A sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 4, 2024. The scriptures are Isaiah 40:21-31, Psalm 147:1-12, 21c, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, and Mark 1:29-39.
Yesterday was a somewhat obscure date on the church calendar—unless you might happen to be a singer, an actor, or someone else who relies on their voice. February 3 is the day for commemorating St. Blase, a fourth century bishop and physician in Sebaste, a part of present day Turkey. As a doctor, Blase was known to have a particular gift of healing when it came to objects stuck in the throat, such as a chicken bone fish bone. And so, on his day, throats are sometimes blessed, often with a special contraption made of two candles. An opera singer used to always come to the church I served on St. Blase’s Day, and she affirms that in all her years of singing, she has never missed a performance due to a sore throat!
When we think about healing, we’re moving into complicated territory. So many things come together when one feels healing—medicine, general condition of the body, the state of the soul, the community, the general condition of one’s surroundings, one’s emotional condition (whether one is worried, or anxious, or free of such burdens). And then there is God—God stepping into our world in some way, making a miracle, and doing the unexpected, unearned, unmerited, unpredictable thing.
What we do does not replace a medical doctor. It doesn’t make up for eating a balanced diet, getting some exercise and generally trying to live a good life. We do not deal in superstition and we don’t offer magic. What we offer is sacramental—a blessed combination of prayer and touch and love. This is what the church of Jesus Christ offers when it offers healing: it offers prayer, touch and love.
In today’s Gospel, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is healed by Jesus. He takes her by the hand, lifts her up and the fever leaves her. Later that same day, people bring to Jesus those who are sick and those who have demons. The sick and the possessed were not allowed in the synagogue or the temple. These were people who had run out of options. They didn’t have anywhere else to turn, and so they turned to Jesus. And he healed them. Jesus then continues to heal throughout Galilee, in the towns and in the synagogues. Praying, touching and loving.
Jesus healed people from sickness and from demons. But he also healed them from and with their surroundings. He healed public reaction to those who were feared because they were sick, feared because they were different, feared because society had labeled them “unclean.” I wonder if we ever need that kind of healing, when we encounter another who is sick? How do we respond to the sick? What do we say to someone who is newly diagnosed? What do we say when someone’s treatments are not going well?
So often, if we’re not careful, unconsciously we can begin to pull back, and to move away ever so slightly. We might justify our distance by saying that we don’t want to say anything stupid, or we think our friend might just need a little space.
But the way of healing (for Jesus and for us) is to move forward.
Jesus always moves toward people—into their neighborhoods, into their homes, into their lives with prayer, touch and love.
Prayer is the first part, and it may seem like the easy part, but it’s the foundation, and we’ll lose our nerve to go any further if we are grounded in prayer. When I pray for someone to get better or to be healed, I try really hard to be honest with God. I know that part about “praying that God’s will would be done above all,” but I’m honest when I pray for someone and I ask God to make the person better, to take away the sickness, to make the person strong again. One way I pray for another’s healing is simply to picture the person in the fullness of health—vibrant, happy, at ease. That image of the person becomes my prayer as I hold that image in my mind for a minute or two and then imagine the person being that healthy and happy person in the presence of God.
We offer prayer as a part of healing, but we also offer touch. The touch part of healing has to do with proximity. Mindful that we live in a complicated age, I’m not for a moment suggesting that we smother one another in hugs and holds. Touch can be as exclusive as it can be inclusive. But there are many, many ways of showing physical presence while allowing for personal space.
Closeness has as much to do with an open posture, with eye contact, with fewer words and with more deeply hearing ears.
We pray, we touch, and with the two, if we’re about healing, then we offer love. Love can be accepting and warm and soothing. And sometimes it just needs to be present in calm, quiet ways. But sometimes love is louder and tougher and more direct. Soft love for an addict is called enabling. Love always, always, always has to do with the truth.
And finally, healing often goes beyond what we first see.
With Simone Crockett’s revision of our stained glass window booklet and with the publication of George Bryant’s on Henry Holiday, I’ve been looking closer than ever at our stained glass windows. The central window over the main altar is one I usually refer to as Christ raising Lazarus in the upper section and Jesus raising the blind man. But there’s more. Some entitle the window, “Christ the consoler,” and note that to the upper left is the raising of Jairus’s daughter. And the bottom tier has all kinds of people in need. They represent anyone who comes to Christ.
May the Spirt help us to assist in God’s ongoing work of healing, to pray, to move closer to people, and to love as best we can.
With the help of St. Blase and all the saints, may we be healed through Jesus the Great Physician, and may we offer this healing to the world.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.