Kendall's Notebook Page 49
Sermon: Community of Healers
Text: Mark 1: 40-45
February 12, 2006
By Kendall Brown
Today’s lesson is the second healing story that Mark places at the very beginning of his account of Jesus’ ministry. Mark uses these stories to establish Jesus’ authority, or his dominion as the Son of God. The healing that Jesus offers to the individuals in these stories is a healing on more than one level. There is the obvious level, the physical level. The person, either Simon’s mother-in-law in last Sunday’s lesson or the leper in today’s lesson, is sick and made physically well.
But Mark also notes another level of healing that happens. In the story about Simon’s mother-in-law, the mother-in-law arises from her sick bed and immediately goes to work serving her guests, namely Jesus and others. There are a number of ways one could choose to look at that. But Mark is telling us here, that in serving and going about her work of taking care of her guests, the healed hostess is healed in a second way. The second level of healing is that she is restored to her position in her household and community. Having a made-well body alone is not the entire story of her healing. Being restored to her place in the community is also a part of her wholeness, completion and well-being that healing brings to her.
The communal nature of healing is even more obvious in the story about Jesus’ healing the leper. Jesus’ healing in this story also has two levels. The first part is Jesus healing the leper of his physical disease. The second part is Jesus instructing the former leper to go to the priests and undergo the purification ritual that the priest would offer him. The leper by his leprosy was cut off from the community. In fact no one could be much more cut off than lepers. They were so isolated and ostracized that Jesus was violating the purification codes by even having a conversation with the leper. Healing in both stories (Simon’s mother-in-law and the leper) has two levels. The healing of the individual and the consequent healing of the larger body the community.
Paul taught how when one part of the body is injured the whole body is injured. When one part hurts the whole hurts. When one part is healed the whole is healed. In this way of faith, when we pray for someone in the hospital we are also praying for the whole body of the church. The person’s recovery alone will not make whole all of the brokenness that the illness exacts upon us. The person’s returning to be among us, and the healing of the community brought by the return is just as important as the mending of the physical body.
Jesus’ world was broken by the illnesses of the leper and Simon’s mother-in-law. The community was brought to wholeness by Simon’s mother-in-law returning to her place as the head of her household and by the leper going to the priests and being restored through their ritual to the community. Healing in Jesus’ ministry was a communal event as well as a medical event in a singular life.
We have experienced all this right here in this place in a number of ways. We pray for Adel and for others. We experience some wholeness by Adel showing up for church, or for Bible study, or for a walk in the mall.
We are all a part of the healing. When one is healed, it is a healing for all of us. In terms of worship that is reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving. The heart of worship is rejoicing and giving thanks. We worship because we have been made whole is so many ways and because God is our wholeness.
Just as we are all a part of the healed community, we are also a part of Jesus’ healing in another way. We are all healers and the power to heal is in each of us. This is another aspect of our being created in the image of God. God is a healing God. The source of all healing flows from God. If there is healing in the very nature of God, then there is healing in each of us who are made in God’s image, like God.
We can fall out of touch with this power within us and it is sad when that happens. By loosing touch with our ability to heal we loose touch with God. Getting in touch with our ability to heal can also open a door to our spiritual side and to the closeness of God that can so easily go unnoticed.
Everyone in this room has healed someone else at some point. Most likely, most all of you have had many moments when you have brought healing to another. In those moments, you have been the image of God about as fully as any of us can ever hope to be.
Have you ever picked up a crying baby and held him or her? The baby stops crying and is comforted. Your holding is a healing. Have you ever been held yourself? Your being held was a healing of your hurting. Probably the person who held you would never consider him or her self a healer. But there you are. And in that moment of healing the power of God, the power of the Spirit is right there. You can’t get any closer to God than that. That is the mystery of the hidden holiness in our lives.
Have you ever gone to the soup kitchen and handed a homeless person a plate of food? In that simple act of serving there is a healing, a tremendous healing, and many of you have been healers in that way.
Have you ever come into the presence of someone crying? It might be right here at church, maybe even in your pew as you sat there with someone in pain next to you, or at home, or somewhere else. You put a hand on that person’s arm. You touch that person. There is healing in your touch. With that healing right there in your fingertips, how could you possibly believe that you are not made in the image of God? All healing comes from God. And if that healing is as close to you as your fingertips, God is as close to you as your fingertips. St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel. And sometimes even use words.” When you offer the healing of a touch or an embrace, you are proclaiming the Gospel without the assistance of any words.
There are other ways that we allow God’s healing to work through us. Listening is another avenue of healing. Jesus listened to any who came to him. He made no distinctions. Or as it says in the book of Acts, “God shows no partiality.” Jesus didn’t choose his clients and a healing listening is a listening open to whoever comes with a story to tell. Jesus healing listening went hand in hand with hospitality and welcome for many who were not welcomed by others. Lack of hospitable listening contributes to the world’s brokenness. Jesus welcoming listening contributes to the world’s being made whole again.
Healing works miracles through presence, just being present. Thinking abut Jesus’ ministry of presence gives new insight to the words in the Apostles’ Creed, “Jesus descended into Hell.” That Jesus descended into hell can mean a lot more than a post crucifixion, pre-resurrection tour of the Devil’s territory, sometimes called Hades. That Jesus descended into hell has a much more personal dimension to it. Jesus also descended into every hell that all of us have ever known or could imagine.
Jesus descended into the hell of homelessness. He said himself that the son of man has no place to rest his head. Jesus had no place called home and that aspect of his life gives us, his body, an eternal connection with all who are homeless. We cannot forget. We cannot forsake them. For in our oneness with Christ who is one of the homeless, the homeless are one of us. He descended into the hell of joblessness. For the three years of his ministry, Jesus had no job in any fashion recognized by any of us. He lived off the charity of his friends. Joblessness is a painful place and is affecting more and more persons all the time. Jesus has been present to joblessness.
There is no Biblical record that Jesus was ever sick, not even mention of a common cold. But we do know that Jesus died a painful and horrific death. And in that death he is with us in all of our deaths, and is present to us.
The season of Lent remembers many painful places that Jesus shares with us. He knew the pain of betrayal, denial, and abandonment by his disciples. We all have known those pains. He knew the pain of loneliness, doubt and spiritual suffering.
Healing has a vehicle in Jesus presence. Being made in God’s image, healing is found by others in our presence, too. We are a people for whom it is hard to just be present to others. We are so conditioned by our lives that we always think we have to have something to say or to do. Saying nothing, doing nothing, just being there is unimaginable sometimes. We leave the job up to the minister or the elders. But Genesis doesn’t read, God created elders in God’s image. Genesis reads that we are all created in God’s image, we all have healing within us. Sometimes that healing is offered simply by being present.
It is sad that we sometimes withdraw our presence from the very places where our healing power is most needed. We become more aware of the discomfort that someone else’s pain causes us than we are aware of the huge amounts of comfort that our simply being present might bring to the other. Too much attention is given to the negative and not enough credit to the positive. As I listen to the stories that are embedded in Christ Church’s memory and that help or can help shape and define who we are today, there are a couple themes that I hear over and over. Some years back there were a number of parishioners in this church who devoted large portions of time to calling on those in the hospitals, nursing homes and shut-in their own homes. The name, Ed Becker, is one that resurfaces and resurfaces in these memories. Our presence to others in their times of pain brings a healing that is long remembered and appreciated. That presence not only brings healing to the individual, it also brings a wholeness and completion to the church itself. We are most completely in the image of Christ, when we are present to others as he was present to others. “Descended into Hell.” That is not only a statement about who Jesus was and what he did, it is also a description of who we are, and where we are to be in our presence to others in their hells.
Healing has another vehicle that was found in Jesus and is in each of us. We should never underestimate the capacity for healing that forgiveness has. The healing of a community simply can’t happen without it. It is no accident that in many of the New Testament stories of Jesus’ healing, forgiving is connected to the healing.
As a companion to studying the lectionary’s healing stories these past few weeks, I have been reading a book entitled “Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal” by Rachel Naomi Remen. One story in particular struck me. It witnesses to the commonness of healing and to the potential and ability for each and every one of us to be healers.
Rachel tells about how when she was thirteen years old, her father went into bankruptcy. It was a particularly difficult time for the family of four, Rachel’s parents, herself and her sister. Christmas came and no one was expecting much of anything. The family budget allowed for a very bare Christmas tree in place of the accustomed over-laden trees of former and better days. On Christmas morn, Naomi found a small package to open. In it she discovered a beautiful and expensive pair of earrings.
Now Naomi was a 12 year-old girl who was very uncomfortable about herself and her image. She had several physical problems and a chronic disease that impaired her appearance. Children at school made fun of her. She always felt that most adults pitied her instead of loving her. When she opened the package, she took the earrings into the bathroom and tried them on. That made her more upset as she looked at herself in the mirror. In her mind the prettiness of the earrings only enhanced her ugliness. She tore off the earrings ran into the living room and threw them on the floor at her father’s feet in disgust and frustration. She chastised her father for spending nearly a hundred dollars on those foolish earrings when the family needed so much. Her father picked up the earrings, took his daughter’s hand, placed the earrings in her hand. Closing her hands in his, he told her that he knew she wouldn’t want to wear the earrings right now. He knew that and understood that. He wanted her to just keep them and some day she would realize that they were just right for her. Indeed that day did come for Naomi. Naomi treasured forever the healing her father gave her by acknowledging her pain about her appearance and not belittling her pain with superfluous words like “O dear, you are really very pretty.” Or “You are always pretty to me.” And most importantly he offered her the healing of seeing her tomorrows for her.
There is healing in touching, in being present, in listening and forgiving, There is also healing in a parent’s love as there is healing in all love that is ever offered. God is love. We are made in the image of God. When we love we are healers, and more than that, we are being true to the nature that God has given each of us. Go from this place. Touch. Listen. Forgive. Love. See tomorrow for those who can’t see their own. Be present. Be still in that present. Know yourself as God has created you and knows you. A healer.