Healing

By The Rev. Christian Carroll, Priest Associate

This morning we’re doing something a little bit out of the ordinary. We’re directly tying the topic of the sermon to the theme of the adult forum following the 10:30 service. The topic is “healing”. The topic came to be healing because the wardens and the sabbatical committee proposed that during our rector’s sabbatical we link some of what we’re doing and thinking about with Bernie’s activities while he is away. Healing is one of his interests and he will be teaching and preaching about healing throughout his travels hence we focus on healing today.

I take as my starting point those many times in the New Testament when Jesus talks about healing or heals someone of a malady. Here are just a few. In Matthew we read that, “… Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and sickness” and later he says “… As you go proclaim the good news, the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons”.

In Mark we hear that Jesus “appointed the twelve whom he also named apostles to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons”.

And in Luke we see Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath. “When he stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

So, it is safe to say that Jesus understood his life to be about proclaiming the kingdom of God, freeing and healing people and telling his closest followers to do the same.

But problems can creep in for us modern folks as we take up the disciples’ commission to cure, caste out, and cleanse.

Healing gets complicated. It gets complicated when we begin to take a closer look and see that we have some questions. For instance, Is there a difference between healing and curing? What is healing prayer? What does it do? What’s a healing ministry all about? Can anybody be a “healer” or do you need to be trained? What’s happening when a person goes over to the prayer desk and kneels down in front of another person who lays their hands on them and prays? What if I don’t get the healing I ask for? Does it mean there’s something wrong with me? Is the healer not good enough? What does it mean if some people are healed right away and some people have to keep coming back? What does it mean if it looks like someone is healed but whatever the problem is returns?

In addition to questions like these there are suspicions about healing. Take for instance healings we see on religious TV programs. Someone comes before the healer. The healer prays over them and the person throws down his cane and walks away restored. When I was growing up I watched Oral Roberts on TV.

Some of you might remember him. He was a famous “faith healer” and things like that happened.

That wowed me and I had no problem believing that it could really happen. The man was praying. He was helping people. That made sense to me. That was until I caught on to what my older siblings and cousins thought about it. It wasn’t cool to believe that things like that could be real. “It’s all an act”, they said. “Those people are fakes”. “They plant those people in the audience.” “They’re all in cahoots.”

Besides the views of my suspicious and cynical siblings there came a more sophisticated language of doubt and suspicion. “It isn’t scientific”, “It’s irrational to believe that can happen.” Then there’s also the idea that what we think of as healing is a mere matter of suggestion. It goes like this. I put the notion in your head that you can be better and you become better. I put the notion in your head that when I touch you, you are going to fall on the floor filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and you fall on the floor.

There is a lot about healing to occupy us in study and conversation. I think I read the better part of six books in preparing this sermon. One way or another they all suggested answers to the questions I’ve posed.

And frankly I overwhelmed myself. I invite you to read the books. I can provide a bibliography if you’re interested. But you have a great opportunity today. You can to go downstairs after the service, get some food and coffee and join the adult forum in the parish hall. I really encourage you to do that.

It’s an opportunity to talk to people in this congregation who are committed to a healing ministry. The people who offer healing prayers during our Sunday and Wednesday worship are going to be there talking about their stories and experiences.

But I’m not going to talk about the ideas or answers in the books.

I have another meditation on healing I’d like to put before you this morning. And it begins with this – after all my reading and thinking, about healing, healing ministry, healing prayer and the laying on of hands, after all my reading, prayer and study of the Scripture readings for today everything seemed reducible to ten words. From my personal experience and study I want to tell you what I know about healing – in ten words.

“You are loved by God more than tongue can tell.”

When all is said and done that’s it, “You are loved by God more than tongue can tell.”

That message is surely in today’s Scripture readings. Here what the spirit is saying to the church. It’s right there. The naughty, impatient, fearful followers of Moses complain and complain and the God of their understanding sends poisonous serpents among them, people are bitten and die. They admit their wrongdoing and beg Moses to pray to God to take away the serpents. So Moses prays and the Lord tells him to do something, “make a poisonous serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses makes a serpent of bronze, puts it on the pole and when anyone is bitten they look at the serpent of bronze and they live.

God continues to love and provide for the people in the wilderness. They discover it over and over again. When they turn away from trusting God and when fear finally drives them back to God, God is there to provide.

It’s right there in this morning’s gospel. John depicts Jesus alluding to today’s Hebrew Scripture in his conversation with Nicodemus. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life”. The gospel says that for us to have life, eternal life, we must open to this man Jesus, we must look to this man Jesus and come to believe that Jesus lifted high up on the cross, Jesus lifted up to the Father bears us our true life.

As the Israelites had to look at the serpent on the pole for life, Jesus tells Nicodemus the simple truth that he, Jesus, is the way. Jesus tells Nicodemus that his is our true life. He is the light in darkness but in our humanity we sometimes turn away from the light to live in darkness. But the light is always there for us. The light is always there for us to come to. You are loved by God more than tongue can tell.

In twelve step programs of recovery they say that the program offered for recovery is a simple program for complicated people. Jesus’ life is a simple truth that we complicated people have trouble understanding and accepting. Jesus’ lifting brings eternal life to us. His life and death and resurrection mark the culmination of God’s persistent re-creation of the plan for humanity - to be at peace, to walk in love, to share that peace, to share that love and to share hope with each other when we falter.

To shine the light of our faith in God’s love and in the saving life giving work of Jesus Christ into the lives of our faltering brothers and sisters is our purpose. And living in that purpose we are healers one of another.

You are loved by God more than tongue can tell. The message is there. Sometimes we take in the message. Sometimes we’re not there to hear it. There’s stuff that gets in the way. And under the weight of that stuff we sometimes buckle and we are brought to an aching desire for relief from our stuff, for soothing, for clarity, and it is then that we call out for the restoration of something. Some sense of rightness, some sense of wholeness, some hunger that makes us look outside ourselves for the truth of who we are meant to be. I think that is the movement toward what we call healing. Let me show you what I mean.

I’d really like to – I’d really like to ask you for a show of hands on the question of who believes “You are loved by God more than tongue can tell.” But I won’t. I don’t want you to give a quick answer. It is too important a question.

I want you to think about the power of those ten words. They can restore and they can be very, very hard for us to hear – to take in – to be changed by, to be healed by. Hard for many of us just to hear – let alone believe.

I thought about asking you to engage in a little experiment. I thought about asking you to look at the person sitting next to you or near you and to say to them: “You are loved by God more than tongue can tell.” I decided not to do that because I don’t want you distracted by your reactions. Instead I want us to look at some of the ways we might react and see if our reactions have anything to say to us about healing or if healing has anything to say to us about our reactions.

I can think of a lot of possible reactions if you did actually turn to each other and speak those words. Some of us would put a smile on our faces and go along and do it. Maybe with a voice inside our heads that says this is so stupid, this is so manipulative, I resent this. Maybe you’d have trouble maintaining eye contact with the person you say it to. Or maybe you’d be able to manage a little eye contact and then uncomfortably look away. Maybe a look of resignation or embarrassment appears on your face that says, “OK let’s just get this over with” and then you’d mumble to each other “You are loved by God more than tongue can tell”.

But then again maybe you’d feel a sense of release, a sense of freedom, an exciting opportunity to open toward another person. For some people it may feel really good to be able to tell you “You are loved by God more than tongue can tell”.

Maybe you’d say it and a smile would form on your face that comes from a deep, peaceful place. Maybe you’d feel a childlike sense of freedom. Maybe you’d feel all of these things all at once. A cascade of pent up embarrassments or joys about your ability to love and be loved, to heal and be healed.

If you think about what your reactions might have been, you might identify a place inside you that wishes your reactions were different. Maybe we’d see things inside us that we want to be changed. Or maybe you’d identify something that has changed over time and you want it to keep growing. Those reactions – they all have something to do with healing.

Anything that has to do with our discomfort in ourselves or with others is about a place that hasn’t basked in the light. And anything, anything at all that has to do with our being comfortable in our own skin needs to be shared. Any gift that you know in your soul has been given to you by God needs to be shared.

Healing is taking and giving the love of God. It is about opening dark and troubled places to the love of God in the faith that you are loved by God. Healing is about opening your lighted, peaceful places to others because you know they are loved by God.

Let me ask you, “have you ever had a moment when you saw someone just suffering so and you felt impelled in your guts to just touch them ever so gently? You are so moved – so moved – inside the body that you want to reach out of yourself – out of yourself and lay your hand on them. And if you let yourself do it - as that hand gets closer to its destination something rises up in you and you know it’s not you that’s reaching out. You know that you are seeing with God’s eyes. You know it is time to open. You know this is the charity of the heart of Christ moving in and through you.

Have you ever felt so happy for someone that you’re warmed by a deep, deep sense of peace as you look at their joy? That’s something bigger than this heart at work.

Listen to these words of John Shelby Spong as he expresses who Jesus is and what the life he lived and offered to us can do in and through us.

“The Christian story is a story of One who seemed infinitely to transcend his barriers, even the barrier of death: His ability to be open was uncompromised; he lived out a freedom and a wholeness; his capacity for love revealed that he had received an infinite amount of love, a love that continued to flow even as his life was being destroyed. As he died, he lived. This life, this love, tested that ultimate barrier of death and men are convinced he prevailed, generating power that other lives have met in age after age setting them free to live, to press the limits of their potential, to become persons they never dreamed they could be”. [1]

My brothers and sisters, in believing the realness of that Christ, in knowing that Christ, in allowing yourselves to live within the power of Christ’s love, in allowing yourselves to be a servant of that power, the healing love of God starts moving in us and out from us.

That’s what I know today. You are loved by God more than tongue can tell and the power of that love can knock your socks off.

[1] John Shelby Spong, Christpower. (Richmond: Hall Publishing, 1975) 11.

© 2009 The Rev. Christian Carroll