RBWords

     "Bondage" is a word that can evoke a number of meanings, most of them negative!  It can refer to slavery of the kind that is both physical (as in slavery in the U.S.A. before the Civil War) or to an addiction such as drugs, gambling, sex, food, etc..  It can mean the terrible limitations that can be imposed by an illness or circumstances beyond anyone's control, as in the case of the woman in today's gospel scripture!  Jesus contrasts the "bondage" imposed by her physical condition (which made her "unclean" according to the Law of Moses) to the "bondage" of the tethered ox or donkey.  The legal zealots saw no problem with releasing a farm animal on the sabbath to take it to water, but objected to Jesus releasing the woman from her "bondage" on the sabbath!  He calls her a "daughter of Abraham" which appeals to a status beyond the Mosaic law.  When rules are applied in a selective and life-denying way just because they are rules, there is a terrible loss of perspective.  There is an irony in the scene because the woman is set free from her "bondage," while the synagogue leader and his followers remain in the "bondage" of their narrow perspective!  Jesus calls them ""hypocrites!"

     It is one thing to be faithful to the integrity of belief and tradition.  It is another thing to turn that belief and tradition into a set of regulations that take on a life of their own apart from the faith that inspires them, as if we can control God by our laws!  Many of my Beloved Congregation know that I am a law school graduate.  I know well the uses and abuses of law whether it be civil, criminal or, heaven help us, "canon law."  In the post-Vatican II era, many of us in pastoral life have learned the occasional tyranny of "guidelines."  As long as we can see the purpose and necessity of a disciplined approach to expressing our faith, we can maintain a holy perspective.  But when the result of an observance is a form of "bondage" that satisfies the "powerful" at the expense of all others, a situation similar to the gospel scene today occurs.  Our "synagogue leaders" and their followers would do well to make sure that releasing all Sons and Daughters of Abraham from bondage has first place.  Then we can all go and take care of the oxen and donkeys!  AMEN