Is There A Doctor In The House?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Health is a very fashionable topic these days. Newscasts are filled with reports on the latest health crisis or the latest miracle drug or the latest cancer treatment. Pharmaceutical TV ads take up entire blocks of commercial time. Cable and satellite networks such as Fit TV and Discovery Health devote all their programming to health issues. Everyone, it seems, is concerned to some degree about their health. In a world obsessed with health and disease, how does Jesus the healer, and those of us who follow him, fit in? Stephen McCutchan will write the main article, with Barbara Jurgensen writing the response. Illustrations, liturgical aids, and a children's sermon are also provided.
Is There a Doctor in the House?
Stephen McCutchan
THE WORLD
Health is in the headlines everywhere you look. Each of the candidates is putting forth their plan to improve health in the nation. John McCain has released his medical records to allay fears that he might be too old or still have the cancer that showed up a couple of years ago. Senator Kennedy has a brain tumor. The three main networks have teamed up on an hour-long special using their three main newscasters to energize the continuing battle against cancer.
What is the role of the Christian faith in this nationwide anxiety about health? There are some religious figures who claim that they can heal the sick in their worship services. Most pastors and many denominations shy away from such claims. Yet it is undeniably true that healing is a major feature in the scriptures.
This week's gospel lesson, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, offers us a story of a double healing by Jesus. It also describes both the absolute trust by one person in Jesus' power to heal and the cynicism of others that erupts into laughter at the very idea that he could do anything about healing a little girl. Do we approach our desire for healing with absolute faith or with cynical laughter? In what way does the gospel speak to our national anxiety about health? What is the role of churches and of individual Christians?
THE WORD
In many ways, a theme that ties our lessons together is the theme of absolute trust in God regardless of the circumstances. A repeated theme throughout scripture is the question voiced in Genesis 18:14: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" A pastor friend of mine and I were discussing the possibility of God healing a sick friend of ours. She wisely said, "If God is God, then we have to accept that God can heal if God chooses to." The only real question is why God heals some and not others.
That mystery of choice is reflected in our Genesis passage. Here we see the beginning of our faith story. God entered history by speaking to a specific person and making a promise to that person. No explanation is given as to why God chose this family and not another. That same theme will be repeated in the gospels as Jesus chooses his disciples. As we see in Jesus' choice of Matthew, not everyone was pleased with Jesus' choice and Jesus never explains it. Our faith is not shaped by our knowledge of how to secure God's favor but how we should respond when God favors us.
Our worldly criteria don't seem to apply. God chose Abram when he was seventy-five years old. What would normally be seen as the end of life became a radical new beginning. It began with the God of the universe asking one person, Abram, to trust God enough to leave behind all the normal signs of security and to venture forth into an unknown future based on a promise from an invisible God. Matthew and the other disciples are asked to do the same.
All the challenges in our own faith journey are pictured here. Faith is a relationship between finite humans and an infinite, invisible God. Faith requires trust in the promise offered by this God. It asks us to leave behind the normal ways we seek to secure our lives.
Paul sees this choice of Abram by God as the prime display of God's grace. It happened before Abram was circumcised, a sign that he was a Jew, and before Moses had received the Ten Commandments. For Paul, it happened while Abram was still a Gentile and therefore this grace is finally open to anyone, Jew or Gentile. Nothing is impossible for God.
So we approach the issue of healing with several assumptions. First, no matter what science or wisdom says, nothing is impossible for God. As my friend said, we at least have to accept the fact that because God is God, God can heal. Second, our own experience would suggest that there is a great mystery behind God's choices. We will never fully understand it. Healing grace is not earned. It can only be accepted with thanksgiving. Third, such healing does not belong to the adherents of a particular way of believing. In fact, fourth, sometimes such healing is part of God's reaching out to an unbeliever to draw him or her to the faith. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12). Fifth, although only implied here, sometimes the faith that opens one to healing is not one's own faith but the faith of others on your behalf. Here it was the father who asked Jesus to heal his daughter. Nothing is said about the type of faith that the daughter had. This is made even clearer in other healing stories, such as that of the paralyzed man lowered through the roof by his friends (Mark 2:1-12).
In our double healing story, we have a faithful leader of the synagogue and a woman who is willing to violate the religious law (Leviticus 15:25-33) each coming to Jesus for healing. One asks for the sake of someone he loves. The other doesn't even ask but acts in order to acquire her own healing. While one followed the parameters of the law, the other was so desperate that she was willing to risk rebuke and violation of the law in order to touch the mercy of God.
When you consider the anxiety that our society has about health, some of the lessons of these scriptures speak loud and clear. We live in a society in which there are those who believe passionately about the healing powers of God and those who laugh cynically about the very possibility. Our first affirmation is that there is nothing too wonderful or impossible for God. Therefore, there never is a time when prayer for healing is inappropriate.
There are those who are faithful Christians who experience catastrophic illness and naturally turn to God in prayer. There are others who only turn to God out of desperation. Neither care to debate the theological issues surrounding healing. They are interested only in the healing possibilities. God, in his graciousness, is free to respond to either.
Our prayers and our faith on behalf of others are like a window onto the healing love of God. Like when we are attended to by a physician, there is no way to guarantee healing. However, it is important to gather the faith of all who care and bring it to bear on the person's illness.
There is a recent article about doctors finding benefit in being honest and open about the human mistakes that they have made. Perhaps the church should practice the same honesty. Most people do not expect pastors to be in charge of miracles, but they do expect us to care enough to try. In forty years of ministry, I've never had anyone complain about my praying for their healing even when they did not see clear results.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
It is easy enough to illustrate the anxiety of our society about health. You can use some of the above examples or draw from more recent news stories. The point is that while there have always been health problems; we now seem to think that there should be a solution that would resolve our anxiety about health.
It would be appropriate to move from there to ask the question of what the role should be for the church and for individual Christians. If you boldly ask the question and then pause, my guess is that you will have everyone's attention. People are confused about the relationship to Christian faith and healing. They have heard the bizarre stories but they also know that healing is part of the scriptural story.
The next move would be to walk the congregation through both the Genesis and the gospel story, identifying for them the parallels that we struggle with today. I have tried to list them in the above commentary.
The conclusion could be an affirmation of the church's healing ministry through genuine care and prayer. However, there might also be room to affirm that in Christ our prayers are answered regardless of the physical outcome. While it is quite legitimate to pray specifically for physical healing, because of the resurrection we know that God, not biological health, has the final word. We pray because we know that God can heal but we trust because even though we do not understand the mystery of God's ways, we know that God is faithful. Our church's ministry of compassionate care is a window through which we can experience God's eternal care.
Is there a doctor in the house? Yes, and it is a doctor that we can trust to do that which is best for us.
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
I have a neighbor that I'll call Tecla who's a member of a congregation that once a month includes a brief time of healing during its regular Sunday morning service.
At that time, four leaders who've been well-trained take positions at the front of the sanctuary and worshipers may go to one of them and speak of whatever their needs are for healing. The leaders then pray for the person standing before them.
A few weeks ago, a woman fleeing an alcoholic, abusive husband moved into the apartment building where Tecla lives, and Tecla invited her to go to church with her. "Church?" the woman said. "I don't go to church." Her face and arms were covered with welts and bruises.
"Well, why don't you give it a try?" Tecla suggested. "I've found a lot of healing there, and this is the Sunday we do the healing service."
So the woman went with her and found the hymns and prayers and scripture readings a new and helpful experience.
After the service, she told Tecla, "I didn't know that there was any hope for me; my husband got drunk and beat me so many times. But I also have to confess that I've had my own addictions. Do you think there's any hope for me, that I can make a new start?"
"That happened in my own life," Tecla told her. "If it could happen to me, couldn't it happen to you?"
In our gospel lesson today, Jesus heals two women -- not only heals them, but raises one of them from the dead. So what kind of healing can you and I expect when we ask for prayers for our special needs -- or whenever we ask the Lord for healing?
We know that not everyone who asked him for healing received it -- at least not the physical healing they were hoping for. The apostle Paul said that he prayed again and again for relief from some physical problem he was having, but healing never came. Instead, the Lord told him that his grace was sufficient for him.
But Paul certainly did receive the healing of his inner being, of his mind and spirit -- of his whole person. Paul received the Lord's shalom, the total well-being, the peace that passes understanding, the peace that only the Lord can give.
Jesus seems to be more concerned with our total well-being than with just giving us relief from some health problem that's concerning us at this present moment. He's most concerned about giving us this lasting relationship with him, this new way of being that will go with us through all eternity.
What encourages me is that Jesus could heal a person like Matthew, a person who had sold out his own people to the conquering Romans -- a selfish person, a totally self-centered person, a person no one could have respect for. That means there has to be hope for someone like me.
In fact, the Bible seems to be full of people who were far from perfect, yet the Lord could work with them and help them become people of strong faith. Jesus says in our gospel lesson today, "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners" (Matthew 9:13).
I notice that when Jesus said to Matthew, "Follow me," that Matthew got right up and followed him (9:9). This reminds us of Peter and Andrew, fishermen who were casting their nets into the sea when Jesus came along and said to them, "Follow me." Matthew tells us, "Immediately they left their nets and followed him" (4:19-20).
I also notice that when Jesus went to the home of the young woman who had died and told the crowd gathered there that the girl wasn't dead, that she was just sleeping, they laughed at him. The crowd laughed at him.
I wonder how many times I haven't said something that needed to be said, something that might have helped others grow in faith, because I was afraid people might laugh at me.
Notice, too, that Jesus raised the girl from the dead by taking her by the hand. Some of us can remember a song that encouraged us to "put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters." I find that whenever I have to go in for surgery, or some other medical procedure that I'm uneasy about, I reach out and ask Jesus to hold my hand -- and you can trust me that I hang onto his very tightly.
I notice that the woman who touched the fringe of Jesus' cloak, hoping she would be made well, heard Jesus say a wonderful thing to her. He said, "Take heart, daughter." Not "Take heart, woman," but "Take heart, daughter."
We recall that on the occasion when Jesus' family came to visit him, he said that those who are seeking to live God's way are his family: "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:46-50). So he calls this woman "daughter," just as he calls us his sons and daughters.
Note, too, what Jesus is most concerned about in all this. His main concern is not that we do things for his Father, but that we do things for each other. He says, "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). It's good for us to worship -- our hearts and souls and minds need it -- but then we need to go out to serve those around us in Jesus' name.
Finally, Jesus encourages us to take heart. Just as he said to the woman who dared to touch the fringe of his garment, he says to you and me, "Take heart, son," and "Take heart, daughter." Our faith in him, our trust in him, our relationship with him, has made us well in our deepest being.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The role of "touching" in the gospels carries awesome significance to it. The words "touch" and "touched" are used more than thirty times in the gospels, and most often within the context of an episode of healing. In the hands of Jesus and his followers, "touching" carried the authority and gift of healing according to the record we have before us. This intimacy also carries with it an awesome responsibility. The potential for the abuse of the vulnerable is also close at hand if we are not careful, and the church must be ever vigilant that the power of Jesus to heal must not be compromised by exploitation.
* * *
It is interesting to note what Agnes Sanford has to say of prayer. Not exactly what I'd say, to tell you the truth, but worth thinking about all the same.
It is not the duty of every Christian to pray for everyone. Our prayers will help some and will not help others, for reasons beyond our understanding or control. Only the Holy Spirit can safely direct our healing power. And if we will listen to the voice of God within, we will be shown for whom to pray. God directs us most joyfully through our own desires.
-- Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), p. 98
* * *
In 1961, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote a now-famous letter to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), describing his own futile attempts to treat addiction by psychotherapy alone. He compared an alcoholic's cravings to "the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."
-- Click here for the full text of the letter
Bill Wilson's response to the debilitating power of addiction is the following famous statement:
If you have decided you want what we have, and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we've balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol -- cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God.
-- Alcoholics Anonymous, The Big Book, 4th ed. (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), pp. 58-59
* * *
I'd like to share a moment of deep healing that I experienced. When I lost my hair from chemo, I let it all go one day in the desert. It was the beginning of spring. It just blew away from my head as I ran my fingers through it. I wept for my loss. Several weeks later, I noticed a nest being built on the portal of the house I shared. Looking closer, I saw clumps of my hair in the nest. I wept again for this symbol of hope. My lost hair was part of a nest for nurturing new life. This was not a cure, but a deeply healing experience.
-- Claudia, in an e-mail posting to the Practice Circle of the Spirituality & Practice online course, "Practicing Spirituality During Illness," 5/5/08
* * *
"If only I'd been farther along my spiritual path, the biopsy would have come back negative," one of my patients once said. Why do we blame ourselves for getting sick? I call this New Age guilt, and it is currently epidemic in our society. The accusations can also come from others. I call this New Age blame.
Sure, disease can be a reflection of the psyche. For example, people who experience a tremendous degree of psychological stress at work and have no control over the demands of their job have a higher incidence of heart attacks. Also, it is well known that individuals who are burdened with a sense of stress and anxiety and who are cynical and angry toward life in general -- the so-called Type A personality -- are more likely to die younger of heart disease.
But examples such as these do not mean that all diseases are correlated with psychological problems or spiritual failure. . . . If "being spiritual" immunized one against illness, the saints and mystics should have been healthy and long-lived. The fact that they often were not shows that one can attain great spiritual heights and get very sick.
-- Dr. Larry Dossey, Prayer Is Good Medicine (New York: HarperOne, 1997)
* * *
Many years ago I cared for a woman called Mae Thomas. Mae had grown up in Georgia and while she had lived in Oakland, California, for many years, she had in some profound way never left the holy ground of her childhood. She had worked hard all her life, cleaning houses in order to raise seven children and more than a few grandchildren. By the time I met her, she had grown old and was riddled with cancer.
Mae celebrated life. Her laugh was a pure joy. It made you remember how to laugh yourself. All these years later, just thinking of her makes me smile. As she became sicker, I began to call her every few days to check in on her. She would always answer the phone in the same way. I would say "Mae, how ya doin'?" and she would chuckle and reply, "I'm blessed, Sister. I am blessed."
The night before she died, I called, and her family had brought the phone to her. "Mae," I said. "It's Rachel." I could hear her coughing and clearing her throat, looking to find breath enough to speak in a lung filled with cancer, willing herself past a fog of morphine to connect my voice. Tears stung my eyes. "Mae," I said. "It's Rachel. How ya doin'?" There was a sound I could not identify, which slowly unwrapped itself into a deep chuckle. "I'm blessed, Rachel. I am blessed," she told me. Mae was one of those people. And so, perhaps, are we all...
We can bless others only when we feel blessed ourselves. Blessing life may be more about learning how to celebrate life than learning how to fix life. It may require an appreciation of life as it is and an acceptance of much in life that we cannot understand. It may mean developing an eye for joy. It is not necessary to sit in judgment in order to move things forward, and our anger may not be the most potent tool for change. Most important, it requires the humility to know that we are not in this task of restoring the world alone.
-- Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging (New York: Riverhead, 2001)
* * *
This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
-- Martin Luther, Quoted in Mayo Clinic Health Quest, October 2006, p. 8
* * *
For a brief time, I was acting dean at Phillips Seminary. It was for fifteen months. That's similar to fifteen years. The secretary said, "There's someone here to see you." A woman asked me to come out to the parking lot. I was a little nervous, but I followed her to the parking lot and to her car. She opened the back door, and slumped in the backseat was her brother. He had been a senior at the University of Oklahoma. He had been in a bad car wreck and in a coma eight months. She had quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him. All of their resources were gone. She opened the door and said, "I'd like for you to heal him."
I said, "I can pray for him. And I can pray with you. But I do not have the gift of healing."
She got behind the wheel and said to me, "Then what in the world do you do?" And she drove off.
What I did that afternoon was study, stare at my books, and try to forget what she had said.
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 21
* * *
I began to pray that God would cure me of my MS. I searched the scriptures for clues about how and what to pray. "Dear God, I know if it is your will you can make me well. Please remove this disease from my body." Each morning I would get up and test my strength, certain that I would see positive change. And each morning I was disappointed. I tried to let God know that I was willing to work along with Him. "God, I know that you work your will through all things. You take all situations and transform them by your loving power. If there's a lesson to be learned here, don't worry. I've learned it. Now if you would just heal me, I will sing your praises, and spread the Good News." Various people offered suggestions. One man said, "There must be some reason why your body is attacking itself." I began to wonder if my lack of healing was due to a lack of faith. I began to sink farther and farther down. For some reason, my prayers didn't work.
And then there was what I remember as one of the worst nights in my life. It was 3 a.m., and I hadn't slept. My prayers had become simply, "Why God, why don't you heal me?" I went down into the living room and curled up in a ball on the floor. I cried for a while, but then I seemed to run out of tears. I can't say I felt much of anything. Perhaps my despair led me beyond feeling. Then something amazing happened. I'll give God the credit, although it wasn't anything supernatural. There was no light from heaven or angel at my doorstep. The earth didn't move. Something did move however, but it was inside of me. For some reason (again, I'll blame God for this) I stopped thinking about the Fearful Unknown. Instead, I asked myself, "What do I know?" That night, I could be sure of two things: God loved me more than anything, and I had MS. Well, what would God be doing for someone He loved so much who had MS? I began to make a list: God would make him aware of the incredible blessings and beauty that surrounded him in this world, God would open up the scriptures in a new way, God would surround him with the love of friends and family, God would invite him into a new and closer relationship, God would support him and help him through the day.... As I made my list, I began to smile. I realized that God had been doing all of these things! While I prayed to God and called upon God to act, God was doing what I needed most. The worst night of my life became one of the best!
I learned something very important that night, something that has guided and strengthened me from that day on. Perhaps it doesn't matter so much what we pray or how we pray it. Perhaps what is most important is where we pray. It doesn't have to be in church, in our bedroom, or even on the living room floor. The place where we are called to pray is in the arms of a loving God.
-- Walter Hermanns, from his blog entry for Saturday, February 04, 2006, "When Prayer Doesn't Work"
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: The sinners, the saints;
the broken, the whole:
all come together in this sacred space.
People: We come rejoicing
in the One who gives life.
Leader: The doubters, the devout;
the wonderers, the wanderers;
all are called by the same Lord.
People: We come, some eagerly, some fearfully,
to follow Jesus the Christ.
Leader: The hesitant, the heroic,
the grandparents, the little children;
all are embraced in God's love.
People: We come with whispers of hope
and glad shouts of joy on our lips.
Prayer Of The Day
Without fail, you find them,
Searching God;
in every generation,
people respond to your gracious call
to journey into the unknown:
old people teetering on retirement,
a man doing a job for which
everyone despises him,
a woman speaking truths
that no one wants to hear.
But they hear you,
and in listening,
their lives --
and ours --
are transformed by your promise.
So, in this time,
in this place,
to this generation,
call us.
This we pray in the name of Jesus,
who taught us to say when we pray:
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
"Is it true?" -- that's the question we bring to this place in this time. God's promises, God's love, God's salvation -- is it all true: for you, for me, for us? Let us confess our fears and our failings, as we approach the One we believe is truth.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
Jesus, sitting with sinners and tax collectors:
you watch us jostle for a place
at the head table.
Jesus, walking along and calling outcasts
into your community:
you see us hurry past the homeless
and the lost.
Jesus, healer of those the world looks down
its nose at:
you weep as we overlook
the broken in our communities.
Jesus, Dear Desirer of Mercy,
forgive us.
Silence is kept
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: The promise rests on God's grace, not on our best efforts. At any time, in every moment, God's constant love heals our hearts, mends our brokenness, and restores us to life.
People: Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Taking care of you
Object: a comb, a pair of scissors
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12).
Good morning, boys and girls. I want to ask you a question. When your hair gets long and shaggy, where do you go? (let them answer) That's right, you go to the barbershop or the beauty parlor. Every so often you visit the barbershop to get rid of your shaggy hair or you have your mom or dad cut your hair so that it looks good. The older we get, the more important it seems to become. Hair is something we have to take care of every day with a brush or a comb.
The person who cuts your hair uses a pair of scissors and a comb (hold up the comb and scissors) to make sure that your hair is about the same length on each side of your head and just the right length in the front and the back. If you let it grow too long, people talk about it. If it is not combed every day people talk about it. Hair is important to take care of if we want to look good.
If you don't have any hair the barber is not a place that you have to visit. Do you know anyone that doesn't have hair? (let them answer) Some men don't have much hair or very little. They don't have to go to the barbershop very often or they don't have to go at all. Babies sometimes have very little hair, also.
Jesus was a very good person and everyone knew it. Jesus was the best example of a person that anyone ever knew. That's because he did not sin against God or any of the people that he lived with or just met. But one day there was a fuss about Jesus. There were some people that wanted Jesus to make a mistake and so they watched everything he did. Once Jesus went to the home of a person who did not have a very good reputation. The other people who were there also were not well liked and they were known as sinners. Good people don't hang around with sinners very often and especially people that teach about God. At least this is what the people who were trying to catch Jesus making a mistake thought. They told everyone that Jesus was speaking and eating with sinners.
It didn't take long for Jesus to hear about this and how the "right kind of people" were saying bad things about him. Jesus went to the complainers and told them that he had come to help people out of their sin and not leave them in sin. If you have shaggy hair, the barber is there to get rid of the shaggy hair. Jesus came to care for sinners and help them see how to be like people of God and get away from the evil things that they do.
After the picky people learned this, they were a little more careful about what they said and they learned something new about Jesus. Jesus loves all of us, even people who are bad. He loves them and makes them good people. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 8, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Is There a Doctor in the House?
Stephen McCutchan
THE WORLD
Health is in the headlines everywhere you look. Each of the candidates is putting forth their plan to improve health in the nation. John McCain has released his medical records to allay fears that he might be too old or still have the cancer that showed up a couple of years ago. Senator Kennedy has a brain tumor. The three main networks have teamed up on an hour-long special using their three main newscasters to energize the continuing battle against cancer.
What is the role of the Christian faith in this nationwide anxiety about health? There are some religious figures who claim that they can heal the sick in their worship services. Most pastors and many denominations shy away from such claims. Yet it is undeniably true that healing is a major feature in the scriptures.
This week's gospel lesson, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, offers us a story of a double healing by Jesus. It also describes both the absolute trust by one person in Jesus' power to heal and the cynicism of others that erupts into laughter at the very idea that he could do anything about healing a little girl. Do we approach our desire for healing with absolute faith or with cynical laughter? In what way does the gospel speak to our national anxiety about health? What is the role of churches and of individual Christians?
THE WORD
In many ways, a theme that ties our lessons together is the theme of absolute trust in God regardless of the circumstances. A repeated theme throughout scripture is the question voiced in Genesis 18:14: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" A pastor friend of mine and I were discussing the possibility of God healing a sick friend of ours. She wisely said, "If God is God, then we have to accept that God can heal if God chooses to." The only real question is why God heals some and not others.
That mystery of choice is reflected in our Genesis passage. Here we see the beginning of our faith story. God entered history by speaking to a specific person and making a promise to that person. No explanation is given as to why God chose this family and not another. That same theme will be repeated in the gospels as Jesus chooses his disciples. As we see in Jesus' choice of Matthew, not everyone was pleased with Jesus' choice and Jesus never explains it. Our faith is not shaped by our knowledge of how to secure God's favor but how we should respond when God favors us.
Our worldly criteria don't seem to apply. God chose Abram when he was seventy-five years old. What would normally be seen as the end of life became a radical new beginning. It began with the God of the universe asking one person, Abram, to trust God enough to leave behind all the normal signs of security and to venture forth into an unknown future based on a promise from an invisible God. Matthew and the other disciples are asked to do the same.
All the challenges in our own faith journey are pictured here. Faith is a relationship between finite humans and an infinite, invisible God. Faith requires trust in the promise offered by this God. It asks us to leave behind the normal ways we seek to secure our lives.
Paul sees this choice of Abram by God as the prime display of God's grace. It happened before Abram was circumcised, a sign that he was a Jew, and before Moses had received the Ten Commandments. For Paul, it happened while Abram was still a Gentile and therefore this grace is finally open to anyone, Jew or Gentile. Nothing is impossible for God.
So we approach the issue of healing with several assumptions. First, no matter what science or wisdom says, nothing is impossible for God. As my friend said, we at least have to accept the fact that because God is God, God can heal. Second, our own experience would suggest that there is a great mystery behind God's choices. We will never fully understand it. Healing grace is not earned. It can only be accepted with thanksgiving. Third, such healing does not belong to the adherents of a particular way of believing. In fact, fourth, sometimes such healing is part of God's reaching out to an unbeliever to draw him or her to the faith. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12). Fifth, although only implied here, sometimes the faith that opens one to healing is not one's own faith but the faith of others on your behalf. Here it was the father who asked Jesus to heal his daughter. Nothing is said about the type of faith that the daughter had. This is made even clearer in other healing stories, such as that of the paralyzed man lowered through the roof by his friends (Mark 2:1-12).
In our double healing story, we have a faithful leader of the synagogue and a woman who is willing to violate the religious law (Leviticus 15:25-33) each coming to Jesus for healing. One asks for the sake of someone he loves. The other doesn't even ask but acts in order to acquire her own healing. While one followed the parameters of the law, the other was so desperate that she was willing to risk rebuke and violation of the law in order to touch the mercy of God.
When you consider the anxiety that our society has about health, some of the lessons of these scriptures speak loud and clear. We live in a society in which there are those who believe passionately about the healing powers of God and those who laugh cynically about the very possibility. Our first affirmation is that there is nothing too wonderful or impossible for God. Therefore, there never is a time when prayer for healing is inappropriate.
There are those who are faithful Christians who experience catastrophic illness and naturally turn to God in prayer. There are others who only turn to God out of desperation. Neither care to debate the theological issues surrounding healing. They are interested only in the healing possibilities. God, in his graciousness, is free to respond to either.
Our prayers and our faith on behalf of others are like a window onto the healing love of God. Like when we are attended to by a physician, there is no way to guarantee healing. However, it is important to gather the faith of all who care and bring it to bear on the person's illness.
There is a recent article about doctors finding benefit in being honest and open about the human mistakes that they have made. Perhaps the church should practice the same honesty. Most people do not expect pastors to be in charge of miracles, but they do expect us to care enough to try. In forty years of ministry, I've never had anyone complain about my praying for their healing even when they did not see clear results.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
It is easy enough to illustrate the anxiety of our society about health. You can use some of the above examples or draw from more recent news stories. The point is that while there have always been health problems; we now seem to think that there should be a solution that would resolve our anxiety about health.
It would be appropriate to move from there to ask the question of what the role should be for the church and for individual Christians. If you boldly ask the question and then pause, my guess is that you will have everyone's attention. People are confused about the relationship to Christian faith and healing. They have heard the bizarre stories but they also know that healing is part of the scriptural story.
The next move would be to walk the congregation through both the Genesis and the gospel story, identifying for them the parallels that we struggle with today. I have tried to list them in the above commentary.
The conclusion could be an affirmation of the church's healing ministry through genuine care and prayer. However, there might also be room to affirm that in Christ our prayers are answered regardless of the physical outcome. While it is quite legitimate to pray specifically for physical healing, because of the resurrection we know that God, not biological health, has the final word. We pray because we know that God can heal but we trust because even though we do not understand the mystery of God's ways, we know that God is faithful. Our church's ministry of compassionate care is a window through which we can experience God's eternal care.
Is there a doctor in the house? Yes, and it is a doctor that we can trust to do that which is best for us.
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
I have a neighbor that I'll call Tecla who's a member of a congregation that once a month includes a brief time of healing during its regular Sunday morning service.
At that time, four leaders who've been well-trained take positions at the front of the sanctuary and worshipers may go to one of them and speak of whatever their needs are for healing. The leaders then pray for the person standing before them.
A few weeks ago, a woman fleeing an alcoholic, abusive husband moved into the apartment building where Tecla lives, and Tecla invited her to go to church with her. "Church?" the woman said. "I don't go to church." Her face and arms were covered with welts and bruises.
"Well, why don't you give it a try?" Tecla suggested. "I've found a lot of healing there, and this is the Sunday we do the healing service."
So the woman went with her and found the hymns and prayers and scripture readings a new and helpful experience.
After the service, she told Tecla, "I didn't know that there was any hope for me; my husband got drunk and beat me so many times. But I also have to confess that I've had my own addictions. Do you think there's any hope for me, that I can make a new start?"
"That happened in my own life," Tecla told her. "If it could happen to me, couldn't it happen to you?"
In our gospel lesson today, Jesus heals two women -- not only heals them, but raises one of them from the dead. So what kind of healing can you and I expect when we ask for prayers for our special needs -- or whenever we ask the Lord for healing?
We know that not everyone who asked him for healing received it -- at least not the physical healing they were hoping for. The apostle Paul said that he prayed again and again for relief from some physical problem he was having, but healing never came. Instead, the Lord told him that his grace was sufficient for him.
But Paul certainly did receive the healing of his inner being, of his mind and spirit -- of his whole person. Paul received the Lord's shalom, the total well-being, the peace that passes understanding, the peace that only the Lord can give.
Jesus seems to be more concerned with our total well-being than with just giving us relief from some health problem that's concerning us at this present moment. He's most concerned about giving us this lasting relationship with him, this new way of being that will go with us through all eternity.
What encourages me is that Jesus could heal a person like Matthew, a person who had sold out his own people to the conquering Romans -- a selfish person, a totally self-centered person, a person no one could have respect for. That means there has to be hope for someone like me.
In fact, the Bible seems to be full of people who were far from perfect, yet the Lord could work with them and help them become people of strong faith. Jesus says in our gospel lesson today, "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners" (Matthew 9:13).
I notice that when Jesus said to Matthew, "Follow me," that Matthew got right up and followed him (9:9). This reminds us of Peter and Andrew, fishermen who were casting their nets into the sea when Jesus came along and said to them, "Follow me." Matthew tells us, "Immediately they left their nets and followed him" (4:19-20).
I also notice that when Jesus went to the home of the young woman who had died and told the crowd gathered there that the girl wasn't dead, that she was just sleeping, they laughed at him. The crowd laughed at him.
I wonder how many times I haven't said something that needed to be said, something that might have helped others grow in faith, because I was afraid people might laugh at me.
Notice, too, that Jesus raised the girl from the dead by taking her by the hand. Some of us can remember a song that encouraged us to "put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters." I find that whenever I have to go in for surgery, or some other medical procedure that I'm uneasy about, I reach out and ask Jesus to hold my hand -- and you can trust me that I hang onto his very tightly.
I notice that the woman who touched the fringe of Jesus' cloak, hoping she would be made well, heard Jesus say a wonderful thing to her. He said, "Take heart, daughter." Not "Take heart, woman," but "Take heart, daughter."
We recall that on the occasion when Jesus' family came to visit him, he said that those who are seeking to live God's way are his family: "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:46-50). So he calls this woman "daughter," just as he calls us his sons and daughters.
Note, too, what Jesus is most concerned about in all this. His main concern is not that we do things for his Father, but that we do things for each other. He says, "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). It's good for us to worship -- our hearts and souls and minds need it -- but then we need to go out to serve those around us in Jesus' name.
Finally, Jesus encourages us to take heart. Just as he said to the woman who dared to touch the fringe of his garment, he says to you and me, "Take heart, son," and "Take heart, daughter." Our faith in him, our trust in him, our relationship with him, has made us well in our deepest being.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The role of "touching" in the gospels carries awesome significance to it. The words "touch" and "touched" are used more than thirty times in the gospels, and most often within the context of an episode of healing. In the hands of Jesus and his followers, "touching" carried the authority and gift of healing according to the record we have before us. This intimacy also carries with it an awesome responsibility. The potential for the abuse of the vulnerable is also close at hand if we are not careful, and the church must be ever vigilant that the power of Jesus to heal must not be compromised by exploitation.
* * *
It is interesting to note what Agnes Sanford has to say of prayer. Not exactly what I'd say, to tell you the truth, but worth thinking about all the same.
It is not the duty of every Christian to pray for everyone. Our prayers will help some and will not help others, for reasons beyond our understanding or control. Only the Holy Spirit can safely direct our healing power. And if we will listen to the voice of God within, we will be shown for whom to pray. God directs us most joyfully through our own desires.
-- Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), p. 98
* * *
In 1961, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote a now-famous letter to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), describing his own futile attempts to treat addiction by psychotherapy alone. He compared an alcoholic's cravings to "the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."
-- Click here for the full text of the letter
Bill Wilson's response to the debilitating power of addiction is the following famous statement:
If you have decided you want what we have, and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we've balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol -- cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God.
-- Alcoholics Anonymous, The Big Book, 4th ed. (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), pp. 58-59
* * *
I'd like to share a moment of deep healing that I experienced. When I lost my hair from chemo, I let it all go one day in the desert. It was the beginning of spring. It just blew away from my head as I ran my fingers through it. I wept for my loss. Several weeks later, I noticed a nest being built on the portal of the house I shared. Looking closer, I saw clumps of my hair in the nest. I wept again for this symbol of hope. My lost hair was part of a nest for nurturing new life. This was not a cure, but a deeply healing experience.
-- Claudia, in an e-mail posting to the Practice Circle of the Spirituality & Practice online course, "Practicing Spirituality During Illness," 5/5/08
* * *
"If only I'd been farther along my spiritual path, the biopsy would have come back negative," one of my patients once said. Why do we blame ourselves for getting sick? I call this New Age guilt, and it is currently epidemic in our society. The accusations can also come from others. I call this New Age blame.
Sure, disease can be a reflection of the psyche. For example, people who experience a tremendous degree of psychological stress at work and have no control over the demands of their job have a higher incidence of heart attacks. Also, it is well known that individuals who are burdened with a sense of stress and anxiety and who are cynical and angry toward life in general -- the so-called Type A personality -- are more likely to die younger of heart disease.
But examples such as these do not mean that all diseases are correlated with psychological problems or spiritual failure. . . . If "being spiritual" immunized one against illness, the saints and mystics should have been healthy and long-lived. The fact that they often were not shows that one can attain great spiritual heights and get very sick.
-- Dr. Larry Dossey, Prayer Is Good Medicine (New York: HarperOne, 1997)
* * *
Many years ago I cared for a woman called Mae Thomas. Mae had grown up in Georgia and while she had lived in Oakland, California, for many years, she had in some profound way never left the holy ground of her childhood. She had worked hard all her life, cleaning houses in order to raise seven children and more than a few grandchildren. By the time I met her, she had grown old and was riddled with cancer.
Mae celebrated life. Her laugh was a pure joy. It made you remember how to laugh yourself. All these years later, just thinking of her makes me smile. As she became sicker, I began to call her every few days to check in on her. She would always answer the phone in the same way. I would say "Mae, how ya doin'?" and she would chuckle and reply, "I'm blessed, Sister. I am blessed."
The night before she died, I called, and her family had brought the phone to her. "Mae," I said. "It's Rachel." I could hear her coughing and clearing her throat, looking to find breath enough to speak in a lung filled with cancer, willing herself past a fog of morphine to connect my voice. Tears stung my eyes. "Mae," I said. "It's Rachel. How ya doin'?" There was a sound I could not identify, which slowly unwrapped itself into a deep chuckle. "I'm blessed, Rachel. I am blessed," she told me. Mae was one of those people. And so, perhaps, are we all...
We can bless others only when we feel blessed ourselves. Blessing life may be more about learning how to celebrate life than learning how to fix life. It may require an appreciation of life as it is and an acceptance of much in life that we cannot understand. It may mean developing an eye for joy. It is not necessary to sit in judgment in order to move things forward, and our anger may not be the most potent tool for change. Most important, it requires the humility to know that we are not in this task of restoring the world alone.
-- Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging (New York: Riverhead, 2001)
* * *
This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
-- Martin Luther, Quoted in Mayo Clinic Health Quest, October 2006, p. 8
* * *
For a brief time, I was acting dean at Phillips Seminary. It was for fifteen months. That's similar to fifteen years. The secretary said, "There's someone here to see you." A woman asked me to come out to the parking lot. I was a little nervous, but I followed her to the parking lot and to her car. She opened the back door, and slumped in the backseat was her brother. He had been a senior at the University of Oklahoma. He had been in a bad car wreck and in a coma eight months. She had quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him. All of their resources were gone. She opened the door and said, "I'd like for you to heal him."
I said, "I can pray for him. And I can pray with you. But I do not have the gift of healing."
She got behind the wheel and said to me, "Then what in the world do you do?" And she drove off.
What I did that afternoon was study, stare at my books, and try to forget what she had said.
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 21
* * *
I began to pray that God would cure me of my MS. I searched the scriptures for clues about how and what to pray. "Dear God, I know if it is your will you can make me well. Please remove this disease from my body." Each morning I would get up and test my strength, certain that I would see positive change. And each morning I was disappointed. I tried to let God know that I was willing to work along with Him. "God, I know that you work your will through all things. You take all situations and transform them by your loving power. If there's a lesson to be learned here, don't worry. I've learned it. Now if you would just heal me, I will sing your praises, and spread the Good News." Various people offered suggestions. One man said, "There must be some reason why your body is attacking itself." I began to wonder if my lack of healing was due to a lack of faith. I began to sink farther and farther down. For some reason, my prayers didn't work.
And then there was what I remember as one of the worst nights in my life. It was 3 a.m., and I hadn't slept. My prayers had become simply, "Why God, why don't you heal me?" I went down into the living room and curled up in a ball on the floor. I cried for a while, but then I seemed to run out of tears. I can't say I felt much of anything. Perhaps my despair led me beyond feeling. Then something amazing happened. I'll give God the credit, although it wasn't anything supernatural. There was no light from heaven or angel at my doorstep. The earth didn't move. Something did move however, but it was inside of me. For some reason (again, I'll blame God for this) I stopped thinking about the Fearful Unknown. Instead, I asked myself, "What do I know?" That night, I could be sure of two things: God loved me more than anything, and I had MS. Well, what would God be doing for someone He loved so much who had MS? I began to make a list: God would make him aware of the incredible blessings and beauty that surrounded him in this world, God would open up the scriptures in a new way, God would surround him with the love of friends and family, God would invite him into a new and closer relationship, God would support him and help him through the day.... As I made my list, I began to smile. I realized that God had been doing all of these things! While I prayed to God and called upon God to act, God was doing what I needed most. The worst night of my life became one of the best!
I learned something very important that night, something that has guided and strengthened me from that day on. Perhaps it doesn't matter so much what we pray or how we pray it. Perhaps what is most important is where we pray. It doesn't have to be in church, in our bedroom, or even on the living room floor. The place where we are called to pray is in the arms of a loving God.
-- Walter Hermanns, from his blog entry for Saturday, February 04, 2006, "When Prayer Doesn't Work"
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: The sinners, the saints;
the broken, the whole:
all come together in this sacred space.
People: We come rejoicing
in the One who gives life.
Leader: The doubters, the devout;
the wonderers, the wanderers;
all are called by the same Lord.
People: We come, some eagerly, some fearfully,
to follow Jesus the Christ.
Leader: The hesitant, the heroic,
the grandparents, the little children;
all are embraced in God's love.
People: We come with whispers of hope
and glad shouts of joy on our lips.
Prayer Of The Day
Without fail, you find them,
Searching God;
in every generation,
people respond to your gracious call
to journey into the unknown:
old people teetering on retirement,
a man doing a job for which
everyone despises him,
a woman speaking truths
that no one wants to hear.
But they hear you,
and in listening,
their lives --
and ours --
are transformed by your promise.
So, in this time,
in this place,
to this generation,
call us.
This we pray in the name of Jesus,
who taught us to say when we pray:
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
"Is it true?" -- that's the question we bring to this place in this time. God's promises, God's love, God's salvation -- is it all true: for you, for me, for us? Let us confess our fears and our failings, as we approach the One we believe is truth.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
Jesus, sitting with sinners and tax collectors:
you watch us jostle for a place
at the head table.
Jesus, walking along and calling outcasts
into your community:
you see us hurry past the homeless
and the lost.
Jesus, healer of those the world looks down
its nose at:
you weep as we overlook
the broken in our communities.
Jesus, Dear Desirer of Mercy,
forgive us.
Silence is kept
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: The promise rests on God's grace, not on our best efforts. At any time, in every moment, God's constant love heals our hearts, mends our brokenness, and restores us to life.
People: Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Taking care of you
Object: a comb, a pair of scissors
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12).
Good morning, boys and girls. I want to ask you a question. When your hair gets long and shaggy, where do you go? (let them answer) That's right, you go to the barbershop or the beauty parlor. Every so often you visit the barbershop to get rid of your shaggy hair or you have your mom or dad cut your hair so that it looks good. The older we get, the more important it seems to become. Hair is something we have to take care of every day with a brush or a comb.
The person who cuts your hair uses a pair of scissors and a comb (hold up the comb and scissors) to make sure that your hair is about the same length on each side of your head and just the right length in the front and the back. If you let it grow too long, people talk about it. If it is not combed every day people talk about it. Hair is important to take care of if we want to look good.
If you don't have any hair the barber is not a place that you have to visit. Do you know anyone that doesn't have hair? (let them answer) Some men don't have much hair or very little. They don't have to go to the barbershop very often or they don't have to go at all. Babies sometimes have very little hair, also.
Jesus was a very good person and everyone knew it. Jesus was the best example of a person that anyone ever knew. That's because he did not sin against God or any of the people that he lived with or just met. But one day there was a fuss about Jesus. There were some people that wanted Jesus to make a mistake and so they watched everything he did. Once Jesus went to the home of a person who did not have a very good reputation. The other people who were there also were not well liked and they were known as sinners. Good people don't hang around with sinners very often and especially people that teach about God. At least this is what the people who were trying to catch Jesus making a mistake thought. They told everyone that Jesus was speaking and eating with sinners.
It didn't take long for Jesus to hear about this and how the "right kind of people" were saying bad things about him. Jesus went to the complainers and told them that he had come to help people out of their sin and not leave them in sin. If you have shaggy hair, the barber is there to get rid of the shaggy hair. Jesus came to care for sinners and help them see how to be like people of God and get away from the evil things that they do.
After the picky people learned this, they were a little more careful about what they said and they learned something new about Jesus. Jesus loves all of us, even people who are bad. He loves them and makes them good people. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 8, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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