PEOPLE OVER PROGRAMS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 17, 2021 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: February 17, 2021 from Luke 13:10-17

Theme: Our Lord gives two parables that show how the kingdom of God spreads in this world.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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In the Gospel of Luke, we were given an extended description of a time in which the Lord Jesus dealt with the problem of religious hypocrisy. It’s found in Luke 11:14 to 13:9—the story of the mute man that the Lord Jesus healed, and of the Pharisees and scribes that criticized Him for it. In our last time together, we came to the end of that story.

But we haven’t come to the end of the subject itself. In Luke 13:10-17, we find another story concerning religious hypocrisy. This is a problem that almost never goes away—and we constantly need to be taught about it and to be on guard against it.

Luke tells us;

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him (Luke 13:10-17).

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Now; this is a story that is told only in Luke’s Gospel. It’s interesting to read a story of how Jesus healed an illness or an infirmity in the Gospel of Luke; because Luke—in addition to being a great historian—was also a physician. But it’s also good of the Holy Spirit that He preserved this particular story for us through Luke, because the woman’s illness becomes an important lesson to us about our Lord’s priorities in the context of formal worship.

One of the sad tendencies of religious people is that of putting religious ritual and ceremony over people. ‘The program’ becomes more important than ‘the person’. That’s not something that is inherent to sincere faith in Jesus. It’s something alien to it. It’s something that comes from our fallenness, and that doesn’t belong in true worship. And as this story shows us, placing ‘programs’ over ‘people’ can end up being dreadfully cruel and insensitive to people. It allows us to appear to be filled with religious devotion; while at the same time failing to show the kind of compassion toward people that our Lord wants us to show.

Do you remember the story of how the Pharisees once confronted Jesus because His disciples didn’t wash their hands in the proper, ceremonial way before they ate? We’re told about this in Matthew 15. The Pharisees were great experts on the proper performance of religious traditions. But an emphasis on those traditions resulted in their being insensitive to people’s needs. Jesus then asked the hand-washing Pharisees;

“Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”—then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:3-6).

That was the problem. They put the traditions first; and thus they made the commandment of God—specifically the commandment to show loving compassion and care for their mother and father—to be “of no effect”.

Now; religious traditions in and of themselves are not wrong. There are many of them that—in fact—have been given to us by God. But in the story in Luke 13, we see a story of the compassion of Jesus toward a person in need; and it teaches us that we need to put people over programs—persons over rituals—human needs over religious traditions.

To do otherwise is ‘hypocrisy’.

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Notice first what this passage shows us about …

1. THE MERCY OF JESUS (vv. 10-13).

Luke tells us that Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. He was involved in an important religious practice on a day of worship. We can just imagine that people were listening to His teaching with fascination and reverence. But then Luke says, “behold”; a woman came with a terrible and crippling infirmity. The language suggests that she came in while Jesus was in the process of teaching. She probably didn’t mean to call attention to herself or to—in any way—disrupt the sacred service. But it does seem—because of what we read later in the passage—that she came in the hopes that she might be healed by Jesus.

It would have been impossible not to notice her. Luke tells us that she was bent over in such a way that she could—in no way—raise herself up. She had to walk around as best she could in a doubled-over position. She could never look into people’s eyes when she spoke to them. She perhaps couldn’t breathe or eat without difficulty. It may be that she could barely walk or function in normal life. It would have been a pathetic sight. And what’s more, she had been in this crippling position for eighteen years before she had come to Jesus. This would have taken the best years of her life from her. And most horrible of all is the fact that this disability had a diabolical source. We’re told that she had “a spirit of infirmity”; which suggests that it was brought about through some kind of demonic oppression. And later on in this passage, Jesus Himself said that she was being ‘bound by Satan’. The fact that we’re told that she could ‘in no way’ raise herself up suggests to us that she sought to be relieved and delivered from this dreadful condition—but could find no help. There was no hope for her—except in Jesus.

Jesus saw her. And even though He was in the process of teaching, He stopped and called her to Himself. She was—right then—more important to Him than the formal proceedings of the sacred service in the synagogue. And notice what He did. First, he said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” She had been bound by Satan; and now, He released her from her spiritual bondage. She was freed from the devil’s grasp. And then, we’re told that He laid His hands on her; “and immediately she was made straight …” Jesus instantly healed her body. After that, the worship service continued—but in a way that was not a part of the regular order of service. We’re told that the woman recognized where her deliverance had just come from; “and glorified God.”

Jesus places the priority of people’s needs over the programs and proceedings of religious ritual. He didn’t discount true acts of sacred worship and ceremony. But He placed people first. There’s a story told in John’s Gospel of how Jesus healed a crippled man and told him to take up the cot he had been laying on and walk away. And we’re told that the Jewish leaders persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He did these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” (John 5:17).

The Father’s work involves compassion and mercy to people. And Jesus did that work whenever the Father did it. He did so even in the midst of the formal act of teaching in the sacred service of the synagogue.

Now; you would have thought that everyone would have rejoiced over this woman’s healing. But no. This is when we then see …

2. THE CRITICISM FROM THE SYNAGOGUE RULER (v. 14).

The synagogue ruler was responsible for the sacred proceedings of the synagogue—and to his mind, there was no more sacred program that worship on the Sabbath. When he saw this woman coming in with her need, and Jesus interrupting the proceedings by healing her—and even doing the work of healing her on the holy day of the Sabbath—we’re told that he responded with indignation. How dare the sacred service of the synagogue be dishonored in this way (that is, by a miraculous healing from God)!

But notice that he didn’t speak to Jesus. Perhaps he didn’t feel that he dared to rebuke Him directly. Instead, he rebuked the crowd. He said, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.” And really, wasn’t this a ridiculous thing for the synagogue ruler to say? “Don’t come on the Sabbath to get healed. Come on one of the other six days.” After all, who ever came to the synagogue to be healed at all?—on any day? And even if they did, what were they all supposed to do? To whom exactly were people supposed to ‘come and be healed’ on any of those other days? His strange prohibition seems to have come more from a jealous desire to maintain control than from anything else.

That—by the way—is often where this whole idea of placing ‘programs’ over ‘people’ actually comes from. It comes from a desire to exercise an illegitimate control over people while pretending to be concerned for sacred things. It’s another form of hypocrisy.

That’s when we find …

3. THE HYPOCRISY EXPOSED (vv. 15-16).

We’re told that the Lord answered the man and said, “Hypocrite!” (I’d bet that really disrupted the peaceful order of the sacred service—don’t you?) In other translations, they have it that Jesus spoke in the plural; “Hypocrites!” And then Jesus revealed the hypocrisy of the religious leader and of the religious participants by giving an example from their own daily lives: “Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” He was arguing from the lesser to the greater. None of those pious Jewish people would hesitate to violate the Sabbath in order to care for their own animals in need. How much more should this woman be cared for—a daughter of Abraham—on the Sabbath?

Jesus was really doing what God said actually should be done on the Sabbath. The Sabbath and the sacred days of fasting weren’t meant to be for rituals and practices that focused on one’s self. In Isaiah 58, God Himself said;

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
Your healing shall spring forth speedily,
And your righteousness shall go before you;
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:6-9).

He told His people;

“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken” (vv. 13-14).

In showing compassion to this woman, Jesus was actually demonstrating what God’s priority truly is in the Sabbath and the sacred services of worship.

Finally, notice …

4. THE RESPONSE OF THOSE WHO SAW (v. 17).

We’re told, “And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame …” This probably doesn’t mean that they repented. It most likely means that they were humiliated in front of everyone, and that they were shown to be hypocritical in the way they practiced the sacred service. But notice also that “all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.” Jesus’ act of mercy to the woman in the midst of the sacred time of worship ended up resulting in genuine praise to God for His compassion and care and power in people’s lives.

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Now; let’s be careful that we understand this rightly. Jesus was not condemning sacred acts of worship. He was not showing contempt for legitimate acts of ceremony and ritual. He was not even necessarily condemning tradition. Rather what He was showing us that, when it comes to worship, the needs of people take precedence over the preservation of programs. It doesn’t even matter if the order of service gets interrupted by the genuine needs of people.

Let’s be grateful that our Savior put people in that kind of a priority. And let’s follow His example. To do so is to truly reverence God.

EA