johnson and Glen Bell, ed. (Cascade Books, Oregon: 2025), 87.