Luke 13:10-17

Two words protrude from this pericope. “And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over (συγκύπτω/sugkupto) and was quite unable to stand up (ἀνακύπτω/anakupto) straight” (v.11, italics added).

Sugkupto. Anakupto. Both share the root word kupto, which means “bend” or “stoop down.” The prefix in the first word, sugkupto, means “with” and “being closely joined together,” adding to kupto the idea of bending fully together. We might say “doubled over.” She is bent down, doubled over on herself. The prefix in this second word is almost antithetical to that of the first, and it means “up,” “back,” or “again,” containing here the idea of reversal. Literally, “to bend back up again.” This woman is bent down, doubled over on herself (sugkupto), unable to bend back up again (anakupto); eighteen years of this.

I’m reminded of one of the saints in my first congregation, when I was an interim pastor. I was twenty-one years old, and Shorty, as she would introduce herself, was in her eighties, severely hunch-backed, barely measured over four feet tall, and with a cane for each arm, which she needed in order to walk, somehow still managed to reach up and grab my tie so she could pull me down to her and whisper something loudly in my ear. I miss sitting on her porch with her in the middle of the week, smelling the cigarette smoke drifting out from her son inside, with whom she lived, while she quietly cried about this or that and held my hand. She had long endured physical maladies. Eighteen years of sugkupto. I can’t even imagine that. Can you?

Jesus “was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years” (vv.10-11a). The text doesn’t say why the woman appeared just then, but it isn’t hard to imagine. The worship has already begun, songs sung, offering plates passed, and now Jesus is teaching. Everyone is nodding along, and just when he’s getting to his best point, someone comes walking through the door into the synagogue. She arrives late, very late. Not because she’s careless. Not because she didn’t wake in time from a nap. Not because she found something better to do on her way to the gathering place. She is late because she can barely walk, and yet she, the one who is bent down, doubled over on herself, has processed to the community of faith by herself, as fast as she could, because she wouldn’t let her sugkupto keep her from worshipping God.

This is a decisive moment for Jesus. What will he do next? Clear his throat, speak up a little louder, and move on with his point, hiding his distraction from his listeners as best as he could? That’s probably what I would do. Instead, “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment’” (v.12). Barbara E. Reid describes it like this: “Jesus interrupts his teaching” and “affirms that she has been set free” [1]. She’s right. Jesus chooses to let go of what he was doing in order to respond to the person he sees; he is the one who derails the gathering, goes off script, and makes this about her. “Immediately she stood up straight and began praising God” (v.13b, italics added). This woman doesn’t run out of the room to enjoy her new posture, she launches the community back into their purpose for gathering and the reason she struggled to get here: worship.

After eighteen years of sugkupto, she now experiences anakupto. “But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath” (v.14). Just to be clear, we can’t make this into a Christianity vs. Judaism polemic. What unfolds is a conflict between two Jewish leaders, Jesus and the leader of the synagogue, about how the sabbath is to be faithfully understood and practiced. What we learn about the leader of the synagogue is that he is more committed to his narrow interpretation of sabbath law than he is to this “daughter of Abraham” (v.16), more loyal to one way of reading the text than to God’s work of liberation. However, as Turid Karlsen Seim writes, “Jesus’ wondrous act in setting the woman free is appropriate according to God’s will because it fulfills the liberating intention of the sabbath” [2]. After all, Judaism’s narrative of salvation is the Exodus. To set someone free is not a different thing than salvation.

Throughout the New Testament we find authors connecting Jesus’ salvific work to the Exodus story, but the liberation theme is heightened here in the Gospel of Luke. The salvation Jesus brings means being set free, being liberated, being unbound. This is why the early church gave this Gospel the image of the Ox, because, in Luke, Jesus is one who bears the burdens of the poor, who lifts the load of the lowly, who tills the ground until there is room for the marginalized [3]. Notice what Jesus says to her: “You are set free” (v.12). The anakupto is her liberation. Reid points out, “The identification of Jesus’ works with God’s is underscored by the use of the term endoxois, ‘mighty deeds,’ in verse 17. This same word is used in Deuteronomy 10:21 and Exodus 34:10 for what God has done for Israel” [4]. Again, there is a sense that what Jesus administers in this synagogue is the same liberating action God took in the Exodus and throughout Israel’s history.

And yet the leader of the synagogue opposes Jesus. This is a word of warning to church leaders. Sabbath can be used to keep people in their sugkupto or to usher them into anakupto. The same is true of our church communities, our doctrine, our choices. We might need to seriously ask ourselves, Does the culture of our congregation bind people up or set them free? Are we setting up hoops that people must jump through before we are willing to seek their liberation? When Jesus interrupts our best laid plans to lift up his daughter, do we become indignant?

A pastor friend of mine told me this story:

“There was a great organization that wanted to regularly use some space in our building to connect with the community and meet their needs. Their mission aligned very well with ours, so I said yes. The Sunday after their first meeting, two red-faced church ladies marched toward me, a mother and daughter duo who had been in this church their whole lives.

‘Why was the stuff in our Sunday School room moved around?’ they questioned. I explained that their room was used by this organization and apologized that it wasn’t put back in order.

‘Please don’t put them in our room next time.’

‘I understand your frustration, but I think Jesus is pleased with their work and that space is best for their needs.’ Their pursed lips and rolling eyes left in a hurry. The next Sunday, the scene continued.

‘We thought we told you that we did not want that group using our room!’

‘You did, but they need the space and I think Jesus would want us to let them use it.’ They bustled off, a little redder and wound up than the week before. The next Sunday, they were back.

‘Pastor, what don’t you understand? We told you they are not allowed to use our Sunday School room for whatever it is they are doing!’

‘Now ladies, I think Jesus—’

‘Stop telling us about Jesus!’ they demanded. ‘This is our room and that’s that.’”

That story still makes my tummy turn whenever I think about it. Almost as much as this one: While I was in college, I was sent out to a small church to lead worship. The pastor, who was about to retire, was worn down and ready to call it quits. That morning, one lady welcomed me and made me feel at home more than anyone else. She was genuinely interested in my life and what God was doing through me. After sitting with her and her little nephew during potluck, I was very thankful for her. I mentioned her kindness to the pastor, and he laughed.

“She’s been kicked out of every church in town because she’s a lesbian, and for some reason she now has it in her head that she’s going to come to our church.” And then, I kid you not, he said:

“Just shoot me now.”

That’s how disinterested we can become in seeing Jesus liberate. Clergy and laity alike can make church a means of keeping people in their sugkupto instead of a means of anakupto in Christ. We may need to let go of our plans, of something we hold dear, of our comfort to see Jesus set someone free. Thus, Reid asks us the question at the heart of this text, “Instead of seeing a broken rule, can [we] see the broken person as of first importance?” [5]

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[1] Barbara E. Reid, Choosing the Better Part: Women in the Gospel of Luke (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996), 164.

[2] Turid Karlsen Seim, “The Gospel of Luke,” in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary, ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (New York: The Crossroads Publishing Company, 1998), 736.

[3] See the chapter on the Gospel of Luke in Richard A. Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 101-131.

[4] Reid, Choosing the Better Part, 166.

[5] Ibid., 167.