Proper 5-A (6/8/08)      
Gen 12:1-9; Ps 33:1-12; Rom 4:13-25; Mt 9:9-13, 18-26

Epiphany, South Haven                                                Fr. Joseph Neiman

Theme: “Your faith has made you well” (Mt 9:22)

What are we to make of the healing incidents presented to us in the Gospel narrative from Matthew this morning? Did Jesus really heal physical illnesses, and can the risen Lord heal us also today?

Many of us have at times felt the cry of the woman “who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years” who came up behind Jesus and said: “If only I touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Faced with serious illness, we also look for the “if only” clause wondering what it is that we need to do to be healed.

We ask these questions about whether or not Jesus actually healed because we live in a culture with a world view shaped by science and social science. At the present time there is a great flurry of interest and writing about the “historical Jesus.” Scholars are using the science of history to uncover who is Jesus of Nazareth and what lies behind the Gospel narratives we read.

Murray Harris, a conservative Bible professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, reminds us: “We have only two first century accounts of Hannibal's unlikely crossing of the Alps with 38 elephants in tow, but no one doubts it happened."[1] So why, he argues, do we doubt what the Gospel writers tell us happened? We have many more Gospel resources to draw upon for understanding Jesus.

Many studying history today apply a principle of analogy. If we have no experience today with a spiritual event, such as a healing, therefore there is no reason to believe it happened in the first century. “We are told that the reason people in the past could believe in and claim to experience miracles while modern Western people supposedly cannot, is because, unlike us, ancient people were ‘naïve and mythologically minded.”[2] They didn’t understand the laws of nature and the scientific process.

Two scholars, Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, in a book that analyses the various social science disciplines, like history, anthropology, and oral culture, stress that many apply a principle in advance to the conclusion that healings don’t happen. They say, “While one is certainly justified in drawing on present human experience to make a case for what might have happened in the past, there seems to be no justification for drawing on present human experience to make a case for what could not have happened in the past…. There is nothing in present human experience that warrants limiting all human experience to our present experience.”[3]

A former parishioner, who was slightly drunk, called me recently and said he wasn’t sure he believe in God any more like I did. My first response to him was: “Just because you do not believe in God, and I do believe in God does not decide whether or not God truly exists.” What we are talking about is our faith or the lack of it.

Many scholars tell us such miraculous healings do not happen because they have never experienced them. They live in a narrow worldview of academia where only certain principles and facts can be considered valid. Yet many people today believe in miraculous healings and some physicians and other types of scholars are beginning to study supernatural occurrences.

“The undeniable fact is that the majority of Western people have never stopped believing in and occasionally experiencing what they perceive to be supernatural occurrences. Indeed, though many continue to announce “the demise of the supernatural” in Western culture, all indications are that the belief in, and experience of, the supernatural is, if anything, increasing in contemporary Western culture.”[4]

“Author Dan Wakefield, a lapsed Presbyterian turned Unitarian, wrote a book, Expect a Miracle. He was amazed by what he learned in his research. He said: "We all read these silly things, the man who saw the Virgin on the fender of his Dodge Dart. What I found, which is more interesting, is people you'd think of as very conservative." He recounts many experiences in which they discuss a healing event, a miracle if you will. “He recalls a woman in Atlanta whose teenage daughter was hit by a car while Rollerblading. Doctors told the mother there was no hope; the best prognosis they could offer was that her daughter would be able to feed herself someday. "The family were Episcopalians and engaged very seriously in prayer, as did their church and the Sunday school," he says. "Two weeks later the girl woke up, and she is now back in school. These are not kooks. They only spoke to me because their minister asked them to. The stories I have are not all religious, and they are from all different religions. It is very vast, and serious. People like to dismiss it as the fringe, but there is a real, mainstream thing."[5]

When we read or hear the healing events in the New Testament, there are several things we should call to mind. First among them is the divine presence at work and in through Jesus whom we call the “Son of God”. Clearly the Gospel accounts want us to see God working in and through Jesus to bring wholeness and health to people. Matthew’s Gospel in particular contrasts Jesus with Elisha, the ancient prophet whose healing powers are noted in the Book of Kings in the wonderful narrative about Naaman (e.g. 2 Kings 5). Read it. It is very interesting.

Secondly illness in ancient Israel separated the person from regular society. They were considered unclean and needed to be separated from others, a reasonable precaution for keeping infections from spreading. Separated from regular society, the sick had to depend upon the charity of family and others to supply their needs. The sick were thus isolated and it was the priests, especially at the Temple, who declared who were unclean and when they would become clean again. You can find details in the books of Leviticus and Numbers. So when Jesus healed someone, he went outside the Temple system of clean and unclean and the offering of sacrifice, and immediately restored the sick person to normal society.

Don’t we do this also in 21^st century America?  Aren’t our sick people alienated from normal society and left largely to their own resources? There was a letter in TIME magazine this week from David Stockman in Montana which reads: “How sad that Senator Ted Kennedy has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately as a member of Congress he will receive the best medical care, without regard to the cost. For millions of working Americans, this diagnosis would mean liquidation of life savings, bake sales and coin jars at the local convenience store. Why can’t Congress create a comprehensive health-care plan that treats us taxpayers as generously as they treat themselves?”

I firmly believe that health care is a basic right and should be provided for all men, women and children in America. How that is to be accomplished is a matter of politics. As you know it is being discussed in the presidential election process this year, and we need to make our voices heard.

Deacon Judi and I are chaplains at Bronson-Lakeview Community Hospital in Paw Paw. We regularly make rounds and visit with persons seeking healing. At our chaplaincy meetings, as chief chaplain I regularly present articles and videos which speak of the great increase in the health care field of the impact of spirituality on health. Medical schools are adding courses in spirituality, and there are various centers associated with universities that focus on the relationship between spirituality and health. According to one study of the professional journals, in 1980-1982 there were 101 articles in the journals showing the relationship of religion and medicine. In 2000-2002 there were 1108 articles! There is even a popular magazine in stores called “Spirituality and Health.”

All this research shows there is solid evidence that a well formed spirituality leads to better life choices which lead to better health. Put another way, spiritual people avoid many bad behaviors which are detrimental to health. 

There is solid evidence that shows there is a clear relationship between our body, mind and spirit. Stress causes detrimental biochemical and generally bad impact on our health; joy does the opposite. Prayer and meditation have a definite biological effect.

“In a much publicized book, Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University argues that church attendance, various religious practices, and good health are correlated. He reports on a six-year Duke study of 4000 people over the age of 64 that found frequent attendance in religious services was correlated with  a lower risk of dying, lower blood pressure, and healthier immune systems.”[6]

Back to Jesus and healing. There is a difference between healing and curing. Curing means whatever was causing the illness is taken away. Healing can include that, but it can also mean that the impact of the illness can be positively incorporated into the wholeness of one’s life and the person being accepted back into ordinary society. A veteran returning from Iraq with one leg missing cannot expect faith in the risen Lord to grow a new leg, but can expect help in integrating the reality of one leg into a wholesome way of life. There are many examples of this. The healing incidents in the New Testament include this aspect of healing, but also curing. Even today there are some remarkable incidents of miraculous healing as a result of prayer.

About fifteen years ago as rector of St. Mark’s, I introduced the opportunity for the Laying on of Hands with prayer and Anointing after each of the Sunday Eucharists. This is called the Ministration to the Sick in our Prayer Book and builds especially on the Biblical reference in the Epistle of James (James 5:13ff). I chose to do this after the services because the Eucharist itself can be a healing experience, and just as we have a Confession rite in the Eucharist, we also have the possibility of private confession for those who need the personal assurance. Some people want privacy as they struggle with healing.

I thought it would take weeks of teaching before anyone came up for the healing prayer and anointing, but I was surprised as many responded immediately. We invited people with any “dis-ease”, those suffering from long term illness, those headed for medical tests or treatments, and of course those about to have surgery or other medical procedures. We also invited persons who were carrying the pain of loved ones who were ill. Through the years, we saw many remarkable incidents of healing underway, some dramatic, others slowly bringing about hope and change.  

So I encourage you to open up the suffering and illness in your lives and in the lives of those whom you love or care about. Raise up their need for healing in prayer regularly. Visit them if appropriate or let them know by phone, email and a card that you are indeed praying for them. Jesus said, Matthew tells us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mt 9:12). Come before the risen Lord expecting healing and trust that our prayers will be answered in one way or another.

For your homework this week (I give homework and let the good Lord do the testing), I ask you to meditate on the teaching that the good Lord wants us to be well, to be healthy. What in my life style needs to change to foster that wellness? What needs healing in my life? What needs healing in the lives of those whom I love? How often do I bring these before the risen Lord in prayer? Have I asked for the Laying on of Hands and Anointing from a priest or person trained with that gift of ministry? Will I lend my voice to the political process of bringing health care to all persons here and abroad?

God bless you and keep you this day and always, and remember the good Lord loves you more that you can ask for or even imagine. Do you believe it?