Can You Do Something For Me?

Can You Do Something For Me?
Luke 13:10-17

Walking through a nursing home, one day, I heard a voice calling out. That’s not so unusual. You will often hear people calling out from one corner or from another room. This voice was calling, “Can you do something for me?” I will confess that I did not look around, too hard. At first, not at all. There can be so much need, and with so many residents who are confused or with dementia, you never know what you’re going to get in to. Better to leave it to the staff. Except, I didn’t see any staff around, either. Only the voice kept intruding into my world, “Can you do something for me?”
I began imagining what the person might need: assistance going to her room, but would she even know which room was hers? Perhaps a drink of water, but is he allowed to have plain water, does he need to have his drink thickened so he doesn’t have it go down the wrong pipe? Maybe she needs assistance going to the bathroom. The possibilities seemed endless, and the possibilities I was imagining were not so good. Then I remembered a doctor I had worked with telling about being in a nursing home with a physician resident she was training. A person was calling out to them and the resident was content to ignore him. The doctor, my friend, insisted that you never ignore the call of a human being who may need your help. She stopped to check on the resident and she made sure that his needs were tended to. Now I was convicted. I was guilty of being ready to not see a fellow human being who might need my help. So I looked around a little more carefully and saw the woman who was calling out. She was in a wheel chair and had a well worn Bible on her lap. She looked sad. She would hardly look my direction, only called out as if to no one or to everyone, “Can you do something for me?” Finally I go over to her, bend down, speak to her. She repeated her question, now directed clearly at me: Can you do something for me? I answered: I don’t know if I can, but I will try. She then made her request: Will you have a good day? and she gave me the most mischievous grin I had ever seen in a person over 10 years old.

How quick are we to not see? Sometimes our not seeing is purposefully selective. Sometimes it’s a matter of being busy and distracted. I’m at the grocery store and come around the corner to find someone at the end of the aisle that I know will corner me and want to talk. All I want is to grab what I need and head home. So I pretend to not see. If she approaches me as I am looking away, I could simply say, “Oh, Hi. I didn’t see you.” At least at the moment I wasn’t seeing her.

Driving downtown there is so much that is not so attractive. Homeless people pushing shopping carts, homeless people resting on the walk leaning against a building. A tough looking person-of-color walking near the road. And I stop at a traffic light as a group of young professional men and women, dressed to the nines, cross the street. You know, it’s so much more enjoyable looking at successful, attractive people than those who appear needy or threatening.

At church we tend to see, first, those that we like. We look for friends or family. Is she here, yet? If someone appears too needy or threatening, it’s easy to pretend we don’t see them. I have met many a person who has told me that they stopped going to church because they never felt like they were accepted or they never seemed to fit in. On the other hand, they enjoyed going to bars and juke joints because they always felt welcomed and a part of the group, like the old tv show, Cheers, “Where everyone knows your name.”

I imagine the bent over woman felt rather invisible when she showed up at the synagogue for worship. I wonder if she preferred it that way, wanting to fade into the woodwork, to worship without drawing attention to herself. I wonder if the attention she received was comforting to her. or if it added to her feeling of guilt and shame, after all such ailments as hers were seen as judgement for her sins.

So Jesus is at the synagogue on the Sabbath. There are strict rules for sabbath observance. Jesus is in the Synagogue to worship and to teach. After all, he has developed quite a reputation of late for his teachings. As he is teaching, his eyes connect with a woman in the back. She quickly looks away, hoping he did not see her, or that he will ignore her like so many others have. But he sees her more clearly than she sees herself. “Woman, come here.” What can she do? Where can she hide? “Woman, come here.” His words are gentle but firm. She makes her way to where Jesus is. Luke emphasises her condition, stating it clearly three times. Luke says: She had “a spirit that had crippled her for 18 years.” (With 52 weeks a year that would be 936 Sabbaths.) Luke adds: “She was bent over.” He states it again: She “was quite unable to stand up straight.” Jesus speaks. Will he use her as an example of the effects of sin? He says: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Then do you know what Jesus dared to do, right there in the synagogue, in front of the synagogue president, the elders, in front of God and everybody? He put his hands on her. He touched the woman. How long had it been in the past two decades that someone purposefully and with compassion touched her? And immediately she stood up straight. Wow! And just as immediately, she began praising God. If that was my momma, I would be praise right along with her.

The leaders of the congregation still did not see her as a person. Before, she was an annoyance or an example. Now, she was a problem. We can always appeal to the law to assuage our discomforts. She could come on any day of the week to be healed, but NO, you decided to break the sabbath law by healing her today. Of course, for 18 years, 936 Sabbaths, they could have provided her some comfort, some compassion, but they were too busy tending to their beasts of burden than to worry about the burden of this woman. To Jesus before them stood a person, a woman, a daughter of Abraham!

To simply see a person, to touch with compassion, to speak words of grace has such power, power to heal. Where do you need to be touched? What healing do you need in your life? Is there an inner battle going on within you? Is there a spirit that has hold of you that keeps you closed off from receiving love from someone, or that keeps you from being able to give yourself freely to another? Is there a shame that you feel in your life, a shame for something that happened long ago, or something that keeps happening in the darker corners of your life? Do you feel shame simply in being you with your particular set of weaknesses and struggles? Where do you need to be touched, to be healed?

On the other hand, perhaps you are quite content. Your skin fits comfortably. That is, you are happy with who you are and have no concerns or worries that trouble you. What has made the difference in your life? How can you share that grace with someone else?

Truth be told, most of us are a mixture of being content, feeling loved, able to give love, and being discontent, knowing our imperfections, our shortcomings, those secrets that might cause others to not love us so much. We are the bent over woman and we are the Jewish leaders. Others we see are also a mixture. Those who seem strong and secure have their hidden hurts. Those who seem needy or who are hurtful, also have have qualities that are good and even lovable. Sometimes the lovable person is hidden pretty deeply under so much pain that it is easy for us to dismiss them as outside the bounds of being lovable. And Jesus sees each one of us as a person, a man or a woman, as a child of Abraham.

Doug Smith is a hospice chaplain and the author of a few books related to his work. In one book, Being a Wounded Healer, he shares this story:

In hospice work, I have often seen people taking off their armor and witnessed the healing that comes to those people as they do that. The dying process many times even forces people into taking off their armor. The following dialogue illustrates the kind of healing that results from such loss of armor.

Tom was a gruff, highly controlled individual who was dying of prostate cancer. One day I was in his room with his wife and sister when the following occurred:

     Tom: “I want everyone to leave the room except for Doug. I would like the women to leave.” The women left the room. Tom then searched my face as if he were tying to see if he could trust me.
     Tom: "I got a problem."
     Doug: "What?"
     Tom: "I can’t cry!"
     Doug: "What?"
     Tom (practically shouting): "I can’t cry, dammit!"
     Doug: "And you want to cry?"
     Tom: "Yeah. I want to cry."
     Doug: "What’s holding you back, Tom?"
     Tom: "I don’t know how."
     Doug: "You don’t know how?"
     Tom (practically shouting): "Yeah, I don’t know how."
     Doug: "Why do you have to know how?"
     Tom (practically shouting): "Because, you cant’ do anything you don’t know how to do! What are you, dense?"
     Doug: "Let’s just calm down, Tom. Calm down..." (He calmed down a little) "...You sound angry."
     Tom: (Immediately stiffening up again, he shouts): "I am angry, dammit! I can’t cry!"
     Doug: "Tom, tears are usually because of sadness, not anger...Are you sad?"
     Tom: (after a long pause): "Yea, dammit! I’m sad!"
     Doug: "Tom, hug me."
     Tom: "What!"
     Doug: "You heard me. Hug me."
     Tom: "I’m not going to hug you!"
     Doug: "Tom, hug me."
     Tom: "No!"
     Doug: "Tom, put your arms around me and hug me."
     Tom: "Why?"
     Doug: "Tom, put your arms around me and hug me."
     Tom (Edging a little closer, he seemed a little calmer.): "How’s that going to help?"
     Doug: "Tom, put your arms around me and hug me." He wrapped his arms around me. They felt like two baseball bats attached to a robot.
     Tom (talking through his teeth): "Now what?"
     Doug: "Relax." He tightened up some more.
     Doug: "Relax." He was silent. He loosened up a little.
     Doug: "Relax some more, Tom." His baseball bats were getting softer, the robot appeared to be getting deprogrammed. He was silent.
     Doug: "Relax some more, Tom." His arms were now softly enfolded around me.
     Doug: "Relax, Tom . . . It’s okay. It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to cry." There was a still silence, a little tightening, then a little more loosening, then a faint quiver throughout his entire body, then the quiver started building, starting to become a shake, then he swallowed loudly two times, then a soft choking sound, then he started bawling, gushing tears, and more tears, and more tears. After thoroughly soaking my shirt with tears, Tom unwrapped his arms and stood back. He stood back with a softness, a softness I had never before seen in him.
     Tom: "That felt good, real good. You don’t know how good that felt. . . It felt real good! Dammit! That felt real good!"    

(Being A Wounded Healer: How to Heal Ourselves While We are Healing Others, Douglas C. Smith; Psycho-Spiritual Publications, Madison, Wisconsin, 1999, pp76ff.)

We don’t know what burdens people are carrying that cause them to appear so difficulty, so needy, or so threatening. But as we share our love and the love of Christ, healing can begin.

Today, there are people around us who we have chosen not to see. Oh, we may see them with our eyes, but only enough to know how to look the other way or to keep our distance. Sometimes we are truly overwhelmed and need to take care of ourselves. Other times we simply don’t know what to do, or are afraid of what might be expected, or we just don’t want to be bothered.

May we learn to see through the exteriors of those who make us uncomfortable that we might recognize the child of God that lives inside. May we learn to see within ourselves that we have the capacity to be healed and to offer healing. May we open our eyes and see those who have been unseen for too long.

And may the grace and love of Jesus Christ bring healing and wholeness into our world.

Can you do something for me? . . . . . Will you have a good day?!