“Bound to be Freed”

Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

August 24, 2025

“You are enough”

Isaiah 58:9b-14

Luke 13:10-17

Children’s Message:

What kind of rules do you have at home? What kind of rules do we have at church? Rules are a part of everyday life. We have rules for driving and rules for staying safe. Even God gave rules to the Israelites to help them learn how to care for themselves and others. Their called the Ten Commandments. Have you heard of them?

And these rules were very important to the Jewish people. But do you know who broke the rules? Jesus. He healed someone on the Sabbath—the day set aside to rest and worship. And he was accused of doing work. And while healing someone might be work, it’s God’s work. So, there was a good reason to break the rule.

It’s like this book, “The Library Lion,” by Michelle Knudsen. The Lion is allowed in the library only as long as he follows the rules. But when the head librarian falls and hurts herself, the only way he can get someone’s attention and help her is to break the rules and roar very loudly. He leaves, assuming he’s no longer welcome. But he is invited back because sometimes there’s a very good reason to break the rules.

Let’s pray. Dear God, thank you for the rules that keep us from hurting ourselves and others. Help us know when a broken rule helps more than hurts. Amen.

Message:

The woman already had two marks against her: she was a woman, and she was disabled. Either is enough to deem her unworthy. Invisible. But Jesus sees her. He sees her lurking at the edge—on the periphery of those gathered. It was Sabbath, and he was teaching in the synagogue. We don’t know what he was speaking on, but I like to imagine that he was dealing with text that proclaimed God’s intent to set the captives free.

What better way to get people to understand the Scripture than to put it into practice? He saw her. He called her forth. She slowly and painfully hobbled to the center of those gathered. They averted their eyes. This broken body doesn’t belong in holy spaces. This weak woman shouldn’t be here.

Before he even touched her, he spoke: “Woman, you are free from your infirmity.” And then, he placed his hands on her—maybe helping her stand and stretch for the first time in nearly two decades. Her joy...can you imagine her joy? And how she thanked God. And thanked Jesus. And looked around her. And stretched up and out and around, tears streaking her dusty cheeks.

It was a sacred act. A sacred moment. It is what we are all called to do. But the head of the synagogue was outraged. And of course, instead of directing his insults to Jesus, he berates the woman. “There are six days for working. Come on those days to be healed.” She probably did and got nothing but neglect and disdain. And again, Jesus calls people hypocrites. Just like we heard last week as he accused those he was teaching that they couldn’t see what was right in front of their faces. They couldn’t tell the truth from lies, good from bad, God’s Word from human nonsense. And today, the leader couldn’t tell life from death. He didn’t recognize the good news being enacted.

The Sabbath, Jesus says, is for releasing the captive. Loosing the binds. Liberating the oppressed. If it IS work, it’s God’s work. And God’s work is good all the time. Last week, I pointed out that partaking in Holy Communion is an act of resistance. It challenges the world’s ways by gathering ALL people together—the ones deemed worthy and those kept from God’s love and grace by human standards. It speaks against the world’s ways by insisting that life in the kin-dom is always communal, not individual—that we are all connected.

Keeping the Sabbath is also an act of resistance. Not by establishing laws and mandating behavior. The weight of the Law can just as easily keep us bent and broken as the woman in the gospel reading. Instead, God frees us—frees us from the tyranny of this world’s priorities of production and value; frees us to enjoy God’s grace and recognize God’s proclamation: You are enough. Keeping the Sabbath resists the ways in which society places labels based on how much we make, the jobs we have, the cars we drive, how clean the house is.

When we truly rest on the Sabbath, we are liberated from those labels. And that rest can take on many shapes. It may look like worship and Bible Study, or visiting around coffee and treats. It may look like a luxurious bath or volunteering at a food pantry. It may look like a nap or a game of Ultimate Frisbee. It may look like reading a book on the deck or visiting family. Sabbath is simply this: taking time to step out of the demands our society places and finding our worth in God’s love, alone.

Our worth is determined by God. Period. We are all children of God. Jesus said, “This woman is a child of Sarah and Abraham. She is bound to be loosed.” Bound to be loosed. She must be set free. She is destined for liberation.

It’s much like the song Tom Franti and Willa Foster Jones wrote for FEAST several years ago.

When we join our hands

When we raise our voice, we are bound by chains of prayer.

We are bound to each other

We are bound to the cross, we are bound by chains of prayer.

We are freed from trouble by our chains of prayer,

We are freed by chains of prayer.

We are freed from trouble by our chains of prayer,

We are freed by chains of prayer.

We are freed, we are freed, we are freed by chains of prayer.

We are bound, we are freed. So we live by chains of prayer.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE