2 KING 4:8-37

PSALM 142

1 CORINTHIANS 9:16-23

MARK 1:29-39

Sermon – 2/9/03

Jesus Heals

“JESUS HEALS.”

That’s what the Capernaum “Daily News’” headline would have been that Monday morning, had there been a newspaper in First Century Capernaum, Galilee, home of Simon Peter. Or, perhaps, if the paper had been anti-Jesus, “Jesus heals on the Sabbath” – for healing was considered “work” and the most legalistic Jews were shocked and appalled by any kind of work on the holy day of rest – even good work. Even, and especially, good work by a self-proclaimed preacher and teacher with no diplomas on the wall, who people were beginning to think was a prophet – or even more than a prophet.

Jesus heals. That is a clear, overwhelming message of the New Testament. It has been said that if someone took a copy of the New Testament and cut out with scissors every reference to healing, what you would have left would look like paper dolls.

Healing – including but not limited to curing of physical illnesses or physical disabilities – was clearly a major priority of Jesus in his ministry on this earth, along with preaching, teaching, gathering followers, and willingly taking the burden of the sins of the world on his shoulders and dying on the cross so that all could be liberated from the burden of sin.

Jewish thought emphasized the unity of the human person, that “mind, body and spirit” are all profoundly interwoven and the wellness (or lack of wellness) of one influences the whole person’s wellness or lack of wellness. Only the Greeks, who later (unfortunately) decisively influenced Western thinking in this area, thought of mind, body and spirit as being distinct, capable of being “treated” separately. This led, ultimately, to people being treated for physical ailments by doctors, some of whom never even inquired as to the person’s emotional, mental, spiritual or relational well being, any or all of which can decisively impact a person’s physical well being – and vice versa.

Jesus, on the other hand, was “holistic” in his approach to healing, seeing the person in the context of his or her relationships and all dimensions of her or his personhood. First Century practice was often to isolate the person suffering from the community – especially the worshipping community, notably in the case of lepers, the woman with a flow of blood, and those suffering from mental illness. Jesus not only made them well in mind, body and spirit, but also restored them to participating membership in community – and if their previous community would not accept them, he made them part of his community. Either option reinforced the healing they had experienced.

Part of that is evidenced in the simple story of Jesus’ healing St. Peter’s mother-in-law in today’s Gospel. St. Peter and the others told Jesus of her illness and immediately Jesus went to her. Please note that in this instance, as with all the other instances in the New Testament, Jesus never said “She’s being punished by God for something she did – or something some member of her family did.” Jesus also never told the suffering person “Just think how valuable this suffering could be for your spiritual growth; let’s let the suffering continue so you can grow.” And of course, Jesus never said to her or other suffering people “If you say the right prayer or get to a certain place or go through official religious structures then and only then might God decide to listen to you.”

You may laugh, but such things have been said by Christians.

Instead, Jesus “paid a house call” – he came (and comes) to people where they are – and “took [Peter’s mother-in-law] by the hand and lifted her up.” Like the great prophet Elisha (about whom we heard in the Old Testament reading) and unlike some self-proclaimed holy people, Jesus was never reluctant to touch someone as part of healing that person – even if the person had a scary, perhaps contagious, illness or was ritually impure or was a foreigner or was considered beneath him socially by others.

Jesus touched people, literally, with his healing power.

And the fever left Simon Peter’s mother-in-law “and she began to serve them”, which meant two things. First, she was immediately fully well, not just groggily staggering around as one might be after a fever broke. She was fully well and thus able to serve them. Second, she wanted to serve them both because she was now able to be their hostess in her own home (health restored to the relationship she had, no longer an invalid), and because she wanted to give thanks for her healing by serving them.

A simple story? Yes – and profound as well.

Jesus spent remarkably little time discoursing on the reasons the people he met with illnesses or disabilities had them. He just healed them. Many of his contemporaries – including the disciples (see John 9) and including the so-called friends of Job in that Old Testament story – focused on supposed reasons for illness which usually were expressed both as causes of illness or disability and reasons the person shouldn’t be healed!

Job’s “friends”, for example, declared that he had failed to admit that his own sin was the cause of his affliction, whereas he had been a righteous and blameless man before a torrent of calamities befell him. Jesus’ own disciples, upon seeing a man born blind (John 9), asked him “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus definitively denounced both answers. And then he healed the man.

But because “Why do bad things happen to people?” is one of the questions I have heard most often in my nearly 22 years of parish ministry, let me share with you my own conclusions in this area.

I see four basic “reasons” for bad things happening to people.

One is accidents. If, for example, you are driving your car, you’re sober and “clean”, obeying the speed limit and the rules of the road with your seat belt buckled, and you come around a corner, hit a patch of ice and slide into a tree, you had an accident. God did not put that patch of ice there two seconds before your arrival just to punish you, or just to hurt you for no particular reason. You had an accident. This can be surprisingly difficult for some people to accept, especially those who want a Cosmic Reason behind every event.

Another reason is “other peoples’ sins.”

For example, if a child dies because of child abuse or neglect, or if a woman is beaten by her abuser, it is not the victim’s fault, no matter how many times the abuser will blame the victim – and even if the victim returns to the abuser. The abuser is still the abuser. The victim is the victim of someone else's sins.

Another reason is, indeed, one’s own sins. Sometimes people ignore every piece of health-related advice they have ever received or heard of, get sick and then feel sorry for themselves, pouting that “God is punishing them for no good reason.” If people abuse their own health and suffer because of it, they only have to look in the mirror for an answer. And if addiction is part of their problem, then when they are sober (or “clean”), however briefly, they have a moral responsibility to themselves (as well as to others) to get help. Addiction is an illness which, when untreated, can be disastrous.

Accidents, other peoples’ sins, one’s own sins, and finally, mysteries. I have had the tremendously sad responsibility to preside at the funerals of children whose deaths were unexplained by medical science. I did not try to find a Cosmic Reason for their deaths, but stayed in the anguish of the mystery of the reason for their deaths.

The basic theological framework I operate out of comes from The Lord’s Prayer, in which Jesus taught us to pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This reminds us that God’s will is done all the time and perfectly in heaven, and since we are praying that it be done on earth it is clear that God’s will is not yet done all the time and perfectly on earth. But it will be when the Kingdom of God comes.

So we are living in the time between Christ’s first coming and his second coming, when, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom will have no end.” At Christ’s first coming, people got a taste of experiencing God’s will being done on earth – and part of that was the glorious healings by his power which continue in our own time, but are not as comprehensive as they will be when the Kingdom of God comes.

Yes, “Jesus Heals” – present tense – can still be the headline. Although most newspapers today neither proclaim nor deny or denounce, they just ignore Jesus and the healings that continue by his love and power. So, we in the Christian Church need to learn more without benefit of secular newspapers, to spread the Good News of his healing love, to invite people to a holistic experience of healing as part of a community of faith, and to eagerly await the fullness of healing when the Kingdom of God comes.

I will continue this vital topic on next Sunday, when we will hear of another miracle done by God through the prophet Elisha and of another radical miracle by Jesus – and its meaning and consequences.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church