Before and After: Seeking Justice in an Oppressed World

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Lessons, Proper 16C: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71; Hebrews 12:18-29; and Luke 13:10-17

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"Christ healing an infirmed woman on the Sabbath" by James Tissot, 1886-1896 (Public Domain)

Before‑and‑after pictures are familiar to all of us — before and after the diet, the remodel, the hard season, the healing. Today’s gospel from Luke 13 gives us its own before‑and‑after picture. A woman appears in the synagogue while Jesus is teaching. The before picture shows her bent over, unable to stand up straight, crippled for eighteen long years.

What do you see when you look at her? What do you imagine she feels? What rises in you as you picture her shuffling into that sacred space? Maybe she reminds you of the heaviness life can place on our shoulders. Maybe she represents the ways our own lives can become twisted, burdened, or bent out of shape. Maybe she stands for the crookedness of systems — social, political, economic, religious — that weigh people down and leave them unable to stand tall.

And then comes the after picture. She stands upright. Restored. Aligned again with the life God intends. What do you see now? What possibilities open before her? What feelings rise in you — hope, courage, joy, gratitude? Isn’t this the picture we long for in our own lives, in Lakeland, in Polk County, in our country? A community standing straight, restored, aligned with the values of God.

Two pictures. Two realities. And the question that always comes with before‑and‑after images: What happened in between? Luke tells us plainly: “Jesus saw her.” And “Jesus laid his hands on her.” That’s the pattern of the gospel — Jesus sees, Jesus touches, and life changes.

You know that power. Every one of us has felt invisible at some point — overlooked, passed by, looked at but not truly seen. It bends us over inside. And every one of us has known the grace of being truly seen — valued, acknowledged, recognized as beloved. It lets us stand a little taller.

And there have been moments when someone has told you that your words or actions touched their life, and you didn’t even realize you had done anything. Who has seen you in a way that helped you stand straighter? Whose life have you touched without even knowing it?

Here is the heart of it: Jesus sees you. Jesus wants to touch you. Whatever has bent you over — grief, fear, rejection, exhaustion, injustice — Jesus sees it. Jesus knows it. Jesus desires to heal it. And maybe Jesus is also inviting us to help change the picture of life in our community — to see and touch others as he does.

Imagine Lakeland, Polk County, America standing straighter because we chose to see with the eyes of Christ and touch with his hands. Isn’t that what we pray every time we say, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”? That Christ’s seeing and touching would be embodied in us — that we would be the presence of Christ for one another.

But the bent‑over woman isn’t the only one crippled in today’s gospel. The synagogue leader is bent too — only he doesn’t know it. He has chosen rules, tradition, and “the way we’ve always done it” over compassion for another human being. His religion has become distorted, rigid, curved inward.Jesus never lived that way. He always put people first — even when it meant breaking rules, upsetting authorities, or challenging long‑held customs. He saw people. He touched people. He restored people. Always. That’s the life I want. I think it’s the life you want too. A life where we are seen and touched — and where we see and touch others. A life where we help change the picture of our community, our nation, our world.

The prophets describe this life with words like mishpat and sedeqah — justice and righteousness, the faithful use of power that ensures generosity and equality (Isaiah 5). Jeremiah calls it true justice — giving others what is due to them as children of God (Jeremiah 7). The psalmist blesses those who actively consider the weak and advocate for the oppressed (Psalm 41). And Micah, echoed by Jesus, reminds us that God asks only that we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

So who are the bent‑over ones around you? Where do you see crooked systems? What would it take to see and touch another person in a way that helps them stand taller? What if our touch carried love, forgiveness, compassion, courage, hope?

When I imagine that world — that community — I see a picture I want to live in. Don’t you?

We have the power, by grace, to help create a new after‑picture. To see. To touch. To heal. To lift up. I wonder how we will begin.