July 1, 2012
What Does It Mean to be Healed?
- Mark 5:21-43
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
The two healing stories in our gospel text for this morning present two distinct healings as well as a concern. Like every healing miracle they raise the existential question: “Will I be healed?” Questions about healing are common to all of us. If we are honest we can all confess to some kind of illness – be it physical, spiritual, psychological or interpersonal – some kind of pain that is in us and in our communities and that aches for restoration and healing. Our children may get sick, despite the miracles of modern medicine not all diseases can be cured, the job may be lost, despite our best efforts the marriage might not survive, and the time will come when our parents or spouse will die. Bad things will happen to us, they will knock our socks off and we may not understand why and we will wonder if we can get past this. Sometimes there is healing and sometimes there is not. The synagogue leader’s daughter was raised, but other children die. A desperate woman plagued by years of illness was restored, but equally desperate men and women are not. We need to be honest about this even as we pray for healing and restoration.
One of the questions these stories raise is, “Does prayer work?” If we mean by this, “Do you get what you pray for?” the honest answer will be “Sometimes, but not always.” Pray as we might, we know that all prayers are not answered as we pray them. Would it be helpful to have a more nuanced understanding of what asking for healing really is? Would a better definition of healing give us some comfort? That is my hope for this sermon, but you will have to see if it is helpful to you. Sometimes the answers to these questions only make sense when you are ready.
Our Psalm for today and the gospel stories from Mark are ones of healing. They remind us of the healing power of our God. I believe God wants healing and wholeness for each and every one of us. These are stories of joy and grace and touch and compassion. I see acceptance, I see Jesus’ heart for those on the margins of society, I see faith and trust and love. But how do these scriptures sound to those who do not receive physical or emotionally healing in their lives?
Every day I pray for those who are on our prayer list. Every Wednesday your staff prays for 20 different members. Every day I pray for those of you who I know are struggling with grief or illness or relationship issues. Do my prayers matter? What about if I pray for something I am dealing with in my own life? I think in light of our concerns about these healing stories, it may be helpful for us to remember that prayers for healing are not simply utilitarian. That is to say, prayer is not simply a matter of bending the direction of divine will toward my will, my needs and my hopes. More profoundly, to ask something of God is to edge into deeper relationship with God. God’s mind may or may not be changed, but I – my mind and my heart – may be.
The two females in our gospel story this morning are both on the fringes of society – one because she is a child and the other because she is female and has been hemorrhaging for 12 years. Both of them would be considered ritually unclean, one as a result of death and one as a result of hemorrhage. But that does not matter to Jesus. They are both daughters to him. And all it takes to restore these women and their families to wholeness is Jesus’ touch – an act of touch restores both women to new life even as those surrounding them don’t understand it.
Psalm 30 is also a story of healing. We don’t know what the Psalmist went through before he wrote this psalm, but God has brought his soul up from the pit of hell, so something pretty awful must have been going on. But now he is experiencing joy and his mourning has turned to dancing.
But as I read verse 5 from Psalm 30 – “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning,” – I wonder about the person who wakes up in the morning and still has no joy. I know there are people here today who have suffered the unimaginable pain of the death of a child. I know there are people here today who are still looking for the healing after the loss of their spouse. I am still grieving the death of my father and it has been nine months. Many of us have lost a sibling or a good friend to illness or to a broken relationship.
As a community of faith we need to be aware that those who continue to have mornings without joy can be further diminished by the celebration of healing or grace that another has received. Those of us who experience wholeness and healing will want to share our joy – and we should – but we need to be mindful that those who are still suffering can hear such elation as judgment. Suffering is made even worse with the theological fallacy that God is parceling out grace to some and heartache to others and withholding mercy from some and dishing it out generously to others. That is just not the God I have come to know in our scriptures. So we need to be careful when we share about how we have crossed over from our wildernesses or have found healing. But we also need to share our stories, because maybe those hearing about our healing may think, “If there was deliverance for them, maybe there will be some for me.” Hope is an important part of healing and wholeness.
But have I answered the question to my sermon title – What does it mean to be healed? Probably not, sometimes questions don’t have easy answers. But this is what I tell people who ask me about healing and wholeness, because they are searching for it or longing for it in their lives.
First of all I believe that God does listen to our prayers, that God does bring about healing and wholeness in our lives and that we should ask God for the healing of our body, mind and spirits. We need to trust, believe, hope and expect healing.
Secondly, I believe that the church can be a community so bound together that if one member suffers we all suffer together and if one member rejoices, we all rejoice together. This way the mystery of God’s presence and love is deepened in every joy and sorrow. Such a community of faith could find ways to celebrate the healing of those who are joyful and embrace the sorrow of those who still weep – knowing that God is present to each of us in all these modes – God the consoling Spirit in sorrow, God the glad recipient of people’s gratitude, God whose favor is for a lifetime, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health – God whom we would thank forever. We can be and I have seen us be that community to each other.
I also know people who have had more than their fair share of pain and sorrow. And of the ones who have healed and who have gone on, their answer of a deep and tested faith has been this. “You have to be grateful for what you had, not what you lost. Every day I thank God for what I had. I was so blessed.”
Some people may question whether these healing miracles really happened or if they still do. I have heard of miraculous recoveries for people who have been prayed for and lifted up to God for healing. But I wonder how we hold onto faith when the miracles don’t happen. Every person of faith who suffers – like the hemorrhaging woman and the desperate parents of the dying girl, prays for – and usually believes in – the possibility of miraculous healing, but dramatic physical healing is rarely the response to those prayers. Here then is an opportunity to explore healing in its less obvious, less dramatic dimensions – healing as peace and acceptance in the face of disappointment, and as awareness of the continuing presence of God in our times of despair.
I am also seeing something beyond just physical healing in the stories of the young girl and the hemorrhaging women – I am seeing through the act of Jesus’ healing that acceptance, intimacy and touch can make us whole and give us peace. We are in fact shaped and made whole in relationship to other people. Our relationships – in the church, in friendships, and in marriage are not just something extra added on to life for distraction or entertainment – relationship, touching, loving, caring and listening – makes us human and whole. Relationships have the power to heal us and give us peace – whether physical healing happens or not.
So what does it mean to be healed? It is an awareness that this community of faith, this body of Christ, has your back in times of trouble or despair. It is an awareness that God is with us even in our darkest valleys and that God’s peace and love may be the healing that we receive. It is an awareness that we need others to help us heal – we can’t do it in isolation. And it is an awareness that at some point – and maybe it will be years from now – we will know that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Barbara and I will be available after you receive communion today to hear your prayers and anoint you with oil for healing. You can ask for any kind of healing – healing of body, relationships, sin, anxiety – anything that you need God’s help with. Oil has historically been used in healing. We do not do the healing of course, God does the healing. But in this intimate act of faith we share our concerns, our wishes for wholeness and health, and we pray together. To ask something of God is to be in deeper relationship with God and it is in relationship that we can experience acceptance, healing, forgiveness, wholeness and peace. And we will touch you – as we remember that it is through touch that Jesus healed. I hope you will consider being prayed for and anointed – it can be a very moving act of faith.
The hemorrhaging woman and the desperate father reached out in faith to Jesus and asked for and received healing. These examples challenge us to examine our own faith, asking how we can find the strength to claim God’s promises of healing and hope for ourselves, and then how we can empower others to do the same. That is my challenge and my hope for all of you. Amen.
Resource:
Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 3, Proper 8.