“From Double Bent to Praising God”

            Most of you know that I am just back from three weeks in Malawi, in southeastern Africa. I went this year with 5 others from this congregation to visit our mission partners and to discern how God calls our congregation to deeper and more effective mission ventures in Malawi. I was also there for family vacation, along with Ginger, to be with our daughter Ginny who spent two months in and around Blantyre, Malawi working with Blantyre Synod of the Presbyterian Church, and also to be with our son and daughter in law, Sandy and Kate, who live there. Sandy works for a Washington, DC based health agency. It was a very wonderful and important trip for our church connections, for me personally, and for our family. It is also most wonderful to be back home in Richmond.

            Malawi is a place of amazing beauty. Though this is the winter and dry season in Malawi, the stark brown countryside, the steep mountain ranges, the grand Lake Malawi, the rolling landscapes of the tea estates, the countryside dotted with villages all make quite an impression on any visitor. Malawi is truly a remarkable place of scenic beauty.

            Known too as the “warm heart of Africa,” Malawi is also full of amazing people. Nearly 15 million people live in this small nation. Many of these people are Presbyterian, with generations of family ties that extend back 150 years to David Livingstone and the first Scottish missionaries. In fact, there are more Presbyterians in Malawi than in the USA. And the Presbyterian Church there is thriving with many large congregations, many ways that the church tries to make life better with schools, hospitals, care and feeding programs for orphans and vulnerable children, and more. As a culture, Malawians love to smile, love to wave to visitors, love to sing and dance and celebrate life. Malawi is a nation of vitality, bustling with life and activity.

            Malawi is also, as you may know, a struggling place. Most Malawians live as subsistence farmers on less than $1/day. Malaria, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, remain real threats to daily life. 1 in 5 children die before reaching the age of 5 years old. 80% of the people still live without running water, without electricity, in mud huts with grass roofs in much the same way that their ancestors lived 100 years ago. In a recent list in Newsweek magazine of the world’s best countries, Malawi does not even make the list. The lists that name Malawi are the ones like the International Monetary Fund’s list of “lowest GNP,” or the World Bank’s “world’s poorest countries.” Malawi stays usually in the top ten on those lists.

            So, with the amazing beauty and wonderful people, and the wonderful Presbyterian connections, AND the huge needs in Malawi, it is clear why God opens the door for meaningful and important partnerships. Our mission at Second Presbyterian calls us to embody Christ’s new reality in downtown Richmond and around the world. Malawi beckons our hearts, our connections, our devotion and care. Hence, we are related to St James Presbyterian Church in Blantyre – a vibrant, inner city congregation seeking to do Christ’s work in that city as we continue in this city. On the first Sunday of this month, I preached at St James, and we continue to explore how our faith and fellowship can strengthen our work together. In the midst of that worship service, the most poignant moment for all the worshippers (aside from the fine sermon from the visiting preacher J) came during a certain moment of congregational singing. The pastor called for a praise chorus. A young man came to the front and began leading a terrific song that got everyone standing. The song was in Chichewa, the native language. But it did not take long to figure out the emphasis. “I will praise God” – that was the theme. It included various refrains – praise God with clapping, with dancing, while sitting down, while moving forward, on and on it went. It was so positive, so engaging. The white visitors and the white preacher got into it too – even in our awkwardness. Imagine Tom Jefferson, Don Falls, and Glen Thomason dancing and clapping in worship! A zealous spirit blew through the place. The energy stretched the rafters and the walls. The leader had everyone singing, clapping, celebrating.

This beautiful moment made it easy to forget the conditions from which most of the worshipers came that cool, rainy morning. The crippling poverty, the hardships of life for these people seemingly dissolved in this singing of God’s praises. The burdens of malaria, or malnutrition, of struggling – which these people live with every day – dissipated, even if momentarily. The vitality of life as God’s people – cheering, smiling, loving, dancing – held the day, at least for a moment. It was a most beautiful and memorable moment – a depiction of joyful life in God’s sanctuary.

            Perhaps now you can see with me the connection to today’s scripture passage from Luke 13. It says “there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for 18 years. She was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.” Another translation says that she was “so twisted and afflicted that she could not even look up.” Still another translation says she had had a spirit of weakness for 18 years that left her hunched over, bent double. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her it says, “immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” 

            On one hand, we might all agree that Malawi, as one of the poorest and most struggling nations of the world, is bent double, held captive to crippling problems, unable to stand up. On the other hand, you cannot experience Malawi without realizing the vitality, the praise. On that day at St James, in the singing and celebrating, we saw the deep joy, the amazing celebration and gratitude of life with God. Like the passage in Luke, the entire crowd began rejoicing and praising God at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing, especially in the face of struggle, hardship, or animosity.

            Here is something very interesting about this story from Luke of the woman in the synagogue. It is also something those students from the Seminary who are finishing up Greek might find particularly intriguing. The story, and Jesus’ rationale for healing this woman, play on the verbs “bound” and “loose.” The Greek word for “loose” - luo – is the verb that Greek students often use to conjugate verbs and learn verb tenses. Jesus “loosed” the woman from the infirmity that had “bound” her for 18 years. It does not say why she was cripple and double bent. It says nothing about her faith or her life. Jesus does what he often does in the gospels: he takes the initiative and heals her. If Jewish law, which the authorities in the synagogue were so worried about, permits the “loosing” of a “bound” animal for watering on the Sabbath, should it not be permitted that this woman, not an animal but a “daughter of Abraham,” not bound or tethered for a few hours but bound for 18 years, “be loosed” from this horrible bond? Jesus’ argument is incontrovertible! Jesus’ adversaries are put to shame. The people rejoice. It is a sign, even in the midst of the hardship of life, of life’s burdens and struggles, that God’s intentions – healing and wholeness, vitality and life, God’s reign – are indeed breaking in on the world!!

            So how does this story speak to us today, in Richmond, in late August, 2010? This story speaks to me in several ways.

            First, there are lots of things that leave us hunched over, or feeling double bent. Maybe it is an ache in your heart that just keeps you bound up, unable to be loosed: the ache of grief from your loved one’s death, the ache of loss that leaves a cloud over your life. Maybe it is the ever-present reality that your body is wearing out, or that the cancer is waiting to re-emerge somewhere. These things will keep you hunched over. Maybe it is the pace of your life that you are not able to control – the work schedule, the kids’ schedules, the many meetings and activities that pull on you, or the emails, and messages that you cannot escape. Maybe it is life as a single person, too often lonely, or maybe it is a marriage that leaves you unfulfilled. Maybe it is society’s expectations, or some difficult addiction, or social pressure that keeps you beat down. Maybe these things and others keep you up at night, zap your energy. Maybe it is those nagging questions – is this all that there is? Isn’t there something more? Is my life important? Does anyone really care? Or maybe it is the deep sadness about our world – devastation in Pakistan, continuing conflict between Israel-Palestine, a mess in Afghanistan, a mosque at Ground Zero? These things can leave us double bent, beaten down, bound, tethered!

            The really good news from this story about Jesus and the double bent woman celebrates God’s reality and God’s intentions. It is never about rules that we are supposed to live by, or who is in charge, or what the principalities and powers say. This story affirms God’s reality, God’s presence, God’s healing care, God’s concern for us and the world. Jesus “loosed” the woman from all that bound her. That tells us that God wants to loose us from all that beats us down, paralyzes us, keeps us tethered. Heartache and pain, desolation and despair, grief and sadness – none of that has the last word. Our afflictions may be real but they are not all-powerful. Just as we see with the woman cripple for 18 years, we are loosed for praising God, for life with and for God. That should be the focus of our lives – from double bent to praising God! Can our lives look more like that?

            The other message from this story for me has to do so much with perspective. Everyday through the last three weeks in Malawi, I lived with a haunting question – how come I was not born in Malawi? What did I do really to gain the privileged status of education and wealth, of mosquitoes around here that might bite but do not carry malaria, or a life in fine homes, not mud huts, of nutrition and plenty of resources that most Malawians can only dream about? Why such disparity? AND, if these people in Malawi can live with such faith, if these people can live with such joy, can embody such vitality and commitment in the face of hardship and struggle, I can certainly re-think my life. When I am feeling hunched over and beaten down, I need to recall that praising and serving God is what life is supposed to look like. Praising and serving God sends me, and all of us, to strive to make the world better for everyone, more equitable, more wholesome, especially for dynamic sisters and brothers in Malawi. God’s abiding love does not leave us where we are. God’s abiding love keeps lifting us, loosing us, so life can be about celebrating life and serving others. We have been given life and resources only so we can partner with Malawi and other places to shed God’s light, to spread God’s love, to embody the new reality made available to all in Jesus Christ.

            What about you?  Feeling hunched over, double bent? Maybe we are like that on some days.  But God never leaves us there. God comes among us, looses us from that which holds us back, and calls forth our best selves to work and serve with God in loosing others, in freeing others from the burdens of life.  From double bent to praising God – it is an image of new life given to all of us, and an image of a world that intends to be moving too toward healing, hope and life.

Let’s seek to receive God’s gracious love and help, and let’s seek to become helpers with God in redeeming the world. Alleluia. Amen           

Prayer of Commitment: Holy God, you show us the way to life. We commit again our lives to living, to loving, to serving, to following Jesus Christ out Lord. Amen

Alex Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA, preached this sermon during morning worship on Sunday, August 22, 2010. This is a rough manuscript.