Community Church Sermons
Year B
February 8, 2009
The
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
Mark 1:29-39
She was in the hospital with a very deadly form of cancer. Her husband – along with members of her church – gathered together one weekend evening to pray for her. They pictured Jesus with her in the hospital room, reaching out to touch her weakening body. They imagined her completely surrounded by the gracious love of God. They visualized her becoming well.
On Monday, her doctors were amazed. Test results showed all the cancer markers suddenly moving in the other direction. She was not getting worse. She was getting better! And after a long period of days and weeks and months, she was found to be cancer free.
The church and her husband, of course, rejoiced at this miracle! There was no doubt in their minds that their prayers had been answered.
But she refused to join the celebration.
You see, she had questions – important questions – questions like those you and I ask from time to time:
Why was she healed and the woman in the next bed not healed? Why were the prayers of her husband and church answered, but the prayers of her roommate’s husband and church not answered? They were good and faithful people just as the people surrounding her. So, why one and not the other?
Why are some people healed and others not?
This might well have been a question asked of those who met Jesus that day in the first chapter of Mark. There we read the beautiful words that at sunset, the people brought to Jesus all their sick and demon possessed friends and family members. Reports of his healing ministry had gone out into the province of Galilee. So, mothers with epileptic children, and children with blind parents, and neighbors with paralyzed friends brought them to Jesus to be made well.
I think there is no greater expression of love than when people do that for others – when one person holds out hope, offers prayer, and does the best they can to help another person become well.
I think of my friend Dot Gungle who went home to be with the Lord a few months ago after living a rich and full life. I met Dot when I was in seminary and she taught me a lot about prayer. A few of us met at her home every Wednesday morning to pray for those in need. Three years later, when I was finished with seminary and ready to move away, Dot invited me over for lunch. She had something to show me before I left. It was a journal she had kept for the past three years, and in it were recorded the names of all the people we had prayed for, the date we started praying, the date we stopped, and why. It was deeply moving just to look over the list, and to remember the faces, and to realize the large numbers of people for whom we had prayed. But what was even more touching was to see that Dot had written just to the right of the listings a brief note about the amazing answers to prayer that had come – the sick who had been made well, the broken relationships that had been restored, the struggles and challenges of day-to-day life that had been overcome. On every page of that journal, there were many whose prayers were answered.
But some were not.
Dorothy’s journal read an awful lot like our story in Mark 1 - good people bringing other people to Jesus to receive the gift of healing. But, if you listened carefully to the story as it was read, you heard the words, “The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases.”
Many. Many.
But not all.
Jesus healed many. But not everyone was healed.
So at the very center of this marvelous passage looms the age-old question, “Why are some healed and others not?”
Have you ever asked that question? I have.
I will tell you right up front that I don’t know the answer. Dr. David Bartlett, a wonderful theologian at Columbia Seminary - whose wife was the one healed of the cancer while the roommate was not healed - says he does not know the answer either. It is not that some have enough faith and others do not, or that some are morally superior to others. The entire Old Testament book of Job wrestles with the whys and wherefores of human suffering. And at the end we are left with only mystery. Don’t ever presume that you know why one person is healed and another is not.
Neither the Bible nor Jesus tell us why some prayers for healing are answered and some are not answered in the way we want, but what both the Bible and Jesus set before us is what is described as a SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE – the unshakable conviction that all wounds will ultimately be healed, all brokenness made whole, life raised up out of death, and every tear wiped away from our eyes. All of the Bible’s descriptions of the kingdom of God show the world and its people made whole.
I know that some of you have read a book called “The Shack” – the New York Times best seller. It is a work of Christian fiction that explores the nature of human suffering through the brutal murder of a little girl, and her family’s agonizing journey through the unbearable grief that follows. It is not a book that offers trite answers or simple religious sayings that make it all better, but it does force you to think about the fact that all of us have painful issues in our lives that cannot be settled in our lifetime.
The six-million Jews exterminated by Hitler have no recourse for justice unless there is some hope of justice beyond the end of this life. The bereaved family of that little murdered girl – indeed the little girl herself – have no possibility of being made whole unless there is some hope of redemption beyond this life. The roommate of the made-well woman in the hospital has only the hope that God is telling the truth when He tells us through the Bible and through Jesus that all wounds will be healed, all brokenness made whole, and every tear wiped away when we are lifted from death into new life through the Risen Christ.
Our faith does not give us easy answers to life’s most difficult and unanswerable questions.
But what our faith does give us is HOPE!
And in the meantime – until that hope becomes real – you and I have an important job to do.
We are to care for God’s beloved people. We are to pray for them. We are to rejoice with them in their answered prayers, and weep with them when the prayer goes unanswered.
And most importantly, we are to give them HOPE in the goodness of God that will ultimately prevail in their lives.
We express this hope whenever we gather for worship and proclaim our faith in Jesus Christ. When we welcome strangers and embrace them in friendship, we are telling about the welcoming love of God. Partnering with Chris Longmire of the Child Advocacy Center, or Shauna Oden of Habitat for Humanity, or any of the many others who are dedicated to bringing Christian love to folks who are hurting and in need, we declare the promise.
Through our individual Christian lives and our collective efforts as a church, we represent the HOPE of God that is both here and coming. In a sense, we are the Preview of Coming Attractions – the barnstorming biplane that flies upside down through downtown to announce the coming airshow – the engagement ring slipped on a finger as the sign of the marriage that will someday be.
You and I are the embodiment – the living ambassadors – of God’s Hope!
This week, we are commissioning four new Stephen Ministers. They join 78 other women and men who have stepped forward, taken 50-hours of training, and committed themselves to a minimum of two years service in bringing care to others. In addition to meeting with their care receivers – usually on a weekly basis – they also gather together twice each month for supervision and continuing education. They work hard to develop caring skills. All of us go through rough times when the prayers aren’t answered in the way we hope and we are left to deal with the reality of our hurt, or loneliness, or frailty, or loss. Our Stephen Ministers are those who will serve you in times like these, becoming good Christian friends who help you find faith for today and hope for tomorrow.
The Gospels show us that when Jesus walked among us SOME were healed, but ALL were loved, ALL were cared for, ALL were promised HOPE!
And now this is OUR ministry.
May YOU be the gift of Hope to someone this week!
May WE be a church where ALL are loved, ALL are cared for, and ALL are promised HOPE!!