"God Desires Healing" June 10, 2007 Pentecost 2 Proper 5

(First read the texts for this sermon: 1 Kings 17:17-24; Luke 7:11-17)

When I was a patient in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit this past November, at Norfolk General Hospital, the nurses enjoyed being in my room. One reason was because I was getting better! Most of the patients those nurses work with do not improve much, and are transferred to nursing homes when they are weaned from the ventilator. What a hard job! It gave the nurses a lift to work with me because I was so responsive and appreciative for their care.

For two nurses who worked the night shift, it was more than that. Knowing I was a pastor released them to be open in talking about their faith. In my room, we were a religious hospital! We spoke thankfulness to God for healing, out loud. They even sang a spiritual for me each night, before turning down the lights in my room!

The Progressive Ventilator Care Unit was only a step removed from Intensive Care, and so the nurses were in and out all the time, doing something with me, often something unpleasant. Every time they would finish, I would say, “Thank you for taking care of me.” That surprised them at first! I don’t think they’re used to being thanked. I was extremely moved one time when one of them stopped on her way out of the room and said, “God has sent you to us. We have needed you on this unit. You have been ministering to us.”

Wow.

When she said that, it was a way for to her to make sense of why I was suffering from my illness. In her theology, everything that happens is caused by God.

It’s easy to find scripture that would lead us to think that! For instance, there are the verses we read this morning, from First Kings. It’s the ending of the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow who’s living with her son in the town of Zarephath. You may remember the first part of the story. It takes place during a terrible drought. Elijah is sent by God to this woman and her son, to ask her for something to eat and drink. But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." And, according to the story, that’s what happens! There is always enough! God always provides enough!

But then begins the story we read this morning. After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?"

I firmly believe that God is present and moving in every one of our experiences. In fact, I’ve always liked this bumper sticker that Jean Kuhn gave me one time: “WIGIAT” (Where Is God In All This?) That is what we try to discern, through our listening prayer, in all of our experiences. Pete Parks, who is a friend from Williamsburg, is a chaplain at Norfolk General who visited me frequently in the hospital, and he would often ask the same question, in the same words! He also said this, and it’s significant: “It will probably take you months to figure that out.”

Pete’s a Baptist, just like my two special nurses. But do you see how his theology is different? He is not saying that everything is caused by God. Let me ask: Did God cause my respiratory failure? Was it God’s will that I suffer with a tracheotomy and require a feeding tube? And for my fellow patients in the PVCU, was it God who caused them to have strokes, and to suffer serious injuries in accidents?

If you have trouble with that, then good – because that view contradicts our understanding of God, as Jesus reveals God to be. And that helps us interpret a passage such as the great story about Elijah and the widow in First Kings.

Remember: the Word of God is Jesus! In Jesus’ human flesh, God entered into the worst of human suffering and weakness. It is there, in suffering and weakness, that God exercised God’s power of resurrection, of new life! Because of who Jesus reveals God to be, we can say that God does not cause suffering. Because of Jesus we can know that God enters into our suffering and suffers with us, all the time earnestly desiring nothing but healing!

With that in mind we read this morning’s story from Luke. It’s a story very similar to the one in First Kings (which is why the two stories are paired in the lectionary). You remember what happens: As [Jesus] approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Jesus, God in human flesh, is pure compassion. He is moved by the widow’s weeping, by her grieving. He enters into her suffering. And God’s power for healing is strong and powerful. Indeed, it is startling! Remember how the onlookers reacted to what Jesus did? Here’s what we read: Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!"

God desires healing!

But what about when healing does not include a physical cure? We are into deep mystery here. Many of you prayed for my physical healing. I did myself! And I stand before you on this day!

But what if I had died? Does God choose to cure some, while ignoring the pleas of others? Because that is an intolerable idea to her, one person very close to me said that she did not pray for a physical cure. Instead, in her wailing prayer, she lifted up to God my suffering and her agony over my suffering; she just lifted that up in her prayer; and, one night, she somehow experienced a certitude that all would be well, whether or not I got better physically. What healing she received from God, in that prayer!

God desires healing. But healing does not necessarily mean a physical cure. The healing that God desires is far deeper, far more profound.

For instance, God’s healing is shown in the witness that is offered by a seriously ill person who receives each day with joy as a precious gift. God’s healing is shown in the witness of a person who is willing to let go in her suffering, leaning back into God’s arms, in the faith that all will be well. God’s healing is shown in the witness of a person who dies, secure in faith.

An elderly professor of mine, who has since died, once wrote,

“Intellectually, I cannot put any content into the word live with regard to the time after I die. Because the only life I know is the finite one that I live before dying. I certainly don’t want to do this all over again. I definitely do not want to continue to love the present carcass into all eternity. That is an absurd and not at all pleasant idea. But what life beyond death might be, I have no notion. If all life is engendered and created by God, then that relationship will not be destroyed by the periodic appearance and disappearance of this particular person with my name. Something continues, but what that will be I’m perfectly willing to leave in the hands of the Originator.” (Joseph Sittler, Grace Notes and Other Fragments)

What faith is expressed in those words! What health!

God desires healing.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia