Interim Rector Reflection
This Sunday’s Gospel comes from Luke. It’s a healing miracle, and this time it is a woman “with a spirit that [has] crippled her for eighteen years.” In the midst of the gathered crowd, Jesus sees her, calls her over, lays his hands on her, heals her, and sets her free. And then no one refers to her again. Jesus gets critiqued for healing on the sabbath, and Jesus sets them straight. Setting people free from bondage and pain and isolation is exactly what we should be doing on the sabbath. It’s not work. It’s transformation. It’s freedom. It’s grace.
“The crowd” is a major character in this passage and worth our attention. Remembering that there’s no detail in the Gospels that is unintentional, “the crowd” is mentioned twice in this particular miracle story. The Koine Greek word for crowd is ὄχλος (ókhlos), pronounced “OAK-lohse” with a gravel-y ‘k,’ and it appears in many miracle stories in Luke’s Gospel.
Why is it important that “the crowd” be mentioned? For one, people in first century Palestine, without the benefit of modern medicine, were afraid of people in their communities with physical ailments (bent backs; blindness; hemorrhaging), diseases (leprosy), and mental illness (demons). And so they isolated them, kept them at bay, banished them to the outskirts of the town. The separation from community added greatly to the suffering of the afflicted.
I have long thought that the reason the crowd is usually present in Jesus’ healing miracles, is that Jesus’ healings weren’t about magic, but about restoration - a healing of the rift, the separation, the shunning of the sufferer from their community. Jesus heals the affliction, yes, but more importantly, in so doing he restores the person to their community. It’s a physical healing, but also a spiritual and relational healing. The sufferer is given back their place in the community, and restored to wholeness.
What Jesus taught is that following him, learning to live as his disciples, necessitates community. Discipleship is not something we do alone with an app or a podcast or a book or a candle. Christian life and practice requires that we live and practice with others. No one person knows everything there is to know about God, or about following Jesus. No one person has had all the epiphanies, or all the experiences of living and loving. We need each other’s stories and experiences to go deeper in our awareness of the mysteries of God. It’s in community that we learn from each other, are inspired by each other’s proclamation or prophecy or awakening. It’s in community that we raise our kids and tell the old stories and celebrate living and mourn our dead. It’s in community that we best care for each other. If the Gospels teach us anything it tells us, over and again, that to be truly faithful, truly worshipful, truly attentive to the living God we need one another in community.
The St. Paul’s Vestry has prioritized “community” - namely, the strengthening of our relationships with each other - as their top priority for the interim time. This priority means making room in our lives for each other. It means introducing ourselves, sharing our stories, having fun together, getting to know each other in a deeper, more intentional way. It means investing in the life of the community with renewed verve and intent, as if our discipleship depends on it (because it kind of does).
This program year you’ll notice increased opportunities to be in relationship with each other, to mix and share and learn and play. You no doubt saw it last Sunday at Mess Fest, when not only our community gathered, but so many from the wider community in an explosion of joy and fun and messiness. You’ll see it next Sunday when Mark Bozzuti-Jones joins us for a mini-retreat on Saturday and for worship Sunday as our preacher. You’ll get a big dose of community at the All-Parish retreat in September and the Indians game when St. Paul’s Choir School leads the National Anthem. Maybe you’ll catch a baseball sitting next to someone from St. Paul’s who you’ve never had the pleasure of getting to know. Please make yourself available for the St. Paul’s community this program year. All that’s needed is you, who you are, and the willingness to connect with - and be known by - your siblings in Christ.
