Based on Luke 13: 10-17, this was given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on August 22, 2004 and again, after a Very Minor re-write, at the Wanda (IL) UMC on September 20, 2020!

          As far as I know, the only cows that grandpa ever raised were Herefords, with an occasional Black Angus bull thrown in so that we had a few black-and-whites as well as the standard red-and-whites, and dad continued that ‘tradition’ after grandpa retired and we bought our own farm outside of Edwardsville.

          Dad was always the do-it-yourself-er… a trait that you pretty much had to be back then… and taking care of the health needs of all of the livestock was no exception. I recall a spray-bomb of pink-eye medicine that always sat on one of the wooden beams above the feed stalls where we could grab it and shoot any infected eyes we might see while they were feeding. We took care of turning all of the boy-calves into ‘its’, and I remember, well, the time Dad actually ‘reaching-in’ with his arm to help one cow during delivery who’s calf had its head turned the wrong way.

          In fact, in all of the years that I have any memory of helping with the animals, I recall losing only one calf, and as best I recall, it was still-born. What I mainly remember about that incident was that, in order to save the cow, we went to a neighbor’s farm and bought a replacement calf for her. You see, the problem is that a pregnant cow starts producing milk in advance of the birth so that she can feed the new-born as soon as it is on its feet, and without a calf to feed, our Hereford cow had no where to go with this milk, and it would cause problems for her. Now, one might ask why it was alright to take a calf away from one mother in order to save another, but the answer is really very simple… the calf we bought was a Brown Swiss… a milk breed! And as it was also a bull calf that the farmer had no desire to keep for the herd, the sooner it was away from its mother, the sooner her milk production went back into his pocket… a win – win for everyone!

          Those of us who have ever worked around animals know that it becomes very easy to tell one animal from another even if they are all the same color, or colors. In the case of our Herefords, even though they were all either red-and-white or black-and-white, it was easy for us to tell one from another because of different sizes and patterns of those colors, as well as such things as the shape of their horns, if they had any, their age, their size… sometimes, even by their attitude! But even the city-people coming to visit could tell that there was something different about that one!

Besides being a totally different color, he grew taller than the other steers, but like all milk breeds, never ‘filled out’ like a beef animal… all of his bones showed through as his skin just seemed to hang on his frame. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for his being needed for the sake of the cow, the whole thing would have been a money-loser… for, even though he ate as much as all of the rest, he never came close to weighing the same as them when they were hauled off.

Except for that one instance, I have never worked around milk cows… and since he wasn’t a cow, I guess I can’t even count that! But I remember dad and grandpa, both, avowing how they would never want to have a herd of milkers… ‘You can never take a day off because you have to be there to milk and take care of them everyday and everyday and everyday’. And that is very true! Even our beef cows needed to be fed and watered everyday, but if the family was going someplace over the weekend, we could either give them extra before we left, or if it was going to be for a longer period of time, see about getting one of the neighbors kids to come over and take care of them each day… after all, how hard is it to throw out a couple of bales of hay and pump the water troughs full?

But not so a herd of dairy cows! They have to be milked everyday, on the same schedule each day… and doing that takes lots of training and experience. Why, even someone like me, who is used to being around cows, would probably be kicked onto the floor by a Bessie who didn’t like where or how I was standing!

And as Jesus points out in today’s verses, the same, I’m sure, held true in those days! Yes, their law said there was to be absolutely no work done on the Sabbath… the women were to prepare their meals ahead of time, and they were not supposed to travel more than so far from where they stopped the day before, whether at home or traveling. But animals need attention! Anyone who had goats or maybe a milk cow had to see to their milking each day, and they must all be fed and watered! And surely the shepherd whose flocks roamed free on the hillsides would never abandon his charges and leave them helpless and open to attacks from robbers and wild animals… if he had no other way to shelter them, he had to stay with them! Now, these are all acts of compassion… true, compassion to an animal, and perhaps with ulterior motives… a dead animal is of no use to anyone!… but compassion none-the-less!

The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “Instead of finding love, justice, humility, and mercy among God’s people, Jesus found an arrogance that didn’t even allow healing a woman on the Sabbath, the day set aside for the God of mercy. The Jewish leaders had perverted God’s law so much that they were using it as an excuse to squelch compassion and godliness, instead of as a tool to promote a love of God and others. Religious do-good-ism had so infected Israel’s leadership that, by some twist of religious logic, they had come to see the Lord’s Sabbath as a day when compassion was illegal. Jesus would have no part of it. Their hypocrisy was evident, and Jesus plainly said so.”

It goes on to point out, then, that, “Jesus exposes the same type of hypocrisy today. Christians should always be careful to never use religion as an excuse to judge others. Instead, Christians need to show love and mercy to other people, no matter who they are. Today, well-meaning Christians have allowed purely human rules to intrude on the church’s welcome to “outsiders.” Dress codes, hair codes, behavior codes, and language codes give many churches a pharisaic feel. We must let Jesus remove all such barriers to people finding God’s love… We must let compassion be our guide; and we must let the rules that hinder it be forgotten.”

So, the gist of this story is this… Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, as was His custom, when He has compassion for a woman there and heals her! In what is most likely fear, the ruler of the synagogue declares the action illegal because it was done on the Sabbath… a day of rest… and Jesus calls him hypocrite for condemning Him for showing the same compassion to this ‘daughter of Abraham’… that the ruler would have shown to his cattle! And, of course, we’re told that, “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.”

And all of this, I think, is pretty simple and straight-forward, with several good points to be learned from it. One such point, to me, is that there is never a bad time to do something good! I would also like to make note, here, that at no time does Jesus approve of doing work on the Sabbath… He declares that His act of good is the sort of ‘work’ that is acceptable for a Sabbath… but He never releases them… nor us… from that responsibility of NOT working on that day! How many of us still abide by it?

However, the point that I really want to make this morning is found in verse 13… “Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.” There was no delay… there was no recuperation period… “He put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up”… immediately! But wait… there is something else that happened ‘immediately’… “immediately she straightened up and praised God.”

There was absolutely no hesitation on her part… she was healed… and immediately, she started praising God!! Oh, but what that could apply to us!!

When was the last time God did something for you? If you really think about it, it was probably this morning, wasn’t it? I mean, you woke up, got out of bed, had breakfast and came here. Every one of those actions are, in some way, indebted to God! And when was the last time you thanked Him for any of it? Did you sit up in bed and immediately thank Him for another day? Did you eat your breakfast and immediately thank Him for your abundance? Did you drive or ride to service this morning and immediately thank Him for the luxury of an automobile, and the freedom to assemble in His name? I’d be willing to bet, if I were a betting man, that the answer for most of us is an astonishing ‘NO’! Why ‘astonishing’? Because without God we would not exist! This world would not exist! Without God, there would be nothing and nobody! There would be no you, no me, no today, no tomorrow, and no yesterday! Everything we have… everything we are… everything we ever will be… is through the blessings of the Lord! Everything! Don’t you think we owe Him a thank you? Don’t you think we need to praise Him with all of our might, heart and soul every minute of everyday? I certainly do!

Let us pray…

God… we come to you now in an attitude of such awe! We realize, once again, God, that without You there would be nothing… without You, we would not even exist. We thank you, Lord, and lift our praise up to You for all that we are and all that we have. And we ask, God, that You help us to always remember not only the debt that we owe You… that of our very existence… but also the gift of Your Son, Jesus, who died on the Cross of Calvary for our sins. We ask, God, that you truly, ‘Take our lives and let us be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take our moments and our days; Let them flow with ceaseless praise!’

And all of God’s children say…