Narrative Context
Luke places this scene in the midst of Jesus’ long journey to Jerusalem, a stretch of the Gospel marked by teachings, parables, and healings that all point to what the kingdom of God looks like when it breaks into the world. Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath when he notices a woman who has been bent over for eighteen years. Without being asked, he calls her forward, lays his hands on her, and announces her freedom. Immediately she stands up straight and praises God.
But not everyone is rejoicing. The synagogue leader voices his objection, not directly to Jesus, but to the crowd, that healing on the Sabbath is inappropriate at the least or at worst breaking God’s commandment. Jesus responds with a pointed question: if people can untie their animals to give them water on the Sabbath, surely this daughter of Abraham deserves to be set free on the Sabbath too. The story ends with Jesus’ opponents shamed and the whole crowd rejoicing.
Pitfalls to Avoid
There are at least two homiletical pitfalls to watch for with this text.
1. Turning Jewish leaders into straw men.
It is easy to portray the synagogue leader as the rigid, graceless foil to Jesus. It is even easier (and more dangerous) to let that depiction balloon into a caricature of all Jewish leaders as “blind” to God’s grace, or worse, as “the problem” Jesus came to solve. This not only distorts the story, it fuels anti-Jewish interpretations that have harmed real communities for centuries.
We need to nuance this one individual. The synagogue leader is not wrong to care about Sabbath boundaries. Sabbath-keeping was central to Jewish identity, especially under Roman rule. Sabbath was about survival, about marking God’s people as distinct. His concern is not cartoon villainy but a genuine conviction about faithfulness. The conflict here is intra-Jewish: two different ways of imagining how best to honor God’s command. To preach this responsibly means resisting wide-ranging stereotypes and recognizing that Jesus’ ministry happens entirely within Jewish life and debate.
2. Using disability as metaphor.
Another frequent move in sermons on this passage is to turn the woman’s bent body into a metaphor. “What keeps us bent over? What burdens weigh us down?” While well-meaning, this approach does real harm. It collapses her story into a symbol for other people’s spiritual struggles and overlooks her as a real person with a real body. Disability theology has reminded us that using disabled bodies as metaphors dehumanizes them.
Luke doesn’t present this woman as an object lesson but as a subject of God’s grace. She is called forward, touched, and restored, not for the sake of metaphor but for the sake of her life. The gospel is not that her body teaches us something about our struggles, but that Jesus sees her, frees her, and brings her into the community’s joy.
Grace that Calls Us to Action
So what is this story about, if not straw men or metaphors?
In Luke’s Gospel, grace is never static. God’s initiative always leads to action. Jesus sees, calls, touches, and restores. The woman responds with praise. The crowd responds with rejoicing. We heard earlier this summer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus say, “Go and do likewise.”
We cannot heal as Jesus does. But we can “go and do.” We are not called to simply receive God’s grace and liberation in worship, but to share that grace and liberation in the world.
That said, it is not an either/or. Worship is not an obstacle to service. This text takes place in a synagogue, on the Sabbath, during worship. Grace is proclaimed and embodied there first. We come to worship to hear the good news again, to be nourished, to be fed ourselves. But from that nourishment flows a calling: to feed, to serve, to bring others to the table of grace where they too might know God’s love, liberation, and freedom.
Preaching Possibilities
Jesus’ Initiative
One of the most striking parts of this story is that the woman never asks to be healed. She doesn’t cry out like Bartimaeus, she doesn’t reach out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, she doesn’t even approach him at all. Jesus sees her. Jesus calls her forward. Jesus lays his hands on her and declares her freedom. The gospel here is in God’s initiative. Grace does not begin with us; it begins with God’s seeing, calling, and acting on our behalf. This is important because it reminds us that the kingdom of God does not depend on our ability to ask in the right way or to muster up enough faith. Instead, God sees us in our need
(even when we have learned not to expect anything different after years of disappointment) and God comes to act. That is the good news. In our preaching, we can remind our people that grace is not something we conjure up or earn, but something that finds us, calls us, and restores us.
Now, we are not Jesus, and so agency and consent are essential in our action. We are not called to be God; we are called to be humans who respond to God’s grace. What Jesus does in this passage is unique to the power and initiative of God through Christ. For us, the faithful response is to see others, to listen, and to act in ways that honor their humanity. The woman’s story reminds us that God’s grace reaches us even when we do not have the right words, and it also calls us to be communities where people are noticed, called forward, and embraced in freedom.
Sabbath as Liberation
The heart of Jesus’ response to the synagogue leader is a reframing of Sabbath. For the leader, Sabbath meant protecting the holiness of God’s commandment by refraining from any work, including healing. For Jesus, Sabbath meant release. “Ought not this woman…be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Jesus insists that the very heart of Sabbath is liberation. To keep Sabbath is to practice freedom, the freedom of the people whom God brought out of Egypt. That freedom is not only a gift to be enjoyed but also a calling to participate in freeing others. For preachers, this means asking: where do our religious practices or traditions lean toward policing boundaries instead of setting people free? Where have we mistaken Sabbath as restriction rather than as the rhythm of God’s liberating love? This story calls us to remember that the Sabbath is not for tightening chains but for breaking them.
From Worship to Action
Finally, notice that this story begins in worship and ends in rejoicing. It happens in a synagogue, on the Sabbath, in the context of God’s people gathered. Grace is proclaimed and embodied there first. But the story doesn’t stay contained within the synagogue walls. The whole crowd rejoices at what Jesus has done, and that rejoicing has a ripple effect. In Luke’s Gospel, God’s grace is never meant to be hoarded. Again and again, those who encounter Jesus are sent out, “Go and do likewise.” This story reminds us that worship and service are not opposites but partners. We gather to be nourished, fed, and reminded of God’s liberating love. But then we are sent out to extend that love, to feed and serve others, to bring more people into the community where God’s liberation is experienced. If our worship does not lead to action, it risks becoming self-contained. If our service is not grounded in worship, it risks burning out. The call of this text is both/and: to receive God’s grace in worship and to embody God’s grace in the world.
Micah Krey 
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