[For years, I have been a part of published LGBT Christian devotionals during the seasons of Lent, PRIDE, and Advent. This post is my PRIDE 2025 contribution.]
Luke 13:10-17; Isaiah 58:6
I’ve been feeling grateful lately. I did not expect to get to a point in life where I could genuinely say that. There was always something more to strive for or something to fix. As we enter this PRIDE 2025 season, I’m thankful there is no more striving and there is nothing left to fix (in me at least).
Today, that gratefulness was highlighted as I was reminded of the two passages above which point to one of my favorite aspects of Jesus’ ministry – His willingness to challenge and upend systems to seek the wholeness and liberation of an individual. In Luke 13, religious leaders condemned Jesus after He healed a crippled woman on the sabbath.
This was because the sabbath was and is a mainstay of Biblical observance. You were to refrain from all work on the sabbath and apparently being cured was a form of work to them. In their best intent, they wanted to ensure right standing with God in the context of a messy history not always doing so. But clearly, they’re missing something. The law was not an end unto itself but was to serve a purpose.
The prophet Isaiah holds up true worship as one that will, “loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” And with this in mind, Jesus who is to fulfil the law, says back to the leader of the synagogue, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? Ought this woman, a daughter of Abraham who Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”
When I read this story, of course I am incredulous that this is how the religious leaders respond. This response is all too familiar to me. This woman was set free from an eighteen-year bondage but all they could see was that Jesus did not properly hold to sabbath demands. Healing and liberation be damned!
My own healing and liberation accelerated as I started to not only accept myself as gay but celebrate it. And instead of others celebrating this with me, I was admonished for listening to “the lies of the enemy,” or for “following my flesh” away from Jesus. However, what I try to convey repeatedly is that I am finding healing, wholeness, and liberation down this path. The God that I knew/know to be true was a part of this whole process, loving me, seeing me, being present with me, and celebrating me.
I’m still a little shocked thinking about how people cling to their own systems over the healing and liberation of others. It’s like there’s this empty lifeboat floating around and instead of getting in it, you’d rather fight for your life, mid-ocean, doggie paddling. If what you believe is causing death rather than life, is that not worth reconsidering? Otherwise, what are we doing?
Anyway, this is why I have been so grateful lately. I don’t hate myself and I am not at war with myself anymore. I feel whole and more embodied than ever before. I feel equipped with what I have to better face life’s rough patches. I feel more willing and able to love others, even to love God and re-visit a lot of those spiritual spaces that once brought me so much pain. I know this – that whatever time I do have left, I will be seeking healing and liberation for myself and everyone in my path.
As with many areas in my life, I have an Amanda Cook reference for this -
I feel like the way I have grown most this past decade is having my systems “challenged”. It has felt uncomfortable and unsettling at times to challenge my own beliefs, but ultimately it has been freeing to realize that there is grace and that God meets me where I am. When I look at God like a loving father, I can bring him my doubts, my insecurities, my questions and there is so much freedom in that. I believe we are only accountable for what we know and what we “know” can change. Being honest about my doubts and questions have actually led me to a place of freedom and grace where in the past I felt shame. The more honest I am with God, the more freedom I feel. What we bring to the light and expose removes the power it has over us. There is no hiding anything from God to begin with. Coming to him with our best and worst and everything between allows us to move forward, to step into the light and progress. I want to be so secure and free in my relationship with God that any of my “systems” can stand to be challenged.