Meeting Indifference with Grace

I want you to picture someone with me. She’s in the synagogue, a place she has likely come to every Sabbath for years. But she doesn’t see what everyone else sees. She doesn’t see the ornate carvings or the faces of her neighbors. Her world, for eighteen long years, has been the floor. The dust. The feet of others. She is bent double, defined by a condition that is not just a physical ailment, but a profound social and spiritual one.

She carries two heavy burdens. The first is the obvious one: the constant, grinding pain in her body. The inability to stand up straight, to look at the sky, to meet another person’s gaze. But the second burden might be even heavier. It’s the burden of being invisible. In her culture, she was a woman, whose voice was rarely prioritized. She was a person with a disability, and in that time, many would have seen her condition as a sign of God’s judgment, a punishment for some hidden sin.

As New Testament commentator James R. Edwards notes, “People with physical deformities were expected to remain socially invisible, especially if they were women.” She was there, but she was unseen.

Before we judge the people in that synagogue, we have to look at ourselves. Do we carry similar thoughts? Have you ever heard someone say, “Everything happens for a reason”? It’s a common phrase, meant to comfort, but it can be dangerous theology. If we truly believe that, then when something terrible happens to someone, we are left to assume that God must have a reason—punishment, perhaps, or a harsh lesson. But friends, that’s not the God we see in Jesus Christ. If God is primarily interested in punishing us for our brokenness, then why did Christ die on the cross? The cross tells us that God’s primary interest is not punishment, but grace.

And it is grace that walks into the synagogue that day.

While everyone else sees a fixture, a problem, or nothing at all, Jesus sees a person. He sees a daughter of Abraham, crippled by years of pain and isolation. And in a radical act of compassion, he does something no one expects. He heals her. He does it without being asked. He cuts through the noise of tradition and the silence of indifference, sees her pain, and takes decisive, loving action.

And in that moment, the true meaning of the Sabbath is revealed. The Sabbath was always intended to be a day of rest and restoration. But what rest could this woman have possibly known? What restoration could she feel while trapped in a body that was a constant source of pain? The healing Jesus provides allows her, for the first time in eighteen years, to experience the Sabbath as God intended. Jesus isn’t breaking the law; he is fulfilling its deepest and most beautiful purpose.

This healing is holistic. It’s not just about fixing a physical malady. Jesus brings this woman from the outskirts of her community right into its center. He restores her dignity, her place, and her ability to stand tall and look her savior in the eye. Jesus sees, and those he sees, he sets free.

But not everyone is celebrating. The leader of the synagogue is outraged. He is indignant, not because a woman has suffered for nearly two decades, but because a rule has been broken. His actions are about control—control over the synagogue, control over people’s bodies, and control over how the community is allowed to rest and worship.

There’s a fascinating insight I came across from the Centre for Excellence in Preaching. It points out that the word for being “crooked” is the root for our word “crook.” The leader, in his rigid, unbending adherence to the law, is the one who is truly spiritually crooked. He tries to steal the woman’s joy. He tries to steal the opportunity for others to witness God’s healing power. He tries to steal the very purpose of the Sabbath, turning it from a gift of restoration into a weapon of control. He tries to steal his fellow person’s dignity.

And this is where the story becomes a powerful warning for us today, especially for those of us in church leadership. Chelsey Harmon writes, “This encounter is the Ordinary Time text that strikes the most fear into me as a church professional.” And I have to tell you, it strikes fear into my heart, too. It is a powerful warning for me, as your minister, to ensure that I don’t get so caught up in “how we are supposed to do church” that I make a decision or speak words which cause great harm and steal someone’s joy.

This is the living Word of God and we find it echoed in the prophet Isaiah’s call. The scene in that synagogue is a perfect illustration of what Isaiah was writing about. He wrote:

“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness…”

The synagogue leader is “pointing the finger.” Jesus is “removing the yoke.” The contrast could not be more clear. We are called by God to act as Jesus does, not as the synagogue leader does.

And so, the question comes to us, here and now. The need for change didn’t end in that first-century synagogue. Where is it needed today?

I want you to ask yourself, honestly:

If you went to a church where people were treated like this woman was—ignored, judged, made invisible—how would you feel?

If you went to a church where the leader spoke as the synagogue leader did, prioritizing rules over people, how would you feel?

If you went to a church and this is how God was presented to you—as a rigid rule-keeper rather than a compassionate healer—how would you feel?

Things needed to change then, and Jesus stepped forward to offer that change. And things need to change now. We must look for the yokes that need removing, the crookedness that needs to be made straight.

Perhaps that change is needed right here, in this church.

Perhaps it’s needed in our wider denominational structures.

Perhaps that change needs to occur within our own lives.

The good news is that we follow a God who is not afraid of disruption. We follow a savior who sees through the noise, who sees to the heart of the matter, and who takes decisive, loving action. Jesus sees us in whatever has us bent and broken. He sees us, and he sets us free. May we have the courage to do the same for others.

Amen.