Sunday, July 3 - Healing

This sermon was preached for Sunday, July 3 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Psalm 30, Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16, and Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.

Recently the podcast and NPR show, “On Being” with Krista Tippett replayed an older interview with Jewish mystic and physician Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen. In it, Dr. Remen draws an intriguing distinction between curing and healing. One of the problems of the medical profession, according to Dr. Remen, is that medical students are taught to be focused on curing; that is fixing whatever ails the person before you. Curing is highly specialized work involving research and diagnoses, medication and treatments - scientific skills. Through that framework, death is always the failure of medicine. Healing, on the other hand, is the work of becoming whole, restoring well-being and peace. To heal, one draws on the spiritual skills of compassion, service, a reverence for life, courage and love. Healing involves touch and presence, music and prayer, forgiveness and patience. Healing can come even at the point of death. 

You can be cured without being healed, healed without being cured. I believe this because I have seen healing in the absence of a cure. I have seen how the presence of a loved one can bring wholeness to a deathbed. I have witnessed how the reminder of God’s presence can bring peace to the terminally unwell. But we have more than just anecdotes - the medical profession has long known that the touch of a mother can make all the difference in the health of a newborn baby; the presence of a loved one can measurably ease pain. 

Dr. Remen believes that every human being is called to receive and give healing, even and especially those who are wounded themselves. She tells Tippett, “And I began to realize how I had been healed by these people with cancer; how I had moved from a person focused on curing, and truly coming to understand that we are all healers of one another, that people have been healing each other since the beginning, and that my power to cure was a small part of my power to help people.”

Each time Jesus himself cures the sick or demon-possessed, he also does the work of healing. Jesus heals not only that individual before him but the community around the wounded person. He restores them to reconciled relationships in the social network from which they have been separated or cast out. This is perhaps clearest in the case of the Gerasene demoniac. Once the man is cured of his demon, he asks to follow Jesus. But Jesus tells him to remain. He must be present there to continue his healing, repairing his relationship with the neighbors who had chained him up on the outskirts of town. 

When Jesus appoints the seventy to go out before him, he tells them they do not need any belongings or provisions - they are already equipped with all they need. Their primary task is to bring their peace to others and remind the people of the presence of God among them, the kingdom of God come near. Curing the sick is only a small part of the work they are commissioned to do. They are to heal through a ministry of presence, sharing food, accepting welcome, bringing peace.

When the seventy return to Jesus, they return rejoicing, filled with stories of success, giddy with power. They are amazed at their own ability to cure and command. Jesus’ response here is so fascinating. Be careful that you do not rejoice in the wrong thing, Jesus warns. Don’t rejoice in all the power you have been given. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

In other words, do not ground your joy in your accomplishments or results. Ground your joy in your identity with God, your participation in this great movement. It is enough to simply know and be known by God. Root your joy not in your new found curative or demon-defying powers. The source of your joy should instead spring from the truth of your belonging to God and to God's wider movement in the world.

God’s wider movement of healing to which all people are called has a Hebrew name in Jewish theology: tikkun olam, or the healing or restoration of the world. Dr. Remen names tikkun olam as the center of her spiritual worldview. Tikkun olam will always have a special place in my heart, too. It was one of the themes our wedding preacher highlighted in his sermon to us, much to the delight of Aaron's Jewish grandfather. He preached that our marriage is and was to be a small part of the healing of the world. And, later in the ceremony, our officiant had us stop to look around to take in all the faces smiling back at us, to see all that our love has already done in bringing so many together. It was such a sacred moment that I include it in every wedding I officiate. 

Perhaps we should have a moment like that in every service we do here, perhaps that’s what the sharing of the peace is. That’s when we do what the seventy were called to do. A moment to recognize and be grateful for one another’s presence. A brief time to celebrate that us coming here, coming together, is part of the healing of the world. 

There was a moment as the world began to open up after COVID, a brief one, and even then I was surprised at how fleeting it was, when being able to simply be with one another felt like a miracle. There was wisdom in that moment, and it’s wisdom we need still. We may not have governmental guidelines against gathering in the same way now, but getting together is still difficult. Many people have admitted to me that they are surprised by how hard it is now to get up and go and get out to church, whether that is because of residual fear of infection, declines in their health, or simply getting out of the habit. The thing is you never know what it took someone to get here this morning, everyone you see here has overcome something to arrive. You never know who walked for 15 minutes in the sun or took three buses to be here, who overcame depression to drag themselves out of bed, who wrestled through a toddler tantrum or two to get out the door. Each of you being present here today is no small thing; I do not take it for granted when people walk through our doors. 

In the early days of COVID, when all we had was phone and Zoom, I noticed one of my friends had developed a habit of saying, “It is good to hear your voice,” each time we talked. Then later it became, “It is good to see your face.” In that one line, sincerely spoken and sincerely meant, I learned to hear this: whatever happens here, whatever we say and do and accomplish together, I choose to ground my joy in the simple fact that we are together, and that that being together, sharing a sacred meal, spreading each other’s peace, is healing. I rejoice that our names are written on each other’s hearts. 

The good news that the seventy bring to the people they meet is the good news of presence. The kingdom of God has come near to you this day. Yes, they are sent to cure the sick. Yes, they command demons in God’s name. But the essence of the joy they have to spread is the simple truth of God’s presence among us when we come together. 

So if you remember one thing from today - know this. I take joy in your presence here today with us. And so does God. 

Amen.

How We Live with Loss, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen on On Being with Krista Tippett.
Image by Frank Zacharzweski.