From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter
Matthew 8:5-17
When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
The first several acts of Jesus after the Sermon on the Mount are healings: first a man with an horrific skin disease; then the centurion’s servant; then Peter’s mother-in law… and then the narrator says, “many others.” Healing in fact, in all four Gospels, is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. So much of scripture is allegory, symbol, typology…. But Jesus’ gift of healing, in the venerable tradition of great healers of biblical history, is I think to be taken literally.
There are such people. There are healers in every culture, the ‘Shaman;’ people whom the desperate seek out for a cure of maladies both physical and spiritual. In the ancient, pre-enlightenment mind, there is no difference in the two. In the post-Enlightenment world our healers are scientists. It hasn’t always been so.
The reality is: We humans are made to heal. Healing is a gift of the natural order, and more particularly, a gift of community. But there are some who are suited peculiarly to enable the process. Jesus was one such person according to the tradition. We are electromagnetic beings. It stands to reason that that energy produced by the mind and body is somehow related to the process of healing. Acupuncture relies on the energy fields of the human body. The process is collaborative, not solitary. Doctors are taught to touch their patients. Why would that be?
I’m out of school here, but it strikes me that the life of faith has everything to do with the literal health of the community. When there are ‘sick,’ then the community is less than whole; and our collective actions as to healing matter. Just ask a mother who has stayed up all night with a sick child. Healing is an act of Love, and Love will persist towards wholeness.
That Jesus was a healer fits with the theology of God’s vision for the world, that all people are given an equal opportunity for well-being and dignity. Healing is indeed a process of restoration… and a symbol also… of resurrection; that new life is possible amid disease and infirmity. You can relate this reflection on your own as to the present pandemic, but suffice it to say, healing at its heart is an act of Love: people bearing God’s healing touch to the world God loves… literally.
A Prayer for the Sick (BCP p. 458)
O God of heavenly powers, by the might of your command you drive away from our bodies all sickness and all infirmity: be present in your goodness with all who are sick, that their weakness may be banished and their strength restored; and that, their health being renewed, they may bless your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
