There are many ways to be “bent.”
The New Testament story on the healing of the bent woman is compelling. I once suggested to a friend who was riddled with arthritis and, yes, bent, that she pray with this story. I suggested that she read it slowly and carefully, then imagine herself in the story as Jesus calls for her to come forth from the shadows into the light. “Are you crazy?” she said. “Not really,” I said. She did not believe me. I wondered about myself, too.
* * * *
In this story, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. This fact signals us that it was the Sabbath, and he, the Rabbi, was teaching listeners wisdom for life. Nevertheless, Jesus interrupted himself, and in an almost nonchalant way, called this woman, bent double and unable to straighten herself, crippled for eighteen years, to come towards him. Are you crazy?—she must have thought, but it all happened so fast. She approached, he touched her and told her to stand up straight. She stood.
Such stories are unbelievably shocking, even scary. And yet, our desire to believe them is intense. The woman herself does not thank him, or apologize for being a nuisance—on the Sabbath no less. She simply gives thanks to God. That’s all. Is that enough?
Yes, it is enough.
* * * *
But no! Onlookers start a FIGHT! Jesus broke a rule—healing on the Sabbath, The Sabbath is to be sacred for God alone. Well, who do they think created this miracle? Who in this story is “bent”?
They then, and we now, fight about miracles, about Jesus being God or a phony actor, about her condition being God’s fault or will, about it being her own fault in some way, (or today, some would say it was her childhood trauma), about the authenticity of scripture itself, about Luke’s political agenda trying to persuade the Gentiles about Jesus’s godliness by making it all up.
I think that the very worst perspective on this or any miracle is to override its splendor with self-aggrandizement: Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In other words, I did something wrong that qualified me for a miracle. Bad me. This habit of self-deprecation is common, and it is anti-theistic, leaving little or no room for divine action, no matter how that comes, no matter how dark, how sinful. How much almighty energy will it take to break through such sinister pride? It takes a miracle!
* * * *
And even when such a miracle takes place we often take the credit for it, as if we ourselves had created this miracle‚ by “fighting” no less. Our language is revealing. The poet Ocean Vuong in his novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, wonders about the overuse of warrior language for everything: “But why can’t the language for creativity be the language of regeneration?" Vuong asks. Instead we use violent language, as Vuong notes, citing some reactions from his fans: You killed that poem. You’re a killer. You came in to that novel guns blazing. I am hammering this paragraph., I am banging them out, we say. I owned that workshop. I shut it down. I crushed them. We smashed the competition. I’m wrestling with the muse. The state, where people live is a battleground state. The audience a target audience. “Good for you, man,” a man once said to me at a party. “you’re making a killing with poetry. You’re knocking ‘em dead.”
Even in the biblical story violence erupts. They can’t believe the bent woman is straight, so the onlookers start a FIGHT—about rule-breaking for the sake of a bent old woman, no less. And we too, alas, remain addicted to the need for explanations, preferably our own, and yes, violence in word and deed.
Who in this story is bent?
* * * *
What to do? Well, do not go passive or give up in the face of impossible adversity. Even the dictionary tells us that the word “miracle” comes from the Latin root mirari, to wonder. If you are able, find ways to join WITH—co-operate—using your natural gifts, medical care, therapeutic help, friends, family, prayer, whatever is creative for you—including the unexpected, WITH an inexplicable miracle when it happens. God, it turns out, transcends science, logic, reason, fights, religion, politics, ritual, even our love and prayer. So just wonder.
The best definition of “miracle” I’ve ever encountered, is one offered by Anglican theologian and priest, John MacQuarrie (1917-2007), pictured below: “A miracle is something we are grateful for.” Simply so.
So rejoice! Something incredibly good, small, unforeseen, inexplicable, eccentric, impossible, yes, miraculous, will happen. Just say yes.
And, because there’s no one worldly source, including yourself, to thank, thank God as the bent woman did with her prayers. Then straighten up and walk on.
