Pentecost IV - Sunday June 25th, 2006
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
Have you moved any mountains lately? Have you wanted to? Well, not literally, I’m sure. I think that’s an important thing to say, that Jesus’ statement is not so grand as to be taken literally, nor so small that the enormity of the metaphor is to be missed. Think about it – if you were to want to move a mountain, where would you put it? And for that matter, why would you want to move one? Perhaps to construct a straight road. But you know, these days, you would have to get an environmental assessment, and quite properly so. Jesus’ statement is a powerful one about the strength of faith, and it should be taken that way. It is, of course, a metaphor, but not hyperbolic.
I wonder what kinds of mountains people thought of when they heard him say this? Well, the context of this passage is exorcism, or what we probably would think of as curing mental illness; we know of many examples of his healing the sick; even the disciples do that. So we move to understand his saying that were moving a mountain a good thing and something of practical and desirable quality, even a very little faith would be sufficient. So we do not expect people to evaluate, or calibrate, their faith by staring out west and willing a mountain to move. Indeed, so little faith being required, we don’t expect anyone to calibrate at all – size doesn’t matter. Trying this is not a way to test one’s faith for oneself or anyone else.
But think what this means for other major problems, like health. In the healing service today and every six weeks or so, we will be praying for healing for the people who come forward, and/or for those about whom they are concerned. What do we mean when we say we believe in healing?
Well, we mean foremostly actual healing, that is, removal of disease. That is clearly what any ill person wants, and let’s acknowledge that. If the healing is a sudden and conclusive one, well and good. As a former hospital chaplain and long-time pastor, I have to say that I am neither surprised nor disappointed when a sudden healing is not what happens. I’ve learned to be patient – healing that takes a while, whether subsequently the direct result of medical practice, or miraculous, is OK with most people. I also know, and so do you, that there are times when this kind of healing does not take place, either through prayer or through medical practice, and this is always disappointing.
But God apparently sees more than one kind of healing, and the answer to our prayers may be one such. What do I mean? Well, when people are ill and as a result have a great deal of time to think about things, what comes to mind are often problems in relationships – hurts given or received, disappointments, and losses, depressing things. Sometimes God’s answer to prayer about healing is to heal the relationships either by directly changing them or by making forgiveness possible, your forgiving someone else, or your accepting the other’s forgiveness. This unforgiven stuff weighs a ton, and it is amazing how the body rebounds when the weight is removed!
Let me tell a story to illustrate. As a hospital chaplain, I was called in about one a.m. one winter night. It was dark, stormy, snow being driven by fierce winds. I was told that a dying woman in the ICU was demanding the chaplain. I finally made it in and entered her glass-bound room. She was lying with her head raised by pillows, awake. I asked what she wanted. “Well, where are your pad and pencil?” she asked, with criticism in her tone. It turned out that she wanted to dictate messages to various members of her large family. Dutifully, I sat and began to record her messages, gradually realizing that everything she had to dictate was angry and vengeful. I interrupted to ask whether any of the people she wanted to write to lived in the area. Well, almost all of them lived somewhere within an hour (in good weather) so I asked if she would like to have them called to come in and talk with her personally. She agreed. So the nurses and I started calling people at 2 a.m., explaining that their mother/grandmother/aunt/sister was dying, and would like to see them and talk with them. It took a while, but gradually they came straggling in out of the winter storm. The first three entered her room and she immediately began berating them in a loud voice, so that the nurses had to close her room, and move farther away those who had been in adjoining rooms. Once ten or eleven had arrived, I returned home, hoping that she would be able to talk herself out, and that the relatives would be able to stand it. Early that afternoon, after some sleep, I phoned the ICU to find out how things were going. She had been discharged! God works on more than one kind of healing. Now this may not by itself remove your disease, but it does wonders for the health of the body, mind, and heart! And that in turn, together with medical practice, may effect the cure. This is what is referred to in the passage of the healing service as sin – the separateness from others and from God resulting from unhappy relationships. You understand, the cure for that is simple and direct, although once you are done you may feel as if you’ve moved a mountain!
Problems can become overwhelming, and sometimes it is that quality of being overwhelmed that makes you feel sick, or indeed makes you ill (we all know now about the chemical reactions in the body caused by stress and depression – this is real stuff, it is real illness even if there be no pathogen or bacterium or virus). Move the mountain, and you may be healed after the effects of the chemicals go away, although some of the effects may be permanent.
In prayer, we are at our most honest with both God and ourselves. A time of illness may be the most profound opportunity for a person to survey thoroughly the whole life, and make decisions about a number of things that need changing. Prayer for strength and means, together with resolve, may bring about some or all of these changes. Profound healing of several kinds can come from this.
All these things are what we mean when we have a healing service. Are these greater or less than the weight of a mountain?
All it takes to move a mountain is a little faith.
All this having been done, what if the illness remains? Well, reams of sermons and devotional materials have been written about the virtues and benefits of suffering, and of accepting those things in life which cannot be changed save by their own nature. I don’t think that my own experience or spirituality has reached the deep level necessary to come to those conclusions and, frankly, I hope that I don’t ever have to reach that level. But I must admit that I have met people whose quality of character, graciousness, and power to make other peoples’ lives better absolutely shines through the pain on their faces, undiminished no matter how bowed over may be their bodies, nor how furrowed their countenance. Probably you, too, have met such people. Certainly we know of great composers who turned to such work because they were physically unequal to careers that required great strength, for example. People who suffer from extreme melancholia, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill for example, are sometimes possessed of such awareness of the deepest qualities of life which need repair, and so ready and equipped to shoulder the most solemn of responsibilities as a result of their melancholia, that the rest of us must be deeply grateful to God for their burdens. Had not someone with their abilities been so encased in the limitations of melancholia, so unlikely to live with free spirits always floating above and away from the problems of the world, perhaps there would not have been solutions to the social problems of the day. (Gives you a whole new understanding of the possible benefit of illness, doesn’t it?) Healing for such people might mean that their efforts, focused by melancholia, do indeed solve problems and provide them deep satisfaction, but no relief from the emotions.
Well, I’m sure you can think of other meanings of healing. But you get the idea. During the meditation time, I’d invite you to think about all the meaning of healing which might be here together with God’s presence this morning. And keep them in mind as we lay hands upon those who come forward.
