Modern Sins

A Sermon for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Today there was read the Gospel narrative of the Savior’s healing of the woman who was bent over, who had suffered from this infirmity for eighteen years. The healing was accomplished by a word and by the laying of the hands of Jesus Christ[1] on the woman who was bent over.

In reading this narrative of the Savior’s healing of the woman who was bent, or cramped together, I call to mind, my brethren, the penitential prayer of Manasseh, king of Judah, in which he, confessing his lawless deeds to God, likens those lawless deeds to fetters of iron, which bent him down so severely that he cannot lift up his head: I am bent down by many fetters of iron, so that I cannot raise up my head[2]. And indeed, the woman bent over whom we hear of in the Gospel read today depicts all mankind bent down by sin; she signifies us, my brethren, you and me. The Savior who healed the woman of her bent condition is also our Savior, who daily looses us from the bounds of sins. Ah, which of us has not experienced, and does not experience daily, that our sins and the enemy of the human race bend down our souls, if not also our bodies; that they do not let the soul gaze freely toward her homeland above, but forcibly bend her to the earth, cause her to cling to, and even as it were nail her to, earthly goods and pleasures!

So then, the bent-over woman healed by the Savior signifies our soul, bent over by sin and the devil. And what would have become of our soul if Jesus Christ had not come to earth to save the human race from the violence of the devil and of the passions? What would have come of us if He did not save us continually, loosing the bonds of our sins? We would all be like that bent-over woman: bowed down under many iron bonds, crawling along the ground like animals, looking only at the earth, never lifting our gaze to our heavenly homeland, having no higher, heavenly thoughts, desires, or strivings, and simply drowning in earthly, vain cares and occupations. But why do I say this? Are there not even now among Christians those who do not have the Spirit of Christ—people whose thoughts and strivings, words and deeds are all earthly? There are, and in great numbers. Who are they? All who rave and fuss about earthly happiness, about an abundance of money, about fashionable clothes, about the splendid furnishing of a temporary dwelling, about varied and beautiful tableware, about dinner parties, social evenings, banquets, about card games, about dances, about the theater, about all sorts of pleasures and about passing the time in vanity. Do you not see that people of this kind are like that bent-over woman of whom the Gospel speaks—in this respect, that they do not look toward heaven but look only at the ground, like animals; as if they were not made in the image of God, as if the earth were their everlasting homeland, as if they had never even heard of a heavenly homeland, as if they had not been called to it by the Gospel, by the Church, by Jesus Christ, and by the apostles, as if they had been created precisely for this: to dress themselves up and to kill time in vain talk, in games, in laughter, or in the pursuit of riches? But these bent-over ones are bent over by their own will, by their own whim, by their own passion; consequently they are themselves guilty and without excuse for their bent-over condition. The woman mentioned in the Gospel, on the other hand, was bent over in body, though perhaps also on account of a sin of the soul; consequently she deserved pity for her infirmity. She could not free herself from her bent-over state, straighten up, and look straight up at heaven; whereas our bent-over ones—or, better said, all of us—can, by the grace of God, ourselves be freed from the crookedness of the passions and desires, stand straight on the path of Christ’s commandments, and gaze on high; can leave the things below, the earthly attachments, and love with all our heart the Lord God, who created us in His image and likeness, and our neighbor—and especially his soul—and the city on high, Jerusalem.

My brethren! Why did the Lord God create us with an upright frame, with our heads raised toward heaven rather than bowed down toward the earth, like the animals? — So that we might gaze unceasingly upon heaven, so that we might strive toward heaven. Is it the natural posture of the human body to be bent and bowed toward the earth, unable to stand upright? No, it is painful, unnatural. Understand, then, what this is said for. Further, in this Gospel narrative the hypocrisy of the ruler of the synagogue demands our attention—a man indignant at the Lord because He healed the bent-over woman on the Sabbath, as though it were sinful on the Sabbath to do good deeds, or works of everyday necessity that brook no delay, such as giving water to a horse, an ox, a donkey, and so on. The hypocritical ruler of the synagogue did not consider it a sin to envy the divine Wonderworker, His miracles, and the woman who had received the blessing, but he considered doing good on the Sabbath a sin. So too today many Christians consider it a sin to do something on a feast day, such as some necessary task, but do not consider it a sin to envy their neighbor, to be at enmity, to take revenge, or to drink themselves drunk, to sing indecent songs, to spend their time in distraction, in games of gain, in reading empty books, in idle talk, foolish laughter, and foul language! Or they consider it a sin to eat, even out of bodily weakness, some meat or dairy food on a fasting day, yet without a blush of conscience they despise or judge their neighbor—for instance, their acquaintances—wrong or deceive them, give short weight or short measure, or give themselves over to fleshly impurity. O hypocrisy, hypocrisy! O failure to understand the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Christian faith! Is it not inward purity, is it not meekness and humility that the Lord our God requires of us above all? Is it not the inward cups and dishes that must be cleansed, so that the outward may be clean as well? Is not the outward fast given for the aid of inward virtue? Why, then, do we pervert the divine order? O, let us come to hate hypocrisy and cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God[3]. Amen.