| Title: | “Cured or Healed?” |
| Scripture: | Isaiah 40:28-31 Mark 1:29-42 |
| 2/2/03 | Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Yr. B) |
| Rev. Joy Haertig |
Since Christmas we have been in the Christian Season of Epiphany. Epiphany means “manifestation”, so we hear the scriptures during this season with our ears attuned to examples of how God is manifested in the life of Jesus. We began the season with his baptism, the calling of the disciples, his teaching ministry and today we see how God was manifested through Jesus' ability to heal and restore the rejected to the community. Through Jesus we come to see what God is like: (Baptism) God empowers and blesses all creation, (Discipleship) calls us to live God's vision of love and justice, values community and relationship, and (teaching) is an intimate force that can guide us in our daily lives. And (healing) how Jesus manifests God's longing for health and wholeness for all.
Talking about God's healing power can be a slippery slope for we will always run into the eternal question of why God heals one person and then seems to completely ignore another. (This question comes up almost every year in “Ask the Pastor Sunday”, so I know it is a question we all wrestle with and do not find easy answers!)
This week I found myself pondering the question of whether Jesus actually cures the physical disease of the person or heals the person of the social ostracism that the disease has caused. It is hurtful to imagine that in Jesus' day, when a person was ill with something like leprosy or a mental health issue or even a fever, a time when people need support the most, they were separated, ostracized, and in some situations, even considered evil. I do not deny that some diseases are contagious and communal protection necessary to some degree, but to ostracize someone at a time when they need communal support the most, seems particularly inhumane.
John Dominic Crossan writes in his book, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography that in the ancient Mediterranean world of Jesus, Israel was overpowered by imperial absorption on the political and military level so many times that they were intensely concerned with issues of boundaries. They were concerned with religious boundaries, political boundaries, and even bodily boundaries. Illnesses came to be seen as a threat to their cohesion as a society, not so much due to medical contagion, illnesses became a symbolic threat of invasion in general.
Purity became very important in body and mind, thus the creation of priestly legislation, such as those you can find in the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures known as the purity laws. In Leviticus you can find rules about such things as what you can wear, eat and touch. These rules kept boundaries clear and precise. It did not matter that there were individuals who were ill or poor and could not follow these vigorous laws. They were ostracized by the community, which in turn threatened their survival, for an individual could not survive without the community.
John Crossan also writes about the difference between disease and illness in the ancient Mediterranean world. He found that a disease was considered a biological or psychological malfunctioning, while an illness referred to the psychosocial experience and meaning of the perceived disease. In other words, when Jesus reached out to touch Simon Peter's fevered mother-in-law or the leper, Jesus may not have cured the disease itself but healed the illness by refusing to accept the social ostracizing that accompanied it. Refusing to accept the social ostracizing of his culture would have been a miracle in itself.
Then again, perhaps Jesus did cure and heal, we will never know for certain. But I do know this - we must not focus so much on the presence or absence of physical healing that we miss the miracle of healing that happens on a spiritual/emotional level for someone who has been ostracized from community and then experiences the miracle of reconciliation and belonging.
I mentioned earlier in my brief summation about Epiphany, that God is manifested through Jesus in the calling of disciples. As one of Christ's disciples today, I seriously doubt my ability to physically heal someone of a disease, but I do not doubt your ability or mine to assist in someone's healing by doing our part to restore a sense of community or belonging to their lives.
John Crossan writes: “It would, of course, be nice to have certain miracles available to change the physical world if we could, but it would be much more desirable to make certain changes in the social one, which we can.”
Most of us know that the medical community is more and more acknowledging the role that healing plays in the curing process. Some doctors are beginning to admit that those patients who have a community of support, who know that others are intentionally praying for them, seem to get better quicker. In our world today, illness can make us feel set apart from our communities. Prayer is a way of nurturing the ties that bind us, giving us strength even when “curing” may not happen.
Just last week I brought a prayer shawl to one of our parishoners who is having some serious physical difficulties. She has been unable to attend church in any regular way for quite some time now. You should have seen the twinkle in her eyes when I gave her a prayer shawl for her to wear and know that she is wrapped in our prayers and God's love. When I called a few days later to see how she is doing, she continued to talk about what that prayer shawl meant to her wellbeing. (Today I want to share this prayer shawl with our friend Paige, I want her to know that she too is wrapped in our prayers during a difficult time.)
There are many ways for a church community to be a healing vessel in the broader community and its members and friends. Being a safe and warm place for visitors in our midst. Working diligently on the Troyer house that we use to assist an otherwise homeless family, the Troyer house gives them the opportunity to regain their sense of belonging and wellbeing.
Standing behind our commitment as an open and affirming church that “celebrates our diversity in race, abilities, sexual orientation and religious background” offers the miracle of healing time and again. Being family for those who do not have family. Having the courage to have honest dialogue with one another about issues that concern our world. Sharing 17% of our annual church budget with those in need outside of our own building.
We can remain a healing vessel by continuing to be open to God's guidance, be conscious of how our own society sets people apart, and then seek to build bridges of healing to bring them back home again.
Did Jesus heal or did he cure? Did Jesus change physical reality or did he change the social reality that dictated how people would see, use and explain the physical reality? I do not know. But I do know this - It takes as much faith to heal hearts, create community and restore relationship as it does to cure bodies. Amen.
(resource: Jesus, A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan. Harper of San Francisco, 1994. Page 78 ff.)