On the Sabbath, Jesus sets free a woman who was crippled for eighteen years by Satan. On the Sabbath, Jesus says to her, “Woman, you are loosed.” You are free. You are enslaved to your infirmity no longer. Jesus unties the knots in her back so she again can stand up straight in his presence. He sets her free from bondage. And he sets us free from bondage.

This is what Jesus does. He sets his people free. “The truth will set you free” and Jesus is the truth – “the way, the truth, and the life” – the word incarnate, truth himself (John 14:6).

And the truth is, it is sin and death, passions and suffering, addictions and illnesses, powers and principalities that enslave us. It is Jesus who sets us free.

He does not “come into the world to condemn the world but to save the world” (). As we prepare for his coming into the world at Christmas, remember what Gabriel says to Mary: “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,” for he will save his people from their sins. The name Jesus means “the Lord saves” and it’s related to the Hebrew for “deliverance.”

But some mischaracterize Jesus as the one who binds us – as an enslaver rather than a liberator. They say this because we Christians preach the commandments of him whom we love. And they say this because they do not know what freedom is.

Some think of freedom as the license to do as they please. They regard the very idea of sin as judgmentalism. But the truth is that we who are sinners are enslaved to sin. We quickly discover this when we try and fail by our own power to live sinlessly. It is possible only by the grace of God to live sinlessly. Of course, if we don’t try at all, we might think we’re free because we’re doing just as we like. But we’re really only free if we can make the choice to sin no more. And that is only possible in Jesus Christ.

This fasting that we’re doing until Christmas is meant to help free us from our enslavement to sin. Fasting reveals to us how enslaved to our passions we really are. Once we start to practice self-control, we quickly learn how out of control we are – how badly we need to rely on the Lord for strength. Fasting without prayer is worthless. Whatever it is we have freely chosen to fast from will doubtlessly allure us at some point during our fast, unless we are fasting from something we don’t want anyway, (in which case, we should add to our fast something we do want, because fasting should train us to resist temptation).  “By training the Christian to abstain from sin, [fasting] leads to interior freedom and true joy.”[i] But how quickly and easily we look for ways to justify breaking our fast. How clear it is at times that we are enslaved to our desires. We seek freedom from this enslavement and we find it only in Christ.

There are two kinds of freedom: bodily freedom and spiritual freedom. And there are two figures in today’s gospel who illustrate these two kinds of freedom: the bent over woman and the ruler of the synagogue.

Behold the woman. She is enslaved in body until Christ frees her. But even though a spirit of infirmity afflicts her body, it does not afflict her spirit. Behold how faithful she is. She freely attends synagogue on the Sabbath., despite having suffered for so long – for eighteen long years. This has not crushed her spirit. Her body is bowed down, but even so she bows down to the Lord. How frustrating she must be to Satan. He crushes the bones of her back thinking he can thereby crush her spirit. But no. She has a freedom he cannot touch, even as he afflicts her body. And her freedom to be faithful to God, to go anyway to synagogue, despite the pain it obviously causes her, results in her being in the presence of Jesus, which results in her healing, and her freedom even in body. Jesus takes away even the little power that Satan had over her. He frees her totally. He restores totally her true and free nature.

Because really we are made for freedom in both body and spirit. God makes us like himself: unique, relational, and free – but by our sins we have clouded this likeness. When we sin, we surrender our freedom.

And what likeness to God we have lost through sin, suffering, and death, Christ comes to restore through his incarnation.  Just as Jesus restores the bent over woman to her true nature, so he is restoring us.

In the meantime, the bent over woman in the synagogue teaches us that suffering does not actually keep us from the freedom to which God calls us.

But then there is the ruler of the synagogue. He is free in body, free to speak to all those gathered there, and in a position to remonstrate with them loftily. But he is enslaved in spirit. His bondage is worse than hers. The crippling of her body did not shackle her mind or heart, but he, whose body is well, is unlovingly indignant about the Lord’s deliverance of the woman.[ii]  His passionate regard for the letter of the law only distracts him from the true spirit of the law, as he criticizes the people there for seeking healings on the Sabbath. He has forgotten what the Sabbath really is and what it is for. He has made it more like a rope around the neck than a hand untying that rope. The Sabbath rest is not meant to burden God’s people. The Sabbath is a day of freedom – freedom from the drudgery and toil to which we’ve been enslaved by sin since Adam. It was made to be a day of rest – “that is, a time of liberation.”[iii] Rest from extortion and from enslaving others. As Ambrose says, “The Sabbath is… a day of rest from evil deeds.”[iv] It’s not a day of rest from mercy. Nor are we to rest from giving drink to the thirsty or from delivering the afflicted children of God. More than once, Jesus heals on the Sabbath for this reason. That is what the Sabbath is all about.

Remember the Jubilee year, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the year after seven sets of seven years when all debts were forgiven and all slaves were freed. This is what Jesus is doing on the Sabbath. He is freeing slaves. Those enslaved to illnesses and infirmities of body he heals. Those enslaved to demons he delivers. He is our healer, our deliverer, our liberator.

And he is come to free us today – here and now. True freedom is really available to us in the present moment – in the here and the now. Though we often think it is only possible in the future, or even in the hereafter, we have it all wrong. The bent over woman was already free in the most important way, even though she and we have to wait for the coming of the Lord for our total liberation, there was a consoling measure of freedom available to her even in the midst of her enslavement – a freedom of mind and heart, that all of us can share.

The Lord grants access to this freedom if we will open ourselves to his presence in our lives as through repentance, prayer, fasting, and giving to all.

 

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[i] Ukrainian Catechism, 220

[ii] Commentary by Warren Wiersbe

[iii] Sacra Pagina

[iv] Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 7.174-75

Now we are fasting. Now we are simplifying our lives. Now we give to those in need what we save by fasting and simplifying our lives.

Now we examine our consciences in peace. Now we confess and repent of our own sins. Now we are reconciled with God and with the Church. Now we do penance.

Now we remove distractions and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Now we strip away what does not matter and give ourselves over to the one thing that does.

Now is the time.

Now we pray.  Now we try to learn what it means to pray unceasingly. Now we spend less time watching television and more time reading scripture. Now we come more often to the church to pray and worship God.

Because now our lives are demanded of us.

God will say to those unprepared to stand in his glory, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you.” (Luke 12:20). It does not do to make preparations for this passing life while neglecting to prepare for the everlasting life that is to come. Pope Benedict XVI observes, “This life is not everything. There is an eternity. Today it is very unmodern to say this, even in theology.” But it remains true, and the weight of the eternal is infinitely greater than the weight of all the years of our earthly life.

How can we prepare for that limitless life and the unfathomable glory of God? He has made the way simple for us. He is the way.

The Philip’s Fast, which we have now begun in preparation for the Nativity of Jesus Christ, is a season of preparation for the coming of the Lord into the world. The Lord is coming into the world.

One morning, we will wake up and it will feel like Christmas morning when we were children, because the Lord will have come into the world. Anyway, that’s how it will feel if we have prepared for him. Either way, that day is coming.

This Philip’s Fast is another chance to prepare. I had the opportunity this week to meet up online with several of my old seminary chums. It was a group video chat, so I could see all of them as well as talk to them, even though we were all over the country. Such technological marvels we live among these days. Real life is like an episode of Star Trek. Anyway, unlike the rest of them, I didn’t have a camera, so they couldn’t see me like I could see them. All they could see of me was a photo taken a few years ago. So, I pointed out that I’d gained about 20 lbs. since that photo had been taken. Fr. Lewis chided me, “That doesn’t sound very ascetical, John.” And so I affably retorted, “Well, it’s a good thing we’re starting the Philip’s Fast now. Thank God there’s always another chance to repent.”

“Yeah,” said Fr. Dcn. Tom, “until there’s not.”

There won’t, in fact, always be more time. “The great day of the Lord is near – near and hastening fast” (Zeph 1:14). This Philip’s Fast is another opportunity to prepare and repent. Let’s not squander this chance. How many more will there be? What we do as a Church in these fasting seasons teaches us how to live our lives in preparation for the last things and the everlasting things.

Here’s the thing: the day is coming when we will stand in the glory of the Lord. This is true whether or not we prepare for that glorious day. If we do not prepare (by living the life of God and cooperating with his grace) our experience of that glory will be painful – like staring straight into the sun. But, if we first allow ourselves to be transfigured, little by little, by God’s own energies, then we will truly live this life he is giving us, and, on that day, we will be the glory of God.

“The glory of God is man truly alive,” as St. Irenaeus says. Jesus says to his Father, “I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:22). You see, this glory of God makes us one with one another just as God, who is three Persons, is one.

What unifies us is the same as what unifies God: love. God is love (1 John 4:8). So, the way to prepare to stand in the glory of God, the way to become the glory of God, to become one as the Persons of God are one, is to love one another. This is the simple way.

We all want to be loved, and that’s as it should be, I believe. Even God wants to be loved. And he made all of us lovable. All of us. You are lovable and God loves you. Love one another as he loves you (John 13:34). Then you will be prepared to stand in his glory and receive his love not as a searing fire but as a transfiguring light.

There’s an infamous story about Kitty Genovese who, in 1964, was knifed in her neighborhood in Queens. She screamed for help. And more than a dozen heard her cries. Yet no one did anything to help or to intervene. Reports have often exaggerated the details of this event, but the fact remains that at least one witness knew she was stabbed and yet did nothing. Not until she was attacked yet again by the same man did someone else call the police. And by then it was too late.

You see, Jesus’ parable today is not so far-fetched. People really act this way sometimes. The priest and the Levite witness the suffering of a fellow man and yet do nothing to intervene. This happens in incidents that grab headlines and it happens in our daily lives.

I hope not many of us have had to witness such atrocities. Those of us who have, I hope, have done something to intervene. But for all of us, it isn’t difficult to find human suffering. Even if our suffering is not so great, we all do suffer and we all, daily, encounter the suffering of one another. If we read the news, it will mostly be about suffering. At work, we may witness spiteful and petty cruelties between coworkers. In our families, we may deal with illnesses. When we go into the city, we may encounter homelessness and addiction.

In my experience, everywhere we go, we see suffering. And wherever we recognize the suffering of another, we may take that recognition, I believe, as a calling from God to intervene. To be an instrument of God’s healing and help. To be a neighbor.

What we should do in each given situation requires discernment, but we can trust that God has put us in the situation for his purposes. Each and every time. There is nothing random or arbitrary about the situations we find ourselves in, though it may seem that way. In truth, God has put us there. And it’s not to bring harm or callousness, but to bring healing and compassion. If you are witnessing human suffering, God is calling upon you to be a neighbor to the one who suffers.

The lawyer, desiring to justify himself, asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” The witness of Kitty Genovese’s attack must have thought, oh she is someone else’s neighbor. Someone else’s problem. Not mine. It’s nothing to do with me. Leave me out of it. When in fact, each witness is given an opportunity by God – not by random chance or accident (which does not exist) but by God, who personally knows and loves every victim, every witness, and every sinner.

When the man is beaten by robbers, God sends him a priest. God calls upon this priest to intervene for good, to help, to show mercy. To the priest, God gives the first opportunity to act as God’s instrument of healing. But the priest passes him by on the other side. He passes by the robbed and beaten man – and he passes by the calling of God in that moment – and he passes by the image of God lying in the dirt. So, when the priest fails to do his will, God sends a Levite. And when the Levite fails, God sends a Samaritan, who acts in every way as an image of Christ to the robbed and beaten victim.

Now Samaritans and Jews would ordinarily have nothing to do with one another – they were enemies – but this Samaritan gives no consideration to that. He sees past that tribal acrimony to his common humanity with this bruised and battered Jew from Jerusalem he finds lying in the road.

Our common humanity has its grounding both in the earth we’re made out of and in the breath of life – the ruach – the spirit that God breathes into our nostrils. We are earth with God breathed in – and no human divisions can surmount that common identity.

Our neighbors are not only those with whom we have certain kinds of kinship. Not only our family members and friends. Not only our coreligionists. If we were to assist only those who share our faith, we would thereby prove the enemies and critics of faith correct. They say that faithful religious people are the cause conflict and violence. This becomes true if we fail to live our faith truly.

Neighborliness is not due only to the groups in which we find ourselves. Not only to the born, the young, the healthy, and the free but also to the unborn, the elderly, the sick, the imprisoned and enslaved. Not only to Americans, but also to the French and to Syrians and Iraqis and all the people of all the nations of the world. Not only to Christians, but also to Muslims and Jews and Pagan, and atheists. Not only to the moral, the innocent, and the orthodox, but also to the immoral, the guilty, and the heretical. Also to sinners. Sinners and hypocrites like us.

How often, desiring to justify ourselves, we say, “Well maybe I’m not perfect, but at least I’m not like so and so. At least I don’t want to do this or that evil. Ugh, how can a person even be tempted by that sin? I’m so far above that.”  Believe me, our own sins are no better. St. Mark the Ascetic writes that “the devil makes small sins seem smaller in our eyes, for otherwise he can’t lead us to greater evil.”[i] The very fact that our own sins look so innocent to us reveals the depth of our depravity.  How much we stand in need of the cross and of the Lord’s forgiveness and his great mercy, available to us all in the holy mystery of repentance.

We enter this week on Friday into the Philip’s Fast, which is a season of repentance. This is an especially good time of year for us to identify with all the other sinners in the world, to stop thinking ourselves better than others, to repent, to confess our own sins rather than listing the sins of others, to fast and to give to the poor, to pray for peace on earth, to be a neighbor to all.

So be a neighbor to all people, not because all people are equally right, or because there any truth the relativistic nonsense that “your truth is true for you but not for me,” but because being right is never a person’s deepest identity. Our deepest identity is that which God creates in us – his own image. Therefore, we must never allow our differences with other people – even when they’re in the wrong – to justify any hatred or indifference toward them.

Paul writes, “There is… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there is one God who is father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all” (Eph 4:5-6). That is our relationship with all others. Always bear this in mind. It makes us neighbors of all people, even our enemies. As St. Gregory the Theologian writes and as we sing each Pascha, “Let us call brethren even those who hate us.”

 

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[i] “On the Spiritual Law: Two Hundred Texts” No. 94,