Right Place-Wrong Time

This sermon was delivered on the Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 26, 2007 at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas.

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

As you know, I love music and the movies, and one of my favorite movies is “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” “Dr. Strangelove” begins as the story of a U.S. Army General who decides that it is better to start a nuclear war than it is to wait for a nuclear war to start because he fears fluoridation of water is a Communist conspiracy causing him to loose the purity of his essence. As the threat of nuclear war reaches its zenith, Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky is summoned to a meeting deep in the darkest bowels of the Pentagon where the Generals and Admirals are assembled with the President. Suddenly the ambassador is caught taking pictures with a camera hidden in a fake pack of cigarettes by Army General ‘Buck’ Turgidson. General Turgidson fights to get the camera from Ambassador Sadesky who fights back. The voice of reason, President Merkin Muffley, brings the donnybrook to a close saying, “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.”[1]

Now tell me, if you can’t fight in the war room where can you fight?

You know, I can just hear the leader of the synagogue saying, “Lady, you can’t get healed in the synagogue! It’s the Sabbath!”

Now tell me, if you can’t get healed…never mind, you get my point.

Folks who have studied these things longer than I have say that healing stories fall into three types, miracle stories, controversy stories, and teaching stories. This account falls into two, if not all three of these categories.[2] It’s a miracle story, as much as every one of Jesus’ healings is miraculous. It is a controversy story, as I just pointed out from the reaction of the head of the temple. And it’s a teaching story, as Jesus makes clear in the end of the reading.

But now I ask which deserves our attention today? As for the miraculous aspects of the story, I could spend the next twenty minutes or the next twenty weeks talking about the miracles of Jesus and their effects on our lives. It’s a wonderful sermon series with one overriding message, the miracles point to Jesus’ father. Jesus says on more than one occasion what he does he does for the glory of the Father. I could focus on the miraculous aspects of the healings, but this is a well traveled road.

The controversy is pretty obvious, but it deserves attention. Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. So far, so good, in fact, there would have been more controversy if Jesus had not been in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up.

Jesus was sympathetic. Being fully divine does not prevent Jesus from feeling pain. As a fully human carpenter, he knew what it was like to have a sore back. TV ads for pain relievers tell me carpenters get sore, I figure it’s the same two thousand years ago. He saw this woman crippled up and bent over and knew what she needed. She needed healing…and more.

So when Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Set free, pardoned, released, the woman is separated from her pain and her shame by the most wonderful of Rabbis with the most wonderful of phrases, “you are set free.” How we all long to hear those words. We are all crippled by one thing or another. And while we may not be bent physically for all to see, we are bent. We all long to hear those wonderful words, “you are set free.”

This act is not without controversy though, Jesus heals her on the Sabbath and the head of the synagogue is indignant. “There are six days on which work ought to be done.” This begins sounding like the head of the synagogue is about to tear into Jesus for healing, but then he doesn’t. He finishes his diatribe on work with, “come on those days to be cured, and not on the Sabbath.” The head of the synagogue doesn’t say he’s upset with Jesus for healing the bent woman; instead he shows he is ticked off at the woman for coming on the Sabbath. Honey, you were in the right place, but it’s the wrong time. The controversy is ripe, and focused on someone who is weakened by years of oppression, someone who is separated from the community of her birth.

The woman is reprimanded by the head of the synagogue, but it’s Jesus who comes to rescue her from this controversy. He answers her critics with words that ring out, “if you’re going to take on this injured soul, this Satan-bound woman, this daughter of Abraham, you’d better be ready to take me on too.” “You hypocrites!” he cries. You posers! You fakers! Jesus calls the head of the synagogue and all who agree with him frauds. Jesus reminds these fine upstanding keepers of the faith that they too work on the Sabbath; they feed and water their livestock. So Jesus asks them if they will care for their own flocks on the Sabbath, isn’t it better to bring a daughter of Abraham back into the flock of the great shepherd anytime, including on the Sabbath? Jesus reminds them that Satan had bound this woman for eighteen long years, so this woman ought to be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day.

This story’s controversy takes us into its teaching. This is the teaching we find in this story can be summed up saying that it is always good to do what is right, regardless of the time and place. Making this point, scripture tells us his opponents were put to shame and the entire crowd rejoiced at the things he was doing.

For Jesus, there’s no such thing as “right place—wrong time.” It’s always the right place and it’s always the right time to do the right thing.

Mac Rebennack, Jr. is a blues rock and boogie-woogie piano player from New Orleans. Calling himself Dr. John, he had a hit in 1973 with “Right Place, Wrong Time.”[3] I think the second chorus is fitting with today’s reading.

I was in the wrong place, but it must have been the right time
I was in the right place, but it must have been the wrong song
I was in the right thing, but it seemed like a wrong wrong
'Cause I was in the right world, but it seemed like a wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong

I believe the head of the synagogue is telling the woman she was in the right place, but needing to be healed, she was singing the wrong song. And I also believe that the head of the synagogue was telling her that she was in the right place to come for healing, but it was the wrong time. As long as you are orthodox, you’re fine. Keep with the program and you’ll be fine, but if you don’t then to paraphrase Dr. John, it’s like being in the right world, but it seems like a wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

The head of the synagogue knows his rules and his regulations. He knows “work” is not to be done on the Sabbath. He knows healing is work. He surely knows healing is a work of God, whether miraculous healing or not. He knows his purity laws. He knows an ailing woman should not be in the holy place on the holy day. And he surely knew Jesus should not have laid hands on her.

Touching a woman…on the Sabbath…in the synagogue…to heal her…Jesus just racked up a four-bagger of sins in one fell swoop. Controversy is thick in this little tale of ours. But I ask, in the head of the synagogue’s indignity in this story, isn’t he trying to maintain the right and proper worship in the synagogue? I believe he is. He isn’t a bad guy; he’s just doing his job.

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about people just doing their jobs. Another example comes from a few weeks ago with the story of the Good Samaritan.[4] The priest and the Levite weren’t merciful toward the injured and bleeding man of Luke 10:30, but they weren’t evil either. They were just doing their jobs. The ritual purity aspects of the man’s injury and the woman’s ailment even have the same ring to holy men in these pieces. And as in that story, in this story Jesus wants more from his followers. Jesus harkens to open our minds to new activities and our souls to new neighbors. This is where the real controversy comes into the story.

This reminds us that Jesus is willing to go out on a limb compared to what others are willing to do. The head of the synagogue wanted to keep the orthodoxy orthodox. He wanted to do the right things the right way, the way they have been done for thousands of years. The way they are done in the scriptures as given to Moses. But Jesus wants more. Jesus demands more.

A few weeks ago I said that the story of the Good Samaritan doesn’t ask us “Who is my neighbor?” as much as it asks, “Am I a neighbor?”[5] Here Jesus asks us about work. If the question is “when is it right to do the reconciling work of God?” The answer can only be “Always.”

Jesus demonstrates the word when he brings her back into the community. Jesus does this by healing, this is for sure. He also does it by returning her to the community. Jesus restores the woman and Jesus restores us. Jesus will have us in the assembly on the Sabbath to share and participate in the worship of Almighty God for the restoration of ourselves, our community, and the world just as he did with this daughter of Abraham. Jesus will have us accept all who come bent and broken because none of us are pure and flawless.

Jesus is doing what a prophet should be doing on the Sabbath, he is teaching. Yet for Jesus teaching is more than an academic enterprise. Without response, without doing something with the teaching, it’s just words, gone like smoke in the breeze. The word becomes truth when we take it and use it to point to God and help bring in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is doing what a prophet does. He doesn’t just preach the word, he demonstrates it.

Who do you know that suffers from separation from Christ and the body of Christ? In our own bent and broken ways, we are all separated from the Love of God. Yet we give thanks and praise to the Messiah who calls us while we are bent and broken into the family of God. We give thanks and praise to the Messiah who has calls us into the family of God while we are still bent and broken.

This is the miracle, new life in Jesus Christ. This is the controversy; his new life is for everyone, especially the bent and broken. This it the teaching, we are always in the right place and it is always the right time to do the right thing. This is a variation of the teaching that comes from the end of the Good Samaritan, go and do likewise.

[1] George, Peter, “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Hawk Films, Ltd, 1964.
[2] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 484.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Rebennack, accessed August 25, 2007.
[4] Luke 10:25-37 in “Visions and Revisions,” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2007/07/visions-and-revisions.html, preached on July 15, 2007, accessed August 25, 2007.
[5] Halverson, Richard C., Animating Illustrations section from “Adlet and Blink,” Commentary section, from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=930000347, accessed June 10, 2007. as presented in “Visions and Revisions,” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2007/07/visions-and-revisions.html, accessed August 25, 2007.