From the Daily Lectionary for Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week after Pentecost
Luke 5:12-26
Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one. “Go,” he said, “and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.” But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.
One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting nearby (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed—“I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.” Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.”
Jesus continues his ministry of healing in Luke’s narrative. Healing for Luke is synonymous with salvation; salvation, not having to do with “going to heaven” after one’s death, but salvation meaning the gift of well-being and dignity in one’s earthly life. Moreover, healing is an outward and visible sign of the presence of God’s kingdom… on earth as it is in heaven.
The healing of the leper is about being given dignity, the principal rudiment of salvation. Lepers, of course, were shunned and shamed by society. Jesus responds with visceral compassion to the leper’s despair. The healing of the paralytic is testimony to the faith of friends. It is their care that leads to his well-being. So these two short stories are testimony to salvation as a process motivated by compassion, the compassion of Jesus, and the compassion of friends. For Luke the compassion of the community is the same as the compassion of Jesus.
Implicit in these healing accounts lies the premise that there is profound and transformative power in loving one’s neighbor, which according to the teachings of Jesus, is the same as loving God. This is the singular practice that orders and will order our world into what God envisions it to be. It seems so very simple, so elementary, but nonetheless so very essential to our common life.
We are made, not so much for self-awareness and personal achievement, but for the dignity and well-being of our neighbor, which is to say, we are made for the work of salvation. The sooner we own that reality, that calling, the sooner the world will be what it should be. Simple. Elementary. Profound.
A Prayer for Recovery from Sickness (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 your suffering servants that their weaknesses may be banished and their strength restored; and that, their health being renewed, they may bless your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
