For the last few weeks we have been looking at the Gospel of Luke and following the progress of Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem.  Scripture says he ‘set his face’ for Jerusalem.  That can be a bit misleading – it means not so much that he got out a map and began walking n that direction along the shortest road possible – but it does mean that he knew where he was headed and made his way there both knowing what would happen when he arrived and understanding all the work that needed to be done beforehand.

It’s like deciding to take a driving vacation.  You have a destination, certainly, but before starting out you have to pack, get the car serviced, maybe get the mail delivery stopped.  And even after the journey has started, you need to stop to get gas and food, and spend the nights in motels.  The actual driving itself may take only 10 or 20 hours.  But after setting your face in that direction, it may take weeks or months before you arrive.

Jesus has set his face for Jerusalem.  And he has much to do on his journey.  In this morning’s text, we find Jesus doing what prophets do on the Sabbath – he is teaching in the synagogue.  No surprise here.  Even today, that is where you find most preachers on Sunday morning – standing in pulpits and teaching – it’s what is expected – no matter what the preaching style – it’s conventional - but Jesus is not going to be limited by convention.

There was a lot of the fair I didn’t get to see because I was so often looking down instead of out and up.  I had to stop now and again to straighten up because my back began to hurt.  I enjoyed spending time with her, but I didn’t enjoy being bent over.

            But then of course, the story gets complicated.  The leader of the synagogue, ‘indignant’ scripture tells us ‘because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath’, turns and speaks to the crowd: ‘What does this guy think he’s doing?  Doesn’t he know that it’s OK to preach on the Sabbath, but nothing else?  Couldn’t he have waited one more day to heal her?  What’s one more day after so many years?  Is healing her pain more important than keeping the law?’

            Jesus confronts the leaders – and I’ll bet his tone was none too friendly, ‘You mean, it’s OK to water your farm animals (that, by the way, had more economic value than this woman).  It’s permitted to loose them from their tethers – to show them mercy – but not to loose this woman from her tether, not to show mercy to this poor woman who has lived in pain for so many years?’ 

Thankfully, the crowd understands and rejoices with Jesus.  Sadly, the rulers never do – a miracle of God happens before their very eyes and they are so concerned with their rules that they fail to see it.

            Jesus could have waited one more day.  Actually, he could have waited until sundown when the Sabbath ended.  Jesus could have played it safe.  He could have played by the rules.  He could have had the woman make an appointment with one of the disciples and made time for her a week from next Tuesday.  He could have gone out for lunch with the rulers of the synagogue and as they sat at the dinner table, he could have commented on the pitiful condition of the woman and wondered why someone did not do something.

            But Jesus defies convention.  Jesus tells us that now is the acceptable time of the Lord - today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart.  For the grace of God, there is no time like the present.  Jesus does not choose the easy, the acceptable, the conventional when the grace and mercy of God are needed here and now and in this way.

            Jesus defies convention by breaking the rules, by reaching everyone he can, any way he can, anywhere he can.  The grace and mercy of God are not limited by the rules of people.

            The bad news is that each of us runs the risk of caring so much for convention that we also miss the miracles among us – that we might be so sure about how we think things should be that we close ourselves off to all the new ways God might be talking to us - that we might care so much for our rules that we miss out on doing ministry at all.

In the 21^st century, we are not as concerned about the precise rules for keeping the Sabbath – if we were, we’d all be walking to church and all the stores would be closed.  But we do have lots of other rules.  The church of Christ still stands on the border of two different views of what it means to do the work of God.  We as the church still wrestle with 2 very different ideas of what the church should be and how the church should act.  We carry with us the belief that ‘church’ is something that happens at particular times in particular places and particular ways.  That work of God is limited to an hour a week of Sunday mornings.  We still harbor the idea that rules are more important than compassion – that justice should carry more weight than mercy.  The bad news is that if we are not constantly open to the moving of the Spirit – if we are not always ready to embrace the fresh wind of the Spirit, if we try to limit the work of God to a schedule or a set of rules – we may, like the synagogues of Israel, discover that God has chosen to work without us instead of with us. 

Is there a person among us who has not at some time been so far down that all we could see was the ground in front of us?  How many of us have been so stunned by emotional or physical crisis that we did not even know how to ask for help?  And how many have thought that in this great wide world, we were so insignificant – so unworthy – that Jesus could never stoop down to touch us?

The good news in all of this is that at times like that, Jesus does not see as the world sees.  The mercy of God is not measured out to those valued by the world and is not limited by days or hours or places.  Not all things that cripple us can be seen from the outside.  But the good news is that by God’s grace we can be healed of all kinds of things.

Where is the good news in all this?  Very shortly we – the congregations of Mt. Lake and Windom - will embark on a new journey of faith.  We will begin something entirely new – a shared ministry where we will work together to find God’s will for us in our communities.  This is the first time this type of ministry has been explored in our presbytery.  We have a chance to defy convention ourselves as we follow God’s call into the next decade and the next chapter of our congregations.