The little baby Mary wasn't expected to live. She was now in hospital. Her parents had been told to expect the worst. But the curate from the local church refused to give up. Day after day he went and prayed by her bedside.
Seven decades later I met Mary. The baby who was meant to die was now a perfectly healthy early retired woman.
“Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal “ (Luke 9:1-2)
Ours is a God who heals.
Of course not every prayer for healing gets answered the way I would like. On one occasion in John's Gospel Jesus goes to a pool surrounded by disabled people, and it is only one person whom Jesus heals. I don't know why every prayer doesn't get answered but I do know that God answers prayer. I could share stories of people who I prayed for who were not healed, but I can also share stories of people like Mary, seventy years later still healthy. Or my friend, let's call her Sarah. Sarah is a young mum in her early 30s. She was diagnosed with a stomach cancer. The doctors told her they would operate because that might buy her some time, but they would not be able to remove the whole of both tumours. But the church did not give up hope. We prayed. And we prayed. And when Sarah came round from the operation the doctor told her he couldn't believe it : they had managed to remove every part of the tumours. There are no promises, but several months and several tests later she is still absolutely clear.
So why does God heal?
I think that's the same question as why does God come to us in bread and wine in the mass (that we have just received)?
God could say “I love you. Don't worry, you are going to die but you will be with me in the sky”
But he doesn't.
God could tell us in the Bible “I love you” and not come to us in the bread and wine of communion.
But he doesn't.
There's an episode of Star Trek where there is an alien that is just a mind floating around in space. Some people think we are like that, that we are really just minds.
But I am not just a mind [pointing to my arm, and knee and foot] this is me… This is me… This is me…. I am not just a mind, I am a bodily person.
If my little boy wants to tell me he loves me he doesn't say [stand absolutely rigid with arms by side and say in a stiff voice] “I...Love...You”, he gives me a hug [mime it].
In the same way God doesn't just say in the Bible [say robotically] “I love you”, he gives us the hug, the touch that is physical presence in the bread and wine of communion.
In the same way, when people are sick Jesus doesn't just say “Don't worry, you are going to die but you'll be with me in the sky “ : he heals people.
The second century Bishop Irenaeus asks, if God doesn't care about our bodies why does Jesus heal the man with the withered arm. No, says Irenaeus, Jesus heals the man because our bodies matter, and in the afterlife with God we shall in some sense have bodies. We are bodily people.
Back in 2005 I was in Sierra Leone as part of a team of clergy doing a mission. And at the end of each evening’s teaching we would have prayer ministry. And a few days into the mission a man came forward. It was just like in the movies. Here was a guy on crutches. He couldn’t walk. We had seen him every day and he could not walk. Then he came up for prayer and suddenly he wasn’t just walking, he was dancing. The only problem? It wasn’t me who was praying for him! I was praying for a long line of people and at one moment I saw this guy limping up on his crutches to my colleague next to me and the next he was dancing.
The problem? I want to be the great healer! I want people to come up to me and be miraculously healed. But God doesn’t heal people to make me look good. God heals people because he loves them. The people I prayed for may well have had gradual halings in response to my prayers. And that is just as important because it is not about looking good.
Vs 6 “So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.”
If we are obsessed by our own glory as healers we won’t “proclaim good news” - because when people aren’t healed as quickly as we want them to be, it will be “why haven’t you been healed!” People can come seeking healing and go away feeling guilty.
What matters is that people get better.
It doesn’t matter whether they are dramatically healed in front our eyes or go back home and are slowly healed in response to medical treatment.
I think of Rita, in her 70s. Rita was naughty. She knew something was wrong, but she kept putting off going to the doctors. By the time she went it was too late. They said the cancer was so advanced that she only had a couple of months to live. But the church didn’t give up. We kept praying for her. And much to the doctors surprise the treatment worked. And three years on when I left that parish, she was still very tired, but otherwise absolutely fine.
An English Archbishop, William Temple, said “When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.”
Now, I don’t know why some people I pray for aren’t healed. I could share with you stories of people I have prayed and prayed for and they’ve died. And I don’t understand why God lets it happen. But today I want to share with you different stories. Stories like those of Mary or Rita or the man in Sierra Leone. Because ours is a God who heals.
In John Chapter 5 we read the story of the Pool of Bethesda. It “has five porticos. In it lay many invalids, blind, lame and paralysed” (vs3-4). Jesus doesn’t heal them. Jesus heals “one man who was there who had been ill for 38 years” (vs5). We don’t know why Jesus doesn’t heal everyone, but we do know that he does heal.
Now, in a moment, after this sermon, we are going to have a time of prayer ministry. A chance for you to come up and be prayed for. It is good to offer people the chance to receive healing prayer in church services. But let us hear the context of our Gospel reading.
“Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal “ (Luke 9:1-2)
“And sent them out”
Jesus does heal people in synagogue services. But most of the time he heals people he meets on the road when he is out and about. And he calls them to go out. Healing isn’t a cosy club for those of us on the inside. It’s a gift of love for us to share with those of the outside.
When I was vicar of Barkingside, some Saturdays groups of us used to go out and knock on people’s doors. “Hi we are from your local church and we are having a special service tomorrow when we are praying for the local community. What would you like us to pray for you for” and we would write them down and pray for them in church. It was amazing the responses we got. Perhaps one in ten slammed the door in our face. 6 or 7 more didn’t quite know what to say and asked us to pray for world peace or their favourite football club. And the other two or three … it would be relatives just diagnosed with cancer, or a terrible grief or a job that had just been lost … and we were able to bring God’s love to them.
William Temple, the Archbishop I mentioned above, wrote that “many masters of the Spiritual life has said it seems to them, as a matter of experience that at an early stage in the Spiritual life God seems to answer prayers quite directly and then appears to stop” and answers them in a less direct fashion that challenges us to grow in faith.
So if we stay in our cosy club we will see less and less dramatic answers, but if we want to see dramatic answers to prayer we need to go out into the world and take prayer out to those who don’t yet know Jesus.
vs6 “So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.”
Amen
