eighteen years. Should she not be freed from her bonds on the Sabbath?” When Jesus said this, all his opponents felt ashamed. But the people rejoiced at the many wonderful things that happened because of him.
Reflections
There are two powerful gospel stories in Luke 7:36-50 and Luke 13: 10-17. The first is the story of a woman who entered the house of a Pharisee, named Simon. He had invited Jesus for a meal; while at table, she began to wash the feet of Jesus with both her tears and ointment. The second is a woman bent over for eighteen years. The two women have something in common – shame, worthlessness and their oppressive exclusion due to their bodies (sin, sickness, bleeding, and deformity). Their wretched bodies make them outsiders a socio-cultural-religious context which considers them impure, subservient, and invisible. In the narrative, they all break the rules of culture and religious purity and observance. The first enters the house of Simon without being invited; the second appears before Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath. What is so significant about the movement of the two women is reality of the disempowered outsider who initiates the miracle process. The bent-over woman invited Jesus to break the Sabbath in favor of her liberation from years of deformity, suffering, and exclusion. She became part of, and was an active participant in, the Reign of God as well as privileged beneficiary of the miracle and empowerment of Jesus. Faith seeking embodiment shatters any justification to the violence done against women and children today. All bodies are sacred and resist any form of commodification and exclusion.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2018