A Daughter of Abraham
G. Dawson, M. A. Luke 13:10-17 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.… Set me to look at a downright extraordinary creature, not merely plain but positively ugly — like the woman whom Christ healed, who had been plagued with a devil of infirmity eighteen years, and was now doubled up, hideous — and tell me whether if you look at that woman long enough you will see her beauty. No! The more I look at her, the less I like her — the longer I behold her, the faster I run away from her. But I am called back to her by one little touch. Christ claims for her no beauty, invests her with no fancied fairness. "She, too, is a daughter of Abraham." This is all. But this was enough; for Christ knew that by this appeal He lifted the poor, stricken, bowed creature of infirmity, and gave her a place with the rest of Abraham's children. He called upon the patriotism of the Jews — and they had a patriotism, though but a narrow one. Their cavilling was put an end to at once. This is the secret. The only way to conquer natural disgust at ugliness and sickness and disease, is to set these unsightly objects in the light of Divine Love. "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." Bring these poor degraded wretches, and ask us to love them individually, and we fail to do it. To lift them out of the misery in which they rest, and to make them lovable, you must set them in the light of the great Fatherhood of God and His passionate love of humanity. A man goes into a sickroom, and there poor humanity is at its worst; there you may find the bottom of all man's meanness, his cowardice, his want, and his weakness; there you may see nature in decay, as ugly as the working of a continual want and weakness can make it, But as you cross the threshold of the sickroom, the great need of the patient is more than all; and if you come as the angel of healing, as the angel of true service, the heart is too full and the hand too busy for you to stop to look either for beauty or for ugliness, and that love which prompts to the duty makes labour light. The poor sick person is not less tiresome, or less offensive, or less tedious, but the feeling which prompted disgust has gone. When men declared the possibility of walking on hot iron if the heart were pure and the conscience unstained, they did but figure the great power of Innocence. Una with her lion is but weak, but Una in her innocence is strong. And that which Innocence is thus so truly fabled to do, Divine Love surely does, overleaping difficulty and overcoming disgust. Christianity does not ask us to believe that ugly things are lovely; but, filling man with true love and holy enthusiasm, makes him able to endure the sight of foulness and meanness, that he may cleanse and raise the foul and mean. Thus "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Is not this poor woman a daughter of Abraham? Is not this poor degraded wretch a brother? I remember that before England got rid of her great disgrace of slavery, the abolition people used to distribute handbills, headed with a picture of a chained man; the poor thick-lipped man asking, "Am I not a man and a brother?" We all acknowledged the claim. But if he had said, "Am I not a beauty?" I should have answered, " No, my brother; you are certainly not a beauty. I decline to admire you." Should he reply, "This is all a matter of taste," I should answer in turn, "I don't believe a word of it. To my eyes you are very particularly ugly." But when he kneels there before me, and lifts up his poor chained wrists, and puts up that plea for his own humanity — "Am I not a man and a brother?" then, poor, scourged, broken, jaded as he is, I own him. He has a spark of true manhood in him, and shall be scourged, reviled, and sold in bondage no longer. Thus the scheme of the Christian religion completes itself. It has the manliest scorn for meanness, and the manliest pity for weakness. (G. Dawson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. WEB: He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day.