Sermon - 13 after Pentecost "you are an eagle"

Sermon – 13th after Pentecost
Luke 13:10-17
August 22, 2010
Journey with Jesus sermon series part 9
“you are an eagle”

“There is a tale told about a certain man went through the forest seeking any bird of interest he might find. He caught a young eagle, brought it home and put it among the chickens, and gave it chicken food to eat even though it was an eagle, the king of birds.
Five years later, a park ranger came to see him and, after passing through the garden, said 'That bird is an Eagle, not a chicken.'
'Yes' said the owner, 'but I have trained it to be a chicken. It is no longer an eagle, it is a chicken, even though it measures fifteen feet from tip to tip of its wings.'
'No,' said the park ranger, 'it is an eagle still; it has the heart of an eagle, and I will help it soar high up in to the heavens.'
'No,' said the owner. ' it is a chicken and will never fly.'
They agreed to test it. The park ranger picked up the eagle, held it up and said with great intensity: 'Eagle thou art an eagle; thou dost belong to the sky and not to this earth; stretch forth thy wings and fly.'
The eagle turned this way and that, and then looking down, saw the chickens eating their food, and down he jumped.
The owner said; 'I told you it was a chicken.'
'No,' said the park ranger, 'it is an eagle. Give it another chance tomorrow. '
So the next day he took it to the top of the house and said: 'Eagle, thou art an eagle; stretch forth thy wings and fly.' But again the eagle, seeing the chickens feeding, jumped down and fed with them.
Then the owner said: 'I told you it was a chicken.'
'No,' asserted the park ranger, 'it is an eagle, and it has the heart of an eagle; only give it one more chance, and I will make it fly tomorrow.'
The next morning he rose early and took the eagle outside the city and away from the houses, to the foot of a high mountain. The sun was just rising, gilding the top to the mountain with gold, and every crag was glistening in the joy of the beautiful morning.
He picked up the eagle and said to it: 'Eagle, thou art an eagle; thou dost belong to the sky and not to the earth; stretch forth thy wings and fly.'
The eagle looked around and trembled as if new life were coming to it. But it did not fly. The naturalist then made it look straight at the sun. Suddenly it stretched out its wings and, with the screech of an eagle, it mounted higher and higher and never returned. Though it had been kept and tamed as a chicken, it was an eagle.”

Sometimes this world can be like the man who made the eagle to be like a chicken.
Trying to define us, and turn us into something of less value.
How many times has someone told you “you can’t do this.”
Systems of oppression are like this. Those in power try to define, and deprive the people of their human rights.
Sometimes we are told that we’re chickens when we’re really eagles.
And sometimes, we believe them. Like the eagle, we begin to act like a chicken, even though we are eagles.
And they’ll have us bent over or crippled like the woman in today’s Gospel lesson.
She has been bent over for 18 years. We are told that Satan had her bound. She was oppressed and bent over physically, spiritually and socially. Society was telling her that she had no value. People probably walked right by her, they ignored her. They likely even told her that she was crippled because God was punishing her. They told her she was a chicken.

Even though she had been crippled for 18 years, she had enough strength and faith to come to worship that day.
Let’s imagine this scene. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, and even though everyone else failed to see this woman, Jesus sees her.
Jesus called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ “13When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”
In this story, Jesus is telling the woman that she is not who society says she is
In Jesus ministry he is waking people up to the kind of life God wants for them.
As we’ve discussed on our Journey with Jesus, Jesus makes it clear that the Kingdom of God where people have equal worth and all of life has dignity.

And this goes against the status quo, the “rules,” and sparks the ensuing conflict. Jesus breaks the following rules: He speaks to the woman, he touches her, he calls her to the center of the synagogue, and he calls her “daughter of Abraham.” These all claim that see is on an equal level than men and she is sacred and beautiful in God’s sight. Jesus also challenges the notion that her ailment is God’s will.
And the rule (which has been an ongoing conflict with the Pharisees) that the leader of the synagogue took issue with was that Jesus healed on the Sabbath.
Jesus responds to him saying that you missed the point of the Sabbath day.
In the passage from Isaiah, it says: “13If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; 14then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.”
The point of the Sabbath is to not go our own ways, but the way of the Lord.
In this case the way of the Lord was to free this woman. The grace of God is so radical. The idea that everyone was equal and wonderful in God’s sight did not agree with the culture at the time. What Jesus was doing was counter-cultural, and was shaking the way things were.
The passage from Hebrews says: ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’
The Kingdom of God is a place of justice, where all are equal, and all have value
Since the world is full of injustice, what Jesus said was shaking to the world
Even though society was telling the woman she was a chicken, Jesus reminded her that in the eyes of God, she is an eagle!
He is saying: woman, even though society is telling you that you don’t have value, you should know that to God you are special. You were born to be free, to fly like the eagles.

No matter how much I crumple this dollar, it’s still worth the same.
We come to this worship after a week, maybe tired, maybe crushed…maybe we are starting to believe that we are who society says we are, the names we are called. Maybe we are bent over like the woman in today’s lesson.
A lot of people are bent over these days, with more and more bad news all the time.
But we gather together in this place and we are reminded about who God says we are, that we have value, that we are eagles.
We come to the communion table and, with a touch and a word Jesus says to us:
‘you are set free from your ailment.’
Jesus sets us free! Then we are able to, like the woman, stand up straight and praise God. Amen.