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When We Make People Into Problems - Monday, 3/16/2026

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:10–16

The synagogue leader in this story isn’t a villain. He’s a rule-follower, a tradition-keeper, someone who genuinely cares about doing things the right way. But in the moment when a woman who has suffered for eighteen years is finally free, his first response is to consult the rulebook. He’s so focused on the category violation that he completely misses the human being standing in front of him.

This is something that happens to all of us. We encounter people in certain categories — “the homeless guy,” “the difficult coworker,” “the neighbor who always complains” — and the category does our seeing for us. We stop encountering a person and start managing a situation. The woman in this story had been coming to the synagogue for years, bent over, unable to straighten up. She was there every week. And nobody had called her forward. She had become part of the background.

Jesus calls her a “daughter of Abraham.” That’s not a small thing. It’s a name. It’s a lineage. It’s full belonging in the community. He’s not fixing a problem — he’s restoring a person to her rightful place. The healing isn’t a rule violation; it’s the whole point of every rule that was ever written. Compassion isn’t the exception to the law. It is the law.

The question worth sitting with today is simple and uncomfortable: Who in my regular world have I stopped seeing as a person? Who has become a category, a problem, someone I step around? Because Jesus has a habit of calling exactly those people forward.

Reflection:  Is there someone in your daily life — at work, in your neighborhood, in your family — who you’ve mentally filed under a label rather than a name? What would it mean to see them the way Jesus saw this woman?

Action Step:  Think of one person you tend to overlook or avoid. Learn or remember their name today. If you see them, use it.

Prayer:  God, forgive us for the times we’ve let categories do our seeing for us. Teach us to call people forward, the way Jesus did — by name, with dignity, as someone who fully belongs. Amen.