A child tugs at her distracted parent’s sleeve. A man sits down in the break room, and no one acknowledges him. A teenager posts a selfie online and receives nothing but silence. Or worse, just one “like” from their grandma.
Almost no one deliberately chooses invisibility. And yet, many of us know what it feels like to be unseen, unheard, and unnoticed.
In our Gospel passage from Luke, we hear about a woman who lived that reality for eighteen years. Bent over in pain, she couldn’t even lift her head to meet someone’s gaze.
She endured not only the ache of her body but the ache of being rendered invisible — marginalized in a society that often blamed her condition on God’s judgment, and ignored because she was a woman in a patriarchal culture.
Her story begins in pain and invisibility.
And if we’re honest, we know her story. In ways big and small, we’ve all felt bent over — maybe not physically, but spiritually, emotionally, or socially. Grief can bend us low. Stress and fatigue can curl us inward. The judgments of others, or of ourselves, can weigh us down.
And like the synagogue that day, our faith communities are not immune from this blindness. Sometimes churches look right past people. Sometimes we act more like the leader scolding Jesus than like Jesus himself.
But St. Luke — our patron saint — wants us to see things differently.
Because this story gets right to the heart of Jesus’ mission in Luke’s Gospel. As some of you know, every year, around October 18, we observe the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist. And we hear a passage from Luke chapter 4. Like today’s reading, that story also begins in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and announces to the congregation:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19)
That is Jesus’ mission statement. And here, in Luke 13, he lives it out.
And notice Luke’s word choices: Jesus sees the woman. He calls her forward. He lays hands on her. He speaks: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Luke uses liberation language again and again: set free, released, loosed from bondage. He ties this to the Sabbath itself. The Book of Deuteronomy, the last book in the Torah, tells us that one of the reasons we observe the sabbath is to remember the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. So if the Sabbath celebrates freedom, then what better day to free someone bound for eighteen years?
So Jesus is not abolishing the Sabbath. He is fulfilling it. He insists that the day meant for rest and liberation must be a day when God’s kingdom is proclaimed.
But not everyone is happy. The synagogue leader objects. To him, healing could wait. There’s a “right time” and a “proper way” to do things.
And Jesus’ answer is sharp: “You hypocrites!” You’ll untie your ox to give it water on the Sabbath — but you’d leave a daughter of Abraham bound? That title “daughter of Abraham” is special because she’s the only woman in Luke’s Gospel that has it. In a world that did not see her, Jesus restores her worth, her voice, and her place in the community alongside the other children of Abraham.
And yet, the story doesn’t just end with her standing tall. It ends with the community standing taller, too. Luke says, “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing.” Her healing isn’t just personal; it’s communal. When she is restored, the people rejoice. When one of us experiences salvation, that’s good news for everyone.
So friends, this is why it matters that our parish is named after Luke. St. Luke, the evangelist, is the one who again and again shows us Jesus’ mission as liberation, healing, and joy.
Throughout his Gospel, Luke insists that God’s kingdom looks like mustard seeds — small things that grow into something can provide shelter and sanctuary. Luke insists that God’s kingdom looks like yeast — hidden things that transform bread into something to be shared with the whole community. Luke insists that those the world overlooks are the ones God sees, calls, and sets free.
And that is our story, too. As a parish dedicated to St. Luke, this is our DNA: to be a place where people who feel invisible are seen, where those bent down by life find room to stand tall, where the Sabbath is not about restriction but restoration.
And as we are seen and freed, we are called to see and free others. The kingdom of God does not wait for the right day or the proper time. The kingdom of God is at hand in this moment.
So let us, St. Luke’s Church, live up to our patron: seeing the invisible, proclaiming salvation, and rejoicing in the God who lifts us up. Amen.
Sermon for August 24, 2025
The Rev. Taylor Vines
A child tugs at her distracted parent’s sleeve. A man sits down in the break room, and no one acknowledges him. A teenager posts a selfie online and receives nothing but silence. Or worse, just one “like” from their grandma.
Almost no one deliberately chooses invisibility. And yet, many of us know what it feels like to be unseen, unheard, and unnoticed.
In our Gospel passage from Luke, we hear about a woman who lived that reality for eighteen years. Bent over in pain, she couldn’t even lift her head to meet someone’s gaze.
She endured not only the ache of her body but the ache of being rendered invisible — marginalized in a society that often blamed her condition on God’s judgment, and ignored because she was a woman in a patriarchal culture.
Her story begins in pain and invisibility.
And if we’re honest, we know her story. In ways big and small, we’ve all felt bent over — maybe not physically, but spiritually, emotionally, or socially. Grief can bend us low. Stress and fatigue can curl us inward. The judgments of others, or of ourselves, can weigh us down.
And like the synagogue that day, our faith communities are not immune from this blindness. Sometimes churches look right past people. Sometimes we act more like the leader scolding Jesus than like Jesus himself.
But St. Luke — our patron saint — wants us to see things differently.
Because this story gets right to the heart of Jesus’ mission in Luke’s Gospel. As some of you know, every year, around October 18, we observe the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist. And we hear a passage from Luke chapter 4. Like today’s reading, that story also begins in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and announces to the congregation:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19)
That is Jesus’ mission statement. And here, in Luke 13, he lives it out.
And notice Luke’s word choices: Jesus sees the woman. He calls her forward. He lays hands on her. He speaks: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Luke uses liberation language again and again: set free, released, loosed from bondage. He ties this to the Sabbath itself. The Book of Deuteronomy, the last book in the Torah, tells us that one of the reasons we observe the sabbath is to remember the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. So if the Sabbath celebrates freedom, then what better day to free someone bound for eighteen years?
So Jesus is not abolishing the Sabbath. He is fulfilling it. He insists that the day meant for rest and liberation must be a day when God’s kingdom is proclaimed.
But not everyone is happy. The synagogue leader objects. To him, healing could wait. There’s a “right time” and a “proper way” to do things.
And Jesus’ answer is sharp: “You hypocrites!” You’ll untie your ox to give it water on the Sabbath — but you’d leave a daughter of Abraham bound? That title “daughter of Abraham” is special because she’s the only woman in Luke’s Gospel that has it. In a world that did not see her, Jesus restores her worth, her voice, and her place in the community alongside the other children of Abraham.
And yet, the story doesn’t just end with her standing tall. It ends with the community standing taller, too. Luke says, “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing.” Her healing isn’t just personal; it’s communal. When she is restored, the people rejoice. When one of us experiences salvation, that’s good news for everyone.
So friends, this is why it matters that our parish is named after Luke. St. Luke, the evangelist, is the one who again and again shows us Jesus’ mission as liberation, healing, and joy.
Throughout his Gospel, Luke insists that God’s kingdom looks like mustard seeds — small things that grow into something can provide shelter and sanctuary. Luke insists that God’s kingdom looks like yeast — hidden things that transform bread into something to be shared with the whole community. Luke insists that those the world overlooks are the ones God sees, calls, and sets free.
And that is our story, too. As a parish dedicated to St. Luke, this is our DNA: to be a place where people who feel invisible are seen, where those bent down by life find room to stand tall, where the Sabbath is not about restriction but restoration.
And as we are seen and freed, we are called to see and free others. The kingdom of God does not wait for the right day or the proper time. The kingdom of God is at hand in this moment.
So let us, St. Luke’s Church, live up to our patron: seeing the invisible, proclaiming salvation, and rejoicing in the God who lifts us up. Amen.