A Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 9-30-2012
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: James 5:13-20; Psalm 124; Mark
9:38-50
Themes: healing, prayer, deeds of power,
Title: Healing
from the Inside Out
My dear
friends: I have no idea why God heals some people, and why others continue to
suffer.
In his
typically pragmatic fashion, James finishes his letter with practical advice
for the Christian community, including this famous passage about calling the
elders of the church to pray for the sick and to anoint them with oil in the
name of the Lord.
With simple
clarity, James states it as a fact: “The prayer of faith will save the sick.”
And yet…healing
is not quite that simple, is it?
To repeat: there
is no answer to the why question. Why do some suffer from illness and others do
not? Why are some healed and others are not? I do not know.
But I DO know
that the healing power of God is real. I KNOW that God desires each of us to
live a full and abundant, joyful and meaningful life, and I know that sometimes
God intervenes to ensure that this is so.
My friends, I
believe in the healing ministry of Jesus, and I believe that the same healing
power that was at work through him in Galilee so many years ago is still at
work today through his Body, the people who gather together because of their
faith and trust in him.
I believe
this.
And yet…healing
is a complicated matter.
If we allow it,
God showers healing grace upon us all the time. It is an on-going, continual process,
because we need healing on SO many different levels.
I remember
visiting someone in the hospital who was facing a very difficult prognosis. And
the first thing this person did when I came in to visit him was to breakdown
and cry.
And he said,
“I don’t know why this is happening. Maybe God is angry with me. Maybe I did
something wrong. All I want to do is to be a grandfather – to love and spoil my
grandchildren. But now I’ll probably be gone before I get to see them. I don’t know what I’ve done to make
God do this to me.”
And so I knew
right away where to start!
Yes, this man
was facing a terminal illness – and I would pray for his healing on this visit,
but the first and primary place where he needed to be healed was in his
relationship with God!
I spoke to him
directly and said, “Listen to me: God is not angry with you and is not causing
this illness. God loves you. God treasures you. You are precious in God’s
sight, and God does not want you to suffer like this any more than you do
yourself. Believe me: God wants you to be a grandparent, and to see and love
your grandchildren. I don’t know why things like this happen to people like
yourself, but it is not because God wants it to happen. We live in a messed up
world and it’s not the way God wants it to be. But God is with you even now,
and will stay with you as you face this illness.”
Do you see it,
my friends? His healing needed to begin with his faulty understanding of who God
is!
God does not
send illness. God does not cause disease. God is against cancer.
In our
Eucharistic prayer, right after we join in the song of the angels – what we
call the Sanctus – we continue on as we pray together with these words:
“Holy and
gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself; and, when we
had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy,
sent Jesus Christ…”
When we had
fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death…
Now here is
some good theology! God made us in love, and God never intended us to live with
evil and illness and death. We do experience those things now because of sin,
but this was never God’s will, never God’s plan.
Our collective
human sin has contaminated all of creation.
And the whole
story of redemption is, in fact, God’s work to undo the consequences of sin, to
restore us to our intended divine wholeness, sharing in abundant, eternal life
directly with God.
I think that
sometimes the very request for physical healing might in fact be a sign of a
deeper spiritual disease. I think that some people want to hold on to their
physical health as if it were their treasured possession; as if each day was
not a gift of grace, but rather as their rightful possession to be jealously
guarded and protected; as if each day is their own and not given by the Creator
for God’s own purpose.
And if so,
then perhaps it is true that THIS attitude needs to be healed first, before
physical healing can occur.
Healing occurs
on many different levels, but in God’s plan it always works from the inside out.
In the years
of his youth, when Francis of Assisi began to feel the call of God upon his
life, he came across a leper in the road. He was out riding in the countryside,
confused about what to do with his life. For as long as he could remember,
Francis had abhorred lepers. He could not look at them; he would not go near
the houses where they lived.
But here was a
leper placed before him as if by the hand of God, and young Francis knew that he
was being challenged.
He had never
been afraid of going to war; but he was deathly afraid of this poor, helpless
leper standing before him. And, as the story goes, his soul stopped in that
moment of decision.
Then, in
typical Franciscan style, he jumped down off of his horse and ran to the leper
and threw his arms around him. Francis gave the leper what money coins he had
in his pocket and rode on. And so his healing began. Francis faced his fear and
so turned the corner.
In the truest
possible sense, Francis repented. He changed his direction, and he began to be
healed by the hand of God.
Nora Gallagher
writes of a time years ago when she asked a very successful business owner if
he had enough money yet. The man replied, “Don’t you understand? There is never
enough.” (The Sacred Meal, 2009: p.116)
That kind of man
needs healing! He needs to be healed and set free from the obsessive love of
money, free to be content and grateful and joyful no matter how much money he
has.
But we all
know, don’t we, that feeling of “never enough.” We don’t have enough money. Or
we don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough friends, not enough energy, not
enough support.
Women – like my
wife Erin – might say that they don’t have enough romance!
Men might say
that they don’t have enough respect, or enough physical intimacy.
Whatever you
are thinking of right now, I’ll BET that you can fill in the blank for
yourself!
“I don’t have
enough …BLANK.” Whatever- you name it.
Well guess what?
We need to be healed of THAT “never enough” mindset!
Because it is
a lie!
You and I have
EXACTLY the amount of time that we need to live this life.
In Christ, we have
enough. Our healing begins on the inside, and it begins by learning to TRUST in
God entirely and simply.
Now, just to
be clear, because this is such a commonly misunderstood passage, let’s make
sure that we all understand that the Master’s intention was NOT for us to cut
off our hands or our feet or gouge out our eyes!
His ministry
was one of healing, not of mutilation!
And his focus
is always first and foremost upon the healing of the heart – healing of the very
center of my being.
True healing
from the hands of Christ comes from the inside out.
Chopping off
hands and feet, and tearing out eyes, would do nothing for that.
How could
hurting yourself in this way accomplish God’s goal of healing you entirely?
As Dallas
Willard wrote - in a quote which I will never forget, to follow this teaching
literally would do nothing, because “The mutilated stump [of a person] could
still have a wicked heart” (The Divine Conspiracy, 1998: p.167).
So, my brothers
and sisters, let’s continue to pray for one another; continue to ask for God’s healing
grace to be at work in the bodies of those who are sick, those who have requested
our prayers.
But allow God to
work on healing you from the inside out. It’s rarely easy, and it won’t feel safe
to allow God in that deeply into the depths of your being.
But this is the
only way to experience true, eternal life – the kind of life which lasts forever.
Amen.
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