Faith, Untangled
A sermon brought forth from Isaiah 55:6-13 and Luke 13:10-17 preached on June 18, 2023
Journalist and author Philip Yancey starts his book about the grace of God by sharing the story of a woman who couldn’t catch a break. She came to one of Yancey’s friends in bad shape. She was homeless and sick, addicted to drugs, and unable to afford food for her 2-year-old daughter. Yancey’s friend said he had no idea what to do for her, no idea what to say. “Have you ever thought of going to a church for help?” he said.
“Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I’m already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse!”
Instead of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable like Jesus did, there are far too many churches that further afflict the already afflicted, and further comfort the already comfortable.
C.S. Lewis wrote,
“To some of us grace is only a word, a nice idea, the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, or news from a country we have not yet visited.”
Imagine what life was like for the woman in our story. For 18 years she’d been hunched over, staring at the ground. Only able to look into the eyes of her son or daughter if they were kind enough to crouch down to her level or if she strained her neck upwards to meet their gaze. But most of the time she stared down at her feet. Bent over. Living on a lower level than anyone else around her.
Everyone in her town knew of her, but because they couldn’t look her in the eyes or know her smile, she was invisible to them. For 18 years, her body had been tangled up and twisted in a knot—that’s at least what it felt like to her; and the words “crooked,” “crippled,” and “contorted” don’t just describe what her body felt like, they were also good words to describe how everyone regarded her.
After almost two decades of that, it’s not hard to imagine how she began to regard herself that way also. As hard as it was to walk around in public this way, she braved the journey anyhow. She made her way slowly but surely to the Temple for worship. “Church!” We can imagine her crying, “Why would I ever go there? I’m already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse!” But she went anyway.
That day, she hobbled into the Temple, and as she made her way into the crowd gathered there on that Sabbath day, there was a man teaching she hadn’t seen before. She was unaware that she had staggered her way into the very presence of God.
In the BBC movie, The Mission, a mercenary and slaver named Rodrigo Mendoza played by Robert DeNiro, makes his living kidnapping natives of the Guarani and other tribes who live along the Amazon River in South America in the 1750’s.
Mendoza takes those he’s captured to Spain and sells them to plantation owners. He comes home from one of these trips to find his fiancée cheating with another man, and he kills him. Mendoza spends time in prison for it, and in his cell, all the weight of his murderous ways catches up to him and he spirals into a deep despair.
A priest named Father Gabriel visits him in prison and challenges him to undertake a suitable penance—a way to be cleansed from his past. Father Gabriel takes Mendoza out to the Guarani tribe, the same people he killed, maimed, and captured his last slaves from. But this time Mendoza would go as a missionary—to live with them, share meals with them, and understand their culture.
As a part of his penance, Mendoza makes the long journey through the Amazon rainforest by boat and on foot with Father Gabriel and his company of priests carrying on his back the armor, artillery, and swords from his old life.
He’s saddled with his past, physically burdened by the weight of his old self tied around his waist. He’s made to drag it through craggy rocks and up the side of towering waterfalls. He physically bears the heaviness of his past.
In a poignant scene, the missionaries finally make their way into the territory of the Guarani tribe. They’re nearing the end of their journey, having climbed up a waterfall. There they are met by some of the tribes’ elders. With what little energy he has left, Mendoza slowly climbs to safe ground and heaves the pack behind him to the top of the waterfall.
He recognizes the natives, some of them are family members of those he had killed. One of the tribal elders comes up to Mendoza, who’s curled up on the ground in exhaustion. He holds a machete up to Mendoza’s neck but instead of cutting him, the elder takes the rope tied around his waist and slices through it, freeing Mendoza once and for all from the weight and burden he had been lugging around for all these miles and all these years. And once freed from that heaviness, Mendoza begins to weep.
Friends, that’s grace.
Isaiah declares,
“Let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Both Rodrigo Mendoza and the woman in our story from Luke 13 would tell you that grace is the amazing gift of having all of the weight of our own past, all that we drag along with us for years and years and miles and miles, cut away from us and dropped for good.
They and thousands of others like them would tell you from their own experience that God’s grace is that straightening of all that once bent us over, or the unburdening of what we for too long have dragged with us. Grace frees us to walk forward and undertake a better journey.
I wonder what the woman saw once Jesus placed His hands upon her. At that moment, Luke says, she straightened up, unwound and unbound. Her body untangled from her pain and her spirit untangled from the shame of all those years.
Consider how her entire perspective changed. For the first time in almost two decades, she could look straight into the eyes of a friend. She could hug her husband and her children. Imagine her staring up into the sky, taking in the heavens above her. Feeling the rain fall upon her face for the first time in years. Untangled, finally, standing tall and facing the world directly, this woman took in the world and enjoy it!
I wonder, though, who are the ones in bondage here? Whose sight was really obscured? Wasn’t it really the Pharisees who are bent out of shape? Weren’t they the ones unable to recognize Jesus for who he is, unable to see what’s happening right in front of them?
The Pharisees had no notion of grace. According to them, God’s favor was all tangled up with their own efforts to make good with God. The way they saw it, it was up to them to impress God. Climb your way up the waterfall all on your own and God will notice how great you are and will reward you in spades for all the back-breaking work you do!
Not only that—they were also convinced that they were God’s stand-ins, God’s managers—as if God needs religious supervisors. But the woman, now unbound and untangled from all that once compromised her, knew more about God’s grace and mercy than they ever would.
It is only when we know—profoundly and deeply know—that the grace that God has brought to us is far more powerful than anything we could ever bring to God, that we can stand up straight in God’s presence, be unbound, untangled, freed to celebrate all the extraordinary ways that Christ is moving in our midst and setting us free to live full lives! Then we will know a better journey.
All praises to the One who made it all and finds it beautiful! Alleluia! Amen!