Dear Friends:
In the 1940’s, Nat King Cole and Irving Mills wrote a humorous song made immensely popular by the Nat King Cole Trio called Straighten Up and Fly Right. If you aren’t familiar with it, the lyrics go like this:

As humorous as that secular song was, it has some interesting parallels to what Jesus did and said in the scripture above. That song came to mind as I was preparing this article, it’s as if I could hear Jesus saying to the folks involved, straighten up and fly right. Many things happened in the lead up to Jesus’ encounter in the synagogue that day.

Jesus was somewhere between Bethany and Jerusalem, having been on an extended time of teaching and healing. He was preparing to face the cross, and He shared many powerful parables and lessons about the Kingdom of God and His mission as the Savior. He went into a synagogue one Sabbath, as He did many times during His work here on Earth, where He saw this woman come in who was bent over completely and had been that way for 18 years. He immediately called her over to Him and pronounced her healed from her infirmity. He touched her and she straightened up fully and praised the Lord with everything she had in her.

Can you imagine how liberated she felt after having to walk around bent over for 18 years. The scriptures indicate that it was the devil that had afflicted her this way, indeed, Jesus indicated so when He dealt with the Jewish leaders. In His encounter with them some interesting questions emerge that challenge us to effectively represent Christ in the hurting and confused world in which we live and are called to serve. How will we answer them as we represent Jesus Christ?

First of all, What Do We Recognize and Honor? Jesus recognized and honored this woman in three important ways. He recognized and honored her worth as a person. He didn’t ignore her as I imagine many did who saw her year after year in that condition. He recognized and honored her determination to keep coming even though the very effort to walk bent over for 18 years was probably excruciating. He also honored the fact of her belonging as a daughter of Abraham. Friends, do we recognize and value those we see around us, the lost, the broken, the cast out or cast down among us, and those that no one else seems to honor or even want around? Do we recognize and honor the fact that no matter how lost, broken, cast out or down people are, the Lord took the time to knit them together in their mothers’ wombs. He loves them, and He wants each of them to receive the blessings of redemption that we have received. We need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ blesses those that value what He values.

Secondly, How Are We Leveraging Our Investments? Jesus was disappointed at the response of the synagogue official and their leaders for criticizing Him and for chastising the people to come during the six days allotted for work and not on the Sabbath. They seemed to be ignoring the challenges they had overcome throughout their history. They had a history of incredible experiences: their bondage and release from Egypt; their wilderness experiences; their conquest of the promised land; their history of rebellion and punishment; their enslavement to Babylon, the Medes, Persians, and Greeks, and now the Romans. Yet through all of that they had the freedom to gather and worship. They didn’t seem to understand the value of all they had invested as a people and look to leverage it. Ironically, a people who experienced God’s incredible investments of compassion for them were blind or hardened in their hearts to the real needs of compassion right in front of them. Jesus called them on it. Jesus said that they worked on the Sabbath to care for their animals’ needs, but they weren’t willing to invest some compassion for someone right among them, just because it was the Sabbath. What He said stressed the importance of investing compassion into the lives of hurting people, even if it is on the Sabbath.

If you look at our lives as a series of investments, how are we leveraging them? How are we investing our time, money, efforts, heart burdens, ministries which have gotten us to where we are today? Are we investing our testimonies, our experiences, the lessons we’ve learned, the opportunities we have to impact those who are bent over by the years of life’s rigors in our very families and communities? We have an incredible storehouse of compassion from the glorious presence of the Lord in our lives that can make a world-transforming difference in the hurt and brokenness of the culture around us. Many of us make those investments, and trust me, they are appreciated. Thank you for all you do. Yet, I challenge us all to tap further into God’s compassion to lift the culture around us higher for Jesus Christ.

Lastly, What Do We Expect From Our Sabbath Worship? The Jewish Leaders in that synagogue seemed to really put stock in how sacred the Sabbath was, and this certainly honors the commandment of God. They had long-established sets of rules and regulations. They honed in on their rituals for what should happen on the Sabbath. They had solidified all of their conventions for how the Sabbath process should be exercised, and they were determined to do Sabbath right, bringing punishment on anyone who didn’t do what was prescribed. But Jesus took it right to the heart of the matter, and He chided the Jewish leaders for their hypocrisy in caring more about their animals than the people, and it hit hard. He also challenged them to consider what the significance was in their Sabbath worship. “This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”

They were confronted by Jesus with exactly the same thing that confronts us in the church today. What do we really expect from our Sabbath Worship? Is it about routines, rituals, regulations, and conventions? Is it about the right kind of music we have? Is it about the right kind of preaching, praying, offerings? Or do we hope that when we come together that we will connect with the Lord, in the fullness of the Godhead… Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Do we want to plug in to the presence, power, and purpose of the Lord when we gather and do what we do? Do we want to hear a Word from the Lord, and perhaps receive the healing that many so desperately seek?

Do we want to experience a touch from the Lord that will straighten us up to rejoice when life and the work of the enemy have us bent over for what seems like forever? Do we want to experience the blessings of liberty that only Jesus can bring when we truly are in His presence? These are the blessings of Sabbath Worship that we ought to expect when we come together. Through this great encounter it’s as if Jesus was telling the woman and the hurting around us, “straighten up,” for that which had bent you over has been removed. And it’s as if He is telling us church folks, “fly right,” so that the compassion of the Lord can flow through us into the lives of those who desperately need it.

Friends, in this crazy culture that is so divided and angry, hurting, upside-down and growing increasingly estranged from the compassion of Jesus Christ, the Church of God has a great opportunity to straighten up and fly right.

With love,
Rev. Mark K. Richardson, State Pastor