Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost 
August 24, 2025 Yr C 
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 
The Rev’d Michael J. Horvath
Gospel: Luke 13:10-17 

When we meet her in Luke’s gospel, this woman has  been bent over for eighteen long years. Think about  that. Eighteen years of looking at the ground.  Eighteen years of perhaps watching the world only  through the shuffle of people’s feet. Eighteen years  of straining to see the sky but being unable to lift  her gaze. 

What’s even more striking is this: when she appears  in the synagogue she doesn’t ask Jesus for  anything. She doesn’t cry out like Bartimaeus. She  doesn’t push through a crowd like the bleeding  woman. She doesn’t get lowered through a roof by friends. She’s just there – bent, silent, almost  invisible. 

And Jesus sees her. 

That’s the beginning of the good news in this story:  God sees us. God sees you. Not just the parts you  polish for Sunday mornings, not just your strongest  self, not just the version of you that can keep your  head up. God sees you in the moments you’re bent down, worn down, weighed down. Maybe by grief,  maybe by shame, maybe by exhaustion. Jesus sees  the woman that others had learned not to notice,  maybe even learned to avoid. 

And he doesn’t just notice her. He calls her forward,  in front of everybody and suddenly she is center  stage in the synagogue. Jesus doesn’t wait for her to ask. He doesn’t require a confession of faith or a  statement of belief. He calls her. And then he lays  his hands on her and says, “Woman, you are set  free.” 

Set free. That’s different from “you are healed.” It  carries with it the idea that healing is wonderful, but  this is bigger. Healing fixes a body. Freedom  restores a life. 

And when she stands tall, when her spine uncoils,  when her eyes meet the horizon again, she praises  God. Her first act of freedom is worship. She  doesn’t say thank you to Jesus, not right away. She  praises God, because she knows what’s happening  here is not just a lucky break or a medical miracle. It  is liberation. It is Sabbath. It is God at work.

But not everyone is rejoicing. There’s always  somebody who wants to police when and how God  shows up. The synagogue leader is indignant. He  doesn’t scold Jesus directly. He scolds the crowd:  “There are six other days to be healed, come then,  not on the Sabbath.” 

In other words: Stay in your lane. Stay in your place.  Keep things orderly. 

But Jesus isn’t having it. He calls them hypocrites.  He says, “You’ll untie your donkey on the Sabbath.  You’ll give your ox water. And you’re telling me this  daughter of Abraham should stay bound one more  day, when she’s been bound for eighteen years?” 

This is where the story shifts from a private and  personal interaction to a public clash. This isn’t just about a woman standing up straight. This is about a  whole system being bent out of shape. 

Because Sabbath isn’t just about rest. The Sabbath  is political state of mind. The Sabbath is about  freedom. It’s about remembering that you are not a  slave anymore. You are not defined by Pharaoh’s  quotas. You are not a beast of burden. You belong  to God. As the theologian Walter Brueggemann  says in his book Sabbath as Resistance, “Sabbath is  not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause  that transforms.” And so when Jesus heals on the  Sabbath, he is not breaking the law—he is fulfilling  it. He is enacting what Sabbath was always meant to  be: release, restoration, liberation. 

In other words: real worship is not about ritual  precision. It’s about letting loose the bonds of  injustice. It’s about untying what is bound. It’s about  seeing the people we’d rather not see. 

Do you see the thread? Isaiah says, “If you stop  pointing the finger and speaking evil… if you honor  the Sabbath, not going your own way… then you  shall take delight in the Lord.” Jesus is showing  what honoring the Sabbath looks like. It looks like a  woman who has been doubled over for eighteen  years standing up tall, standing in her full dignity as  a daughter of Abraham. 

And that’s why the religious leaders are furious.  Because Jesus is not just healing a body. He is  disrupting a system. He is challenging a way of life 

that keeps certain people bent down so others can  feel righteous about themselves. He is unmasking  hypocrisy that protects animals but leaves women in  chains. 

The clash of kingdoms is right here in the  synagogue: the kingdom of human rules, and the  kingdom of God’s freedom. 

Now, we know this isn’t just an ancient problem. We  know what it is to live in a world where people are  bent down and bound, not just physically but  spiritually, economically, socially. 

And maybe that’s where this gospel hits home for  us. Because sometimes we are the woman, bent  down, unseen, waiting to be called into the light.  And sometimes we are the crowd, watching, 

amazed, rejoicing in what God can do. But  sometimes – let’s admit it – we are the synagogue  leader. We are the ones clinging to control, anxious  about change, worried that if people really start  standing up straight, if chains really start falling off,  then the order of things will be disrupted.  

But that disruption is exactly what the Gospel, and  Isaiah, demand. Isaiah says, “If you remove the yoke  from among you… if you satisfy the needs of the  afflicted, then your light shall rise in the  darkness.” That means the plight of immigrants  living bent under fear of deportation is not just their  burden, it is our yoke to break. The attempt to erase  the existence of our trans siblings is not someone  else’s issue, it is our collective call to untying the 

bonds of injustice. The denial that American slavery  was evil is not just a distortion of history, it is a sin  that still bends all of us down, generation after  generation. And when leaders threaten to undo  same-sex marriage, it is not simply about politics, it  is about whether the church will honor the dignity  and love of people made in God’s image. It is about  setting people free. Because the truth is, none of us  stands tall until all of us stand tall.  

What is particularly beautiful in this gospel passage  is that Jesus doesn’t just set the woman free. He  sets the whole community free. Luke says the  woman stood tall and praised God, and all the  people rejoiced. Not just her. All the people.  Because when one person is unbound, everyone gets a taste of freedom. When the bent are helped  to stand upright, all of us can breathe a little easier. 

The God we worship is the God who sees us in our  bent places. The God who calls us into the center,  not to shame us but to set us free. The God who  unbends our bodies, our souls, our systems. 

And every time we gather on a Saturday night or  Sunday, we are not just keeping tradition. We are  stepping into Sabbath freedom. We are proclaiming  to the world: Pharaoh doesn’t own us. Rome  doesn’t own us. Capitalism doesn’t own us. Shame  doesn’t own us. Illness doesn’t own us. We belong  to God. 

This is not about “go out and fix yourself.” It’s not  even about “go out and fix the world.” It’s simply this: trust that the God who sees you will also set  you free. And when you do, stand tall. Praise God.  And join the rejoicing of a community that yearns to  understand and to live into what it means to be  unbent. 

Because the world says, “Not today.” Jesus says,  “Today.” 

The world says, “Stay bent.” Jesus says, “Stand  tall.” 

The world says, “Keep order.” Jesus says, “Be  free.” 

And that, beloved, is Sabbath. That is liberation.  That is the kingdom of God. 

Amen.