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| St. Alban's, Simsbury |
Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Simsbury, CT
Proper 23C, October 13, 2019
May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” So says our Gospel reading from Luke this morning. I will own that this is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. It was on one of the stained glass windows in my home parish. It has been a formational passage in my own journey. As most of you know, I had bone cancer as a teenager. Given that experience, as you might imagine, questions of healing and wellness have long been central to my life. I think this passage deserves some unpacking. It can be tempting to just take it on face value. The difficulty is that when we do that we risk setting ourselves up for serious disappointment. On its surface the statement that “Your faith has made you well” is problematic. It could be seen as implying that if we only pray hard enough, we will be healed from whatever ails us. But we all know stories of truly faithful, good people who struggle with illness, loss or other challenges. Prayer can make a difference. It has an impact on us and on our world. But it is not a magic cure all that fixes everything. This is where I want to draw an important distinction between wellness and perfection.
I think we often think that being healed means miraculous healing that erases all signs of disease. Like in our Scripture today where the lepers are made clean. Or are any of you Indiana Jones fans? In the Last Crusade, when they find the holy grail and pour water from it on his father’s bullet wound, the skin heals instantly and there is no sign of the wound. I think we are often hoping for that kind of healing in our lives. We are hoping that the pain and suffering, the scars, the wounds, whether they are physical or emotional, will just disappear. That somehow we can be “cured” in a way that erases any trace of a disease. It is not an accident that we think this might be possible. Think of all the advertising images that we see that emphasize having the perfect skin, the perfect hair, the perfect physique, etc. We are bombarded with images that emphasize a very particular, flawless image of what it means to be beautiful. But those superficial standards of what it means to be “well” and “healthy,” are not what Scripture gives us.
Think of the Resurrection narratives. What is one of the profound truths about the Resurrected Jesus? Doubting Thomas only knows it is Jesus when he is able to touch his wounds. That it so important! Jesus still had his wounds. Resurrection did not completely undo the crucifixion, it transformed it. The reality of healing, of bringing life out of death, did not mean erasing the wounds. It is possible to have wounds AND to be transformed and made “well.”
As someone who has been physically and emotionally scarred by life, and by the experience of having cancer in particular, I find such tremendous comfort in this truth. Our faith can be, and is, an essential part of our healing process. But having faith does not mean that we will not be wounded. We will have trials. We will be scarred. And that is okay. We are not alone in our challenges. Our Lord and Savior knows what it is to be wounded. He has offered reassurance to us that healing is not about being made perfect. It is about being made well and whole. That includes our wounds. It is possible to be well and still wounded at the same time.
Many of you may also be familiar with the work of Henri Nouwen, and in particular his book, Wounded Healer. Nouwen’s premise is that our ability to minister with others in the midst of crisis is absolutely connected to our own experiences of being wounded. Our ability to be a comforting and healing presence is, in fact, enhanced by our own experiences of pain and suffering. We can walk with others exactly because we have confronted our mortality, because we have wrestled with the fragility and sacredness of life. I think it helps to have Nouwen articulate this truth for us, and we know this from our own experience. Think of the most profound relationships of your life. Do you feel a deep connection with that person because you like the same kind of soda or you have the same favorite color? Or because you like the same kind of shoes? Maybe, but I would wager that our most profound relationships are forged through moments of crisis and vulnerability. The relationships that matter most to us are the ones where we can be vulnerable, where we can share our wounds, where we do not feel the need to put up a false front of perfection.
The relationships that matter most to us are the people we can call up in the middle of the night when our hearts are broken. The people who can tell us the truth in love, even when it hurts. The people who inspire us to be our best selves, precisely because they know our weaknesses and our challenges.
So, while we are bombarded by images that promote a flawless, perfect life, I am not sure it is actually something worth wanting. I think I am okay with the fact that our faith brings wholeness to our brokenness not by erasing our wounds, but by making them holy. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has shown us that hope and beauty, that new life and possibility, are born not when everything goes just right, but when it all seems to be going sideways and wrong.
Whatever wounds or brokeness you might be struggling with this week, whatever ways life has gone sideways, I hope you will take comfort in the assurance that God is with us in the midst of it all. We do not need to pretend that life is perfect or that it should be. We can be honest about our challenges, and we can trust that God is at work in our lives and in the world bringing about healing and wholeness. AMEN.
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