Readings: Isaiah 58:9–14; Psalm 103; Hebrews 12:18–29; Luke 13:10–17

“Immediately,” our Gospel reading says of the woman healed on the Sabbath, “she stood up straight and began praising God.” Crippled for eighteen years previously, she had been “quite unable to stand up straight,” but the word of Jesus — “you are set free” — flexed her, unbent her, uprighted her. For this daughter of Abraham, posture and praise were liberated together, rising up toward the Sun of righteousness.

Worshipping communities assume many positions — sitting, standing, bowing, kneeling, prostrating — and, although allowance can and should be made for physical disability and discomfort, and indeed posture can and should not be subject to any kind of liturgical legalism, these are not simply functions of “what I feel like” at the moment but are ways in which even the bodies of God’s people are oriented, formed, to God’s glory.

“Lift up your hearts,” the Eucharistic exhortation goes, not because we thus make ourselves any closer, in attitude or in altitude, to the Lord, but because God’s merciful gift — his personal presence and his powerful word at the table around which we gather — sets us free: free to stand up straight, free to sing his praise, free to serve his kingdom.