CoragetoHeal

They went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out,

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.

They were all amazed, and they kept asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching - with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in the bed with a fever, and they told them about her at once. He came and took her by her hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

What are we to do with stories like these? These stories of healing and exorcism?

Do we assume that, in spite of our inability to comprehend demons and healings, it must make sense because these stories are about Jesus?

The preacher Fred Craddock tells a story about a time he was acting as dean of a seminary. His secretary knocked on his door to let him know that someone was downstairs to see him - someone who was in the parking lot.

“I was a little nervous,” Craddock says, “but I followed her to the parking lot and to her car. She opened the back door, and slumped in the back seat was her brother. He had been a senior at the University of Oklahoma. He had been in a bad car wreck and in a coma for eight months. She had quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him. All of their resources were gone.

She opened the door and said, ‘I’d like for you to heal him.’ I said, ‘I can pray for him. And I can pray for you. But I do not have the gift of healing.’ She got behind the wheel and said to me, ‘Then what in the world do you do?’ And she drove off.”

“What I did that afternoon,” Craddock says, “ was study, stare at my books, and try to forget what she had said.”¹

Stories of healing are hard enough to handle when they lie on the pages of scripture - tucked safely away in the folds of history, read only once-in-a-while in our devotions or during worship. But what happens when we are faced with the expectation that we would pray for healing? What is our response?

My first reaction could be similar to yours. (And also to Fred Craddock’s—I confess that as I set out to preach on this text I buried my nose in books - more to avoid the issue than to learn about it.) I am uncomfortable with the idea of healing. I am uncomfortable with seeing prayer as a type of magic pixie dust that we sprinkle when things aren’t going well². It is not that I deny that healing takes place - there are too many stories of miraculous healing to dismiss them as fantasy. But I have a tendency to want to define healing in different ways than the plain sense of the text suggests.

I think that praying for healing as someone takes their last breath is more of a spiritual exercise than a physical one. I think that praying for healing with someone who is paralyzed is more of a prayer for their wholeness than a prayer that their legs will begin to move.

I believe this - that healing is bigger than the physical realm. However, I also have to acknowledge that as I redefine healing, there is a part of me that is trying to manage the power of God into a concept that I can comprehend.

In this morning’s text from Mark - indeed, all the way through Mark’s gospel - those around Jesus had a hard time comprehending what it was they were witnessing.

What people notice is the authority of Jesus - in his teaching and in his deeds. What they fail to comprehend is that he is the Son of God. If you remember from the text, however, there are those who see Jesus for who he is – the very demons he casts out.

These demons, representing the power of evil, name Jesus as “the Holy One of God.” This is made even more significant because they obey the commands of this Holy One.

Do you see? That which is opposed to God recognizes and responds to the power of God.

It would seem that we—who strive to be disciples of Jesus—would be emboldened by this fact. Because we know that nothing in this world can resist love of God – who created everything – it follows that our attitude in the face of adversity and suffering would be one of confidence. Also, that when we pray – even pray for healing – it seems that this knowledge would give us the courage to believe that “nothing is impossible for the Lord.”

And yet, I think that too often you as well as I are unable or unwilling to trust this fact.

Believing that God has ultimate authority does not mean that we are unfaithful if we have trouble with stories of miraculous healing, or if we are uncomfortable with offering prayers with an expectation that God will respond in the way we expect God to respond. We are not unfaithful if we use our minds to plumb the meaning of scripture to broaden the nature of healing or miracles.

But a call to faithfulness – and to Christian discipleship – does entail the firm affirmation that through Jesus Christ all things are reconciled to God – and that everything, everything, in this world is under God’s control.

Making this affirmation – and if you are a member of any Christian church that confesses Jesus as Lord, you have made it – requires that we live our lives differently.

It is ironic, really. We live in a culture of much, and we are continually confronted with an attitude of scarcity. I don’t mean scarcity in an economic sense – I mean a scarcity of possibility.

There are issues that we face – in our personal lives, in our life as a congregation, our life as a city, as a nation – that seem overwhelming. A broken relationship that crowds our thinking; our struggle to meet the budget; rampant crime; polarizing politics that cripple effective leadership. When I am confronted by issues such as these I have a tendency to shut-down. I think to myself:

It is an attitude of scarcity – and it limits our vision to the possibility of God.

Today, on this first Sunday in Lent, begins an effort called Metro Richmond at Prayer – of which our session has agreed to be a part. For the next year we will join over 150 congregations of all stripes to pray for healing in our city. This initiative was borne out of conversations within the community of Richmond Hill – which is located in a spot that has been praying for healing for our city since 1866.

Each week – during the prayers of the people – we will be praying for something specific; the churches of greater Richmond; schools; the poor; local government. We are not praying for these things just so we can be aware of them – we are praying for healing, for transformation.

The places and problems for which we will pray have been subjected to the same attitude of scarcity that we experience in our lives. In fact, perhaps even a more pronounced attitude of scarcity.

In the face of this attitude of scarcity, we have covenanted to pray with the confidence that affirming Jesus Christ as Lord requires. With thousands of other citizens of our city who claim Jesus as Lord, we are called to pray as if we expect transformation.

Ben Campbell, Pastoral Director of Richmond Hill and leader in this prayer effort, posed a question in an editorial in the Times-Dispatch from two weeks ago that - I am sure – comes to the front of our minds when we think about prayer and healing: “What difference does prayer make?”

His answer is excellent: “Prayer does not change God. He was concerned for the prisoners, the poor, the teachers, the business [people] of metro Richmond before we prayed. But prayer may give God a chance with us, and with our community. People who take prayer seriously, sooner or later begin to listen. Prayer forms the spiritual base that is essential for all effective human transformation.”³

Prayer is our conversation with God. We can have confidence that God hears our prayer because Jesus Christ is our mediator.⁴ We can have confidence that God will heal our world because God is in control of our world.

As Ben Campbell suggests, when we take on a discipline of prayer, we open ourselves to be changed. When we pray, we allow our attitude of scarcity – calcified by old hurts, by deep doubts, by our need to make sense of the world - to be replaced by the promise of abundance. To be replaced by the possibility and hope that is only found in God.

It takes courage to believe that what we see and the problems we face are not the last word. It takes courage to stand up in a culture of scarcity and say that there is life-giving possibility in the fullness of God.

And it takes much courage to adopt an attitude of prayer that causes us to listen…and to recognize that as we listen we might be transformed. That our transformation could be the event that brings the healing that we so deeply desire. That our transformation may break us out of the shackles that bind the world that God intends.

But it is courage that is grounded in a sure hope of the One who stands over history as Lord – who saves, who loves, and in whom abundant life is found.

1. Craddock, Fred. Craddock Stories, p. 21. Chalice Press, 2001.

2. Thanks to my wife, Lindsey Wells Peery, for putting this reservation into words...

3, Campbell, Ben. “Metro Richmond at Prayer” Richmond Times-Dispatch, Op-Ed, Feb 16, 2006.

4. Calvin, John, The Institutes of Christian Religion, 3.20.19.