The Rev. Jimmy Abbott
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 24, 2025
Luke 13:10-17

The audio of this sermon is available here. The full worship service is available on Trinity Church’s YouTube page.

When I was a new priest, about Chase’s age, I committed a grave error. One Sunday, while praying over communion at the table, I forgot to open the lid on the big silver jug of wine. Whatever, right? Wrong. You would have thought I burned the church down. The fussy police were breathing down my neck. No joke, there was concern that the Holy Spirit had not been able to get to the wine because the lid was closed. Y’all.

We Episcopalians, we are a fussy bunch. We like these hymns and not those ones. We have our pews and don’t like it when people take them from us. We like our prayer book services and are awfully suspicious at anything that smells of Methodism. We have mountains of unwritten codes, guidelines, and most important of all, manners. And may there be mercy on your soul if you breach that etiquette, if you leave the lid on the jug of wine. We Episcopalians are a fussy bunch, it might be what we most admire about ourselves.

That’s part of what’s going on in that synagogue with Jesus two thousand years ago. By healing a woman on the sabbath, by cleansing her of the demon, Jesus has broken the code of conduct. According to some interpretations of the Old Testament law, no work should take place on the sabbath. That day, which is holy to the Lord God, is a day for rest and for worship. As the Lord God rested on the seventh day of creation, so God’s people are to set aside a day of rest for themselves. And what Jesus has done, healing that woman, looks like work. Sure, she’s free from her bondage but, but it’s a scandal, because it’s taking place on the sabbath. “The leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and no on the sabbath day’” (Luke 13:14). The fussy police are it again. That’s the conflict between Jesus and the leader of the synagogue. And yes, we good, earnest, and faithful Episcopalians should take this lesson for what it is. Maybe we ought to check ourselves before getting too wound up about the little things.

But it’s not the whole story. Because there is something much more important going on.

Jesus’ conflict with the leader of the synagogue, and the whole debate about the sabbath day, that’s a sideshow. See, the real conflict is between Jesus and Satan. 

Think back to the lesson. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on that sabbath, and it says that “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 straight” (Luke 13:10-11). Under the power of a spirit, this woman is completely helpless. Bent over double, she probably can’t work. She can’t look people in the eye. Standing at half the height of everyone else, she probably feels inadequate, unworthy, unwelcome. Exactly how Satan would want her to feel. That word, “Satan,” it means “Accuser.” The Accuser, the Satan twists minds and hearts around to make us feel all those terrible things about ourselves. So this woman is bent, doubled over in pain, excluded. 

That’s why Jesus blames her ailment on Satan, who has bound her for these eighteen long years. Jesus doesn’t blame the woman for her condition. It’s not the result of anything she did or didn’t do. It’s not because some sin she committed. No, it’s Satan, the Accuser, who has done this damage – physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually. That’s why her healing is not just a physical thing, it’s an emotional, a social, a spiritual thing. She’s been held in bondage.

And that’s why she comes looking for Jesus. As she feels inadequate, unworthy, and unwelcome, Jesus makes her feel adequate, worthy; Jesus welcomes her. She wants to be free. So he lays his hands on her, and immediately she’s made well. 

Picture that – for the first time in eighteen long years she can stand up straight. And who would be the first person she sees face to face? It’s Jesus. The lover of her soul. And he would be the first person to have looked her in the eyes for eighteen long years. Just imagine that – imagine that gift. Of course she starts to praise God – not only is her physical pain gone, but she’s now free. Free from bondage. Free from those dread feelings she held about herself. Free to be part of society again. Free from Satan. She’s been remade, reborn. She’s liberated. 

And that’s why it has to take place on the sabbath. The Lord God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and on the seventh day, the sabbath day, God rested. That’s exactly what’s going on here. Because the power that Satan has over her has been broken. And on the sabbath day, the Lord Jesus has re-created this woman.

And I know, that we well-heeled Episcopalians don’t talk too much about evil and demons and Satan. It feels so antiquated, so unsophisticated. We spend more of our time fussing over etiquette. And because of that, like the leader of the synagogue, we miss the whole point. The point of this story is not about who is doing what on the sabbath; the point of the story is that Jesus is taking head on the evil powers of darkness. The powers of exclusion. The powers of pain and agony. The power of Satan. That’s the real conflict. It’s between brokenness and wholeness. It’s between isolation and belonging. And Jesus is victorious.

Now back to that woman. You know, I see her all the time. I see her in you, I see her in me. I, too, am bent over double. I, too, struggle with feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, and unwelcome. I do believe that the powers of darkness still have the capacity to hold us in bondage. I do believe that those evil powers all too happily exploit those openings in our hearts and minds to bend us over double – physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally. I have seen it in me, I have seen it in you. And that woman, that nameless woman, in her desperation, shows us what to do. She presents herself to Jesus.

So we, too, must present ourselves to Jesus. Our whole selves, even the bent and doubled over parts of our souls that we try to hide from everybody else. That woman has the courage to show up in the synagogue, to show up in public, stooped over as she is. I pray that is why we are all here this morning. I pray that we’ve all come seeking the same liberation, the same freedom in Christ. The only way that Jesus is going to do anything about us is if we present ourselves, all of ourselves. To be transformed and raised up straight by the grace of God. Our own feelings of inadequacy, of unworthiness, and unwelcome stand no chance against the love of Christ. We become so accustomed to this spiritual posture of unworthiness that we forget that this is not how God made us. Day by day, we must present ourselves to Jesus so that he can make us stand up straight.

Really, I don’t give a hoot if you stand up or kneel down at church. I don’t think it really matters what you wear, if you cross yourselves or not, if you know all the funny names for church things or if you don’t. And really, if we think that the Holy Spirit’s ability to get to the wine is dependent on whether the lid is on or not, if we think that the Holy Spirit’s ability to do anything is dependent on what we do or don’t do, then I don’t think we know who the Holy Spirit is anyway. There’s a much bigger thing going on; we’re all bent and doubled over, held in bondage by the powers of darkness, and that’s the real issue. The real issue is that God wants to re-create you as you were meant to be.

So present yourselves to Jesus, in all his frightful love and glory. Because, as Hebrews says, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” I do not think that God, that God of power and glory fusses over our guidelines and etiquette. But I do know this – the Lord Jesus Christ will make you stand up straight, the Lord Jesus will bind those powers that bind you, so that you can look in the eyes of God and know that you are loved. 

See also

Phelps, Stephen H. “Luke 13:10-17.” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible & Theology, vol. 55, no. 1, Jan. 2001, pp. 64–66. 510038640.

Joelsson, Linda. “Exorcisms as Liberation: Trauma, Differentiation, and Social Systems in Luke.” Studia Theologica – Nordic Journal of Theology, vol. 74, no. 2, Jul. 2020, pp. 159–96. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/0039338X.2020.1785934.