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The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
- August 26, 2007 Preached at Pastor Dennis R. King “The Keys to Renew Health and Life!” Luke 13:10-17 The Grace and Mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all. Amen! Today’s
gospel has a great deal to say about this subject of renewed health and
life. The setting for the lesson is a
synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus is
teaching. While he is teaching he sees
a lady who is bent over and cannot straighten herself. Jesus calls out to her, lays hands on her,
and immediately she is healed. The
woman didn’t ask for help. Jesus just
gave it. The leader of the
synagogue sees this healing act and objects.
His sense of the law overcame his sense of mercy and he tells Jesus he
had six other days to heal…He shouldn’t do this on the Sabbath. Jesus gives a great answer. His opponents, we are told, were put to
shame and the people rejoiced. In
today’s gospel lesson we can identify five keys to renewed health and life.
It is not as though there is some magic in these five keys but what these
keys do for us is give us a guide for improving our health and life. The
first of the five keys is this… Use what you have learned from Jesus- your
Jesus knowledge. In
the first verse of our lesson we are told that Jesus was teaching in one of
the synagogues. Jesus did a lot of
teaching. The teaching was not about
church history or how to keep the law or how to preach. It was a teaching
about health and how to live. It was a
teaching about attitudes and actions that would bring peace and harmony to
one’s self and that would be pleasing to God.
We have a whole lot of Jesus’ teaching available to us. We need to use what we learn from Jesus in
our lives. It sounds so simple. It
shouldn’t be hard for us. We basically
know how Jesus would have us think and act. All we have to do then is do it. Kevin
Durant is one of the top collegiate basketball players in the nation. He played one year for the Taras Brown is the man most responsible for
helping develop Durant into a basketball star. Brown told Durant, “I’m the
instrument God’s going to use to get you where you’re supposed to be.” During summers Brown worked him from 6:30
a.m. to 10:00 p.m. One day Durant
decided he had enough. While he was
lifting weights and jumping over boxes his buddies were playing full court
games. Durant asked if he could play
with them and he was told no. The next
thing on the list was to run up the hill.
It was cold and it was night.
Durant told Brown he was quitting.
In tears he headed home. As he
walked home Durant had second thoughts.
He was thinking about the promise he had made to his mother that he
would never quit. He went back. Brown was waiting for him. They talked. Durant said that was the turning point for
him. He now says, “From that day I
listened.” Because he listened he
became one of the top collegiate basketball players in the nation. Jesus
has given us his teaching about how to be top-notch people. All we have to do is listen to Him. The first key to a health and life is to
put to use what you have learned from Jesus. Use your Jesus knowledge. The
second key to renewed health and life is to stand straight. Jesus saw how bent over the lady was. He called out to her and enabled her to
stand straight. How many times have we
felt like we have the load of the world on our shoulders. We can even look that way. Jesus sees that. There is much that can bend us over. Some of you have experienced pain and
rejection and tragedy at the deepest levels.
You have every reason to be bent over. A
writer, E.J. Montini, for The Arizona Republic
wrote a column about a woman, Brigitte (Targosz). Her husband was a policeman. He was on his police motorcycle when a
young man ran a red light and took his life.
Brigitte spends much of her time these days at the Arizona State
Capitol lobbying for tougher measures to keep drunk drivers off the
road. Brigitte at an earlier point in
her life moved to Brigitte
could have had her values bent. She
could also have had her heart broken and bent with the tragic death of her
young husband. She now rests on her
faith to get through each day and honor the life of her husband. Life
can bend us. No matter how we feel
bent over or even why…no matter how much weight we feel…Jesus calls to
us. The great gift he gives is to encourage
us to stand straight. A recent movie
has the title, “Fractured.” What is
good about the movie is that the young lawyer is encouraged to bend his
values and he does not. It is not a
movie about faith but it is an illustration of how to stand straight. How much more as Christians we have the
power within to stand straight. And we
have the power of the touch of Jesus to stand straight. The
third key in this gospel to find renewed health and life is to accept His
healing. You
can read almost any newspaper these days and find information about
recalls. Recently the recall of
million of toys made in Is
there a better way to say this? We can
hang on to hurts and problems and not move forward. Or we can leave it all here…get
straightened…accept God’s healing and move on. A key part of health and life is to accept
God’s grace and forgiveness…accept God’s healing love. God loves us and wants to make us
whole. That is such a gift. The
fourth key to renewed health and life is to take off the chains. The
way the gospel lesson sets this up…Satan is the culprit. I think what we have here in Luke is a
statement that is not so much about the woman’s physical condition as it is
about how Satan can and does chain people.
Anytime we get caught in things that are wrong or immoral we end up in
chains. Oftentimes people have to go
to prison for wrongs committed. They
are literally in chains. The gospels
see wrong as giving in to Satan…and thus Satan chains us. There
are other chains that bind us. Anger
can do that. Envy can. So can jealousy. So can poor self-esteem. So can ego.
So can temptation to go against God’s way. The hard, hard thing for us to do is see
what chains us. We can see it in
others. We can look at other people
and see what destroys them or limits them or causes them to be hurtful to others. But our chains. Only prayerful courage can get us to see
our chains. It is the chains that take
away health and life. Take off the chains. The
fifth key to renewed health and life is to Rejoice. Not
much needs to be said other than what we rejoice in should be the goodness of
God. This isn’t about having a good
time…even though it is important to enjoy health and life. This is about being amazed at Jesus’ power
over darkness, over sin, over death.
When the people in the synagogue saw what Jesus did for the lady who
was bent and then how Jesus handled the criticism that came his way. They
rejoiced. As the last verse of our
lesson says, “all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were
done by him. So…these five keys can lead to renewed
health and life. Use
what you have learned from Jesus-your Jesus Knowledge Stand
Straight Accept
God’s Healing Take
off the Chains that bind And
Rejoice Amen. |
