Three Qualifications for Healing

A sermon preached by Father Dwight D. Duncan, ssc, Rector, St Matthias, Dallas, Texas
16 February 2003 - The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany (Year B)

Scripture: II Kings 5:1-15ab; Mark 1:40-45


There are two things certain about everyone here this morning: Each of us is going to die AND Each of us is in need of healing. Some of us may be suffering from a physical illness, others from emotional or psychological disorder, others from wounded relationships, others from some spiritual pain. BUT even should none of these dis-eases apply, we all are still in the category of "sicko." Why? Because each of us is still a sinner, no matter how far along we may be on the road to holiness.

Help is available. The gospels of Epiphany Season, filled as they are with accounts of healings, do not let us escape this fact: several weeks ago, it was a lunatic; last week an apostle's mother-in-law; today, a leper. At the center of all these is one whose name identifies him as healer: Jesus = the LORD saves.

Jesus does some rather extraordinary things, doesn't he? Well, not really, IF he is who his apostles, as well as the demons, claim him to be: the Holy One of God. One should expect that he through whom creation came to be would be capable of restoring to health whatever in creation goes amok.

There seem to be, however, some necessary ingredients we must offer in order to be healed. Epiphany Season's gospels reveal three: The Lord and we must get together; we must be willing to be healed; we must be willing to be a channel of healing to others. Let's explore these necessities.

I. The Lord and we must get together.

Last week, we saw friends and family bring Peter's mother-in-law to Jesus. This week, the leper brings himself. It makes no difference how: the Lord and we must come together.

In his great mercy, God can minister his healing to us through many and varied channels, even one's which seem odd to us or offend our pride. Naaman the leper found his in a river which could not compare in beauty with those of his native country and without God's healer so much as coming out to greet him.

Some channels through which God might minister to us may neither own him by name nor give him the credit. God, you see, has no problem with pride. However healing comes, God is its source. As Louis Pasteur, the father of modern surgery, professed, "I cut; God heals." Thus, some channels of God's healing may be the same to which any pagan would go: medical doctors, psychiatrists, counselors ...even, some of you have assured me, chiropractors.

Other channels are those peculiar means of access to the Great Physician which he has provided for everyone, but to which only those who own him as Lord will go: prayer to Jesus, worship and fellowship with our Christian family, spiritual direction, the sacraments of unction and confession.

To be unwilling to meet the Lord in any of these healing venues would be to compound sickness with stupidity ... as did, at first, Naaman the leper.

II. We must be willing to be healed.

Who isn't willing to be healed? Have you not noticed that Jesus never took that for granted? He asked individuals, even those with obvious disease, "What do you want me to do for you?" And, more bluntly, "Do you want to be healed?" The longer I wear the Lord's livery, the more I understand the reason for Jesus' questions: Not everyone wants health. I'll give you four reasons why:

1. Our wounded condition is precious to us; it gets us something we want. Poor health of whatever type gives us a measure of control over our environment and over others. People tend to make excuses for us: "What can you expect from him? ... Poor dear, she just can't do it." We make excuses for ourselves: "I'm just not able ... What can you expect of me?"

We also manipulate through pity for ourselves, or respect for our presumed martyrdom. I remember years ago a person sharing with me his admiration of how wonderfully a woman we knew bore her difficult spouse, while all the time I knew this "admirable" lady did not want healing in the marriage. She gained a lot of sympathy from others and clout with them because of her martyrdom. She was a good guy!

2. We prefer the security of our known dis-ease to the unknown of health. This is living with the monkey on my back which I know rather than risking a monkey I do not.

3. We don't want health unless it is given us in the way we want it. Look at Naaman who almost missed his healing, because of what he was told to do. There is always the possibility that health may be ours only in a way or through some means we do not wish: a gangrenous limb may have to be cut off; we may have to exercise or change our diet; we may have to undergo counseling and self-disclosure; we may have to make our confession; we may have to bear our dis-ease or problem instead of having it removed.

And this last form of healing is perhaps the most difficult for us: for the healing which God gives us to be a bearing of that thing we want removed. God, you see, knows exactly what we need in order to become a saint. And that is his one goal, towards which every healing of us is directed.

4. We don't want the responsibility of health. You see, more is expected of us, the healthier we are.

Four reasons for not wanting health. Sick you say? Of course it is. Sin's distortion of our minds and hearts runs deep, so deep that we ourselves can be quite unaware of the fears which imprison us and of the self-centeredness and selfishness which probably taint every action of ours.

We are sick. Which is why we need a savior, and one who labors to reveal to us more and more the dark recesses of ourselves. Oh, how desperately we need to allow him this, to beg it of him, for such awareness perhaps is the only thing which finally will get us to surrender ourselves to God's healing mercy, and be saved on the Day of Judgment. A principal issue in healing is this: are we willing to be healed, and to do and endure whatever it takes?

So the first two ingredients we must offer for our reception of healing are: We must get together with the Lord AND we must be willing to be healed in whichever way God chooses to give it. But there is a third necessary ingredient. Here it is:

III. We must be willing to be a channel of healing to others.

What did Peter's mother-in-law do once her healing began? She got up and served her healer and his friends. What did today's healed leper do? He spread the good news. Service of others, sharing the good news of a Savior available to all - both of these activities are vital in our journey to wholeness. We might still be wounded ourselves, bu we must reach out to minister to others.

It has been observed in hospital that those who improve or improve the quickest or who bear their infirmity the best are those who reach out to help others, even if that is simply being kind to harried nurses. Karl Menninger, a great physician of the mind, pointed out that an indispensable ingredient for the cure of depression is for the patient to move out in service to others. It gets one's attention off oneself, and that is very healing.

But of course it would be. Jesus said it, "He who would lose his life will save it." You see, God has built this principle of health into creation: life must be shared and passed on to stay healthy. Anything that stops in a spot, stagnates and pollutes, like still water. Therefore, for us to be healed, we must reach out to minister to others.

Yes, we are all unhealthy branches, but the vine to which we are attached is splendidly whole: Jesus. If we will come to him with a real desire for health and a willingness to accept it however it comes as well as to care for others, then health, as God wills it for us, will be ours.

Here today, the Body and the Blood of the Great Physician are offered for our healing. Through the good fruit they can produce in our lives if we will allow it, healing can come to others through us. Let us not let this bloody grace, purchased for us at such cost to Jesus, go for nothing.


Back to the SERMONS page