October 27, 2025

Luke 13:10-17

In today’s reading, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the sabbath when he saw a woman who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years so that she couldn’t even stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called out to her, telling her she was set free of her infirmity. He laid his hands on her, and in that moment she was able to stand up straight, giving glory to God.  But the leaders of the synagogue criticized Jesus because healing was considered to be work, and work was forbidden on the sabbath. Jesus called the leaders hypocrits; surely they watered their livestock on the sabbath, which was also work. They made an exception for their own property and interests on the sabbath, but would have deprived this woman of God’s healing.

Here Jesus is showing that in God’s world, love prevails over narrow rules. Healing is always right, no matter which day of the week it is. Caring for others is more important than the letter of the law because God is love. We can learn from this that treating human beings with dignity comes first. While law and order is necessary to society, violence and cruelty against citizens is not justified. In fact, it is a desecration of God’s love for humanity.

Jesus is also showing that even if we have carried an affliction for decades, something that weighs us down, like childhood trauma, marital abuse, thwarted dreams, or PTSD, God can heal us in a moment with a touch. God can lift that weight from us, and we can leave it behind. We can be made free and whole as children of God. We may need those moments of healing and release over and over until we remember that we are free and it loses its grip on us, but there is that opening and that possibility of healing and freedom in the divine world.