One of the hardest things I have ever had to do, is something I did two summers ago. As part of my ordination process, I was required to spend a summer working as a hospital chaplain. The hospital I ended up at was a large, bustling, public hospital. It was also level one-trauma center— which meant that all of the worst accidents in the area ended up at this particular hospital. As I started the summer, I was terrified. Mostly, I was terrified to be on call— having to respond to whatever came into the emergency room at any hour of the day or night. Gunshot wounds, car accidents, motorcycle accidents-- you name it, I saw it. Yet while those first few on-call experiences were indeed terrifying, as it turned out, that wasn’t the hardest thing I had to do that summer. The hardest thing about that summer was my experience working on the oncology and intensive care units. For while there were many patients who would come in for treatment and leave a few days later, there were many other patients who were there day after day-- not getting any better. Sometimes, their families would ask me to pray for them— to pray for a miracle— a cure. I would comply, yet day after day, despite our prayers, I would watch patients continue to decline in health and their families continue to suffer. Other times, the patients themselves would confide in me about their anger with God. Why was this happening to them? What had they done to deserve this suffering? Why hadn’t God answered their prayers for healing? What were they doing wrong?
These were the questions that haunted me over the course of the summer. These were the questions that challenged me more than anything else I experienced. This morning’s gospel story— for me-- calls to mind those experiences. It calls to mind those questions about prayer and healing, miracles and human suffering.
It’s a familiar scene— our gospel reading this morning. Jesus crosses paths with someone who is in need of healing. And despite the restriction of not working on the Sabbath, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to heal the woman of her ailment. It’s a familiar scene because time and time again, in every gospel, Jesus does not fail to work anything short of a miracle when he encounters those who are sick and suffering. Every single time-- he provides a miraculous cure— one that wipes away any trace of illness or deformity.
I have to admit that when I was working in the hospital, I often found myself frustrated by this familiar narrative. Especially when confronted with patients and families who wanted to know why God wasn’t answering their prayers. And so the question I found myself asking that summer, and the question I often find myself asking when confronted with these miracle stories is: how do we, as Christians who believe in the healing power of God, make sense of all those times when continued woundedness and brokenness-- not miraculous cures -- seem to be the result of our prayers?
A number of weeks ago, in the Thursday morning bible study that happens here at First United Methodist Church, the subject came up of the difference between praying for a cure and praying for healing. One member of the group gave an example from a film called “The Robe”-- which takes place after Jesus’ death and centers around a Roman centurion who wins the robe worn by Jesus during the crucifixion. In one very powerful scene in the movie, the centurion comes across a character by the name of Miriam. Miriam is filled with love and light-- she is an inspiration to those around her. Her community sees her as an example of Jesus’ miraculous healing power. Miriam also happens to be crippled. And so the centurion is mystified by Miriam and the claims made by her community. “How is it,” he asks, “that you claim she has been miraculously healed?! She’s a cripple! Can’t you see that??” An elder in the community explains to the centurion that since she was paralyzed at a young age, Miriam had been bitter and hateful for most of her life. She had affected everyone around her with her envy and malice. But one day, in their small town of Cana, there was a wedding. Everyone in the town went— everyone except Miriam. She stayed at home-- bitter and weeping— for what man would ever ask to marry her? But when her parents returned home from the wedding, they found Miriam changed. She was smiling, singing, and full of joy. “Was Jesus at the wedding?” the Centurion asked. “Yes,” the elder said, “but he came late.”
The healing that Miriam receives is no less miraculous than the one we read about in the Gospel story for today. It is not a healing that takes away her physical suffering and limitation. Rather, it is something perhaps even more remarkable— it is a healing of her soul. “He could have healed my body,” Miriam explains to the centurion, “but he did something even better for me. He made me an agent of his word. He left me as I am, so that all others like me would know that their misfortune needn’t deprive them of happiness, or their place in God’s kingdom.”
One thing that this story illustrates to me quite profoundly is that all too often, we allow ourselves to get caught up in a rather narrow understanding of what it means to be healed. But here’s the thing— God does not always heal in the way we expect or demand. And a healing does not always amount to a cure. A healing does not always amount to God delivering us from every trace of what ails us.
I want to counter this fictional film illustration with a real-life story about a man named Anthony. Anthony was diagnosed at the age of 16 with Systemic Lupus Erythemetosis. He was told as a teenager that he would not live beyond the age of 25, and that given the deterioration of his hipbones, he would likely be confined to a wheelchair until his early death. After his diagnosis, Anthony prayed for healing. But when Anthony failed to miraculously recover from his illness, His friends at the charismatic church he attended insisted there must be something wrong with him-- some hidden sin he had yet to confess or something deficient in his faith. As a teenager, this sent Anthony on a downward spiral of questioning and doubt. That questioning, however, ultimately led him to study theology, enter seminary, receive a master of divinity degree, and eventually obtain a PhD. Contrary to what the doctors told him, Anthony lived beyond the 25-year mark. He met the love of his life, got married, and had three children. Now in his 50’s, Anthony is indeed confined to a wheelchair. And so the miracle of his healing is perhaps not immediately apparent to those who would just pass him by on the street. However, anyone who knows him knows that he has indeed experienced the healing grace of the Holy Spirit. It is because of the healing grace of God that he has been able to live a full life despite his disability. It is because of the healing grace of God that he learned to help others who suffer from physical and mental disabilities. He has become an inspiration for many who might otherwise have given in to bitterness or despair.
By the way, there is at least one character in scripture who has a story that mirrors that of Anthony and Miriam. The apostle Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians that he was given a thorn in his side— something that plagued him a great deal. We don’t know what this “thorn” was, but we do know that Paul appealed to the Lord multiple times for it to be taken away. Whatever it was, it was something that burdened him deeply. But eventually, Paul comes to realize that the healing he has been pleading for has already been given to him. Unlike the woman from our gospel reading, Paul is not cured. The thorn in his side does not leave him. Nevertheless, he experiences the healing power of God’s grace. He remains to this day one of the most powerful witnesses to the gospel that there has ever been. His writing on the power of grace and faith in the midst of suffering can offer us great comfort. “We do not lose heart,” he says, “because we look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
I would imagine that almost all of us have some aspect of our lives in which a “healing” is needed. Some “thorn in our side” that we wish the Lord would take away. Maybe we suffer from chronic pain, or perhaps we’ve experienced depression or some other mental illness. Perhaps there has been a traumatic event in our lives that has kept us enslaved to feelings of fear, bitterness, or resentment. In some way or another, I suspect we can all relate to the woman from the gospel this morning— bent over, struggling under the weight of what ails us, unable to see the sun. We pray consistently for God to cure us and to take away that which ails us. But it may be that God is already sending healing grace into our lives— perhaps in unexpected ways. It may be that while there are aspects of our lives that are difficult, we are intended sometimes not to be rid of them, but to allow Jesus to walk with us as we go through them. For only then do we come out on the other side--healed in ways that we could never have imagined.
I believe this also goes beyond our mere personal lives. We can get discouraged that our prayers for peace and justice, for example, seem to be met only with more violence, more war, and more suffering in the world. But despite the fact that war and violence persist— there is also healing and grace to be found. Healing, for example, in a unified South Africa where once racism and apartheid ruled. Healing in Rwanda— a country once torn apart by genocide— now one of the most peaceful and prosperous countries in Africa. Healing in the middle east, where despite ongoing hostility between Israeli and Palestinian governments, a group of individuals from both sides called the Bereaved Families Forum are bonding together to promote reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace. And so yes, there is war and violence. Yes, there is brokenness and hurt, disease and dis-ease in the world. But I have a feeling, that if we let ourselves be opened up to the spirit, we can see that healing is, actually, all around us. It is ongoing. It is within each of us. And if we allow it to be, that healing which is within us, can transform us, and thus begin to transform and heal the world.
As the apostle Paul says— we are to be agents of Christ’s reconciliation in the world. And so like Miriam, like Anthony, like Paul, indeed like Christ himself— our own woundedness can often be the very thing which allows us to be a healing force for others.
We yearn— all of us do— for healing and wholeness. For ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the world. I believe that one of the greatest miracles of all is that God offers this healing to each and every one of us— without exception. I believe that even in the midst of brokenness, there is hope to be found. A hope which can be summed up for me in four words: we are never alone. God does not abandon us in our suffering— God walks with us. And just as God walks with us in our suffering, we can then find the strength to walk with others in theirs-- allowing the hope given to us by the gospel to heal not only us, but to begin that great and grace-filled work of healing all of creation.
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