"Faith Healing”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, 02.15.09
Text: Mark 1. 40-45
In the “days of yesteryear,” as I was growing up, Macon, GA, was a one TV town— just one television station, WMAZ, broadcasting in fuzzy black and white. With just one channel to view, we saw a little bit of everything. My favorite show was “The Lone Ranger,” brought to us by Marietta Bread. But there was also Douglas Edwards and his 15 minute nightly newscast, and on Sunday afternoons there was Oral Roberts, one of the pioneers of television evangelism. Roberts was a hard worker. I remember seeing him in action—sleeves rolled up, sitting on a stool, microphone in hand, commanding the devil depart the sick and disabled. When we moved to Carrollton, GA, just 50 miles southwest of Atlanta, our television options increased dramatically. With a good antenna we could pick up three television stations, and I don’t recall us ever tuning in again to Oral Roberts. My next exposure to faith healing came here in Birmingham in the late 1970’s and early 80’s when Earnest Angley appeared Sunday nights on Channel 42. I must tell you I was fascinated by the Rev. Angley from Akron, Ohio. In those days I could do a terrific impersonation of Earnest, guaranteed to bring howls of laughter from our friends. I fell out with the Rev. Mr. Angley when he traded in his old toupee, which always sat askew on his head, for a new hair piece that was much better aligned. I did not find the “new and improved” Earnest nearly as humorous.
I was amazed to discover this week that both Oral Roberts and Earnest Angley are still alive and somewhat active. Earnest is 87 years old, still wears a toupee, but travels in style aboard his own 747. His destination is often South Africa, where he attracts thousands to outdoor crusades. Oral Roberts, now 91, also has his own private jet--or at least he did at one time. From the late 80’s until 1992 he used his jet primarily to commute from his home base in Oklahoma to his golf club retreat in the exclusive St. Andrews Country Club of Boca Raton, FL. My cynicism notwithstanding, both men have done some outstanding ministry. Oral Roberts founded a university that bears his name. Earnest Angley uses his jumbo jet to transport missionaries and humanitarian aid around the world.
Fascination with faith healers has a long tradition as our two biblical stories today attest. In our first reading, a Syrian general reluctantly follows the prophet Elisha’s instructions. Naaman is healed in the muddy waters of the Jordan River. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is off to a fast start. We’re still in chapter one, but he has already “cast out an unclean spirit” from a disruptive participant in the synagogue at Capernaum. He has healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever. Later on the same day, Mark says Jesus “healed many who suffered from various diseases and drove out many demons.” Now, Jesus and his small band of disciples are traveling throughout the region of Galilee, preaching and, says Mark, “driving out (more) demons.” In today’s episode, a leper comes kneeling in homage and begging for help.
For centuries, leprosy was considered a mysterious illness associated with some type of curse. Persons with the disease were isolated and ostracized. Today there is effective treatment and the disease can be cured. But in antiquity lepers were social outcasts, deemed impure and “unclean. They were considered a source of danger and contamination for the family. For that reason when, in ancient Israel, the priest discovered a case of leprosy, the victim was expelled from civil and religious society. They could not pray in the Temple or go to the synagogue. They were banned from home and village, reduced to a life of wandering in “deserted places.”
Today, as Jesus is making the rounds in Galilee, one particular leper challenges him, “If only you will, you can make me clean.” Here is the first public affirmation in the Gospel of Mark of Jesus’ power to heal. Our New Revised Standard translation says Jesus is moved with pity. By contrast, the Revised English Bible says Jesus is moved to anger. Biblical scholar Charles Gary says both translations are correct.
The compassion of Jesus is no sentimental pity for this poor man. (Rather) His compassion compels Jesus to reach across the boundary of disease to touch an untouchable, violating (religious) law, and in the process making himself an untouchable, ritually unclean.1
We could debate what actually may have happened in this case. A medical marvel, a complete reversal of symptoms? Or, perhaps, a spiritual renewal, giving the victim courage to challenge his exclusion from society?
In our own time and place many have come to common agreement that there is a relationship between mind and body--belief and health, the spiritual and the physical. An article published in 1998 in the Journal of Religion and Health reports on “qualitative research” that led to findings which suggest “that Christian faith provides its adherents with several tools with which they can combat those circumstances in their lives that are likely to lead to distress and disease.”
Those tools include community, hope, meaning systems, behavioral constraints, and elements of church practice and church life, all of which work together to provide the faithful with a sense of peace that contributes to their well-being.2
Wow! We Christians have a ‘doctor kit’--imagine that. Let’s take a few minutes to examine the contends. To see our “medical instruments”--those ‘tools’ that can help us combat illness and recover from injury.
1. Community. That is what we are--little Edgewood Church. We are a community, a community of believers. You have a place here. You belong. We need you; you need us. Together we can have a positive impact on our own heath and well being. And we’re not alone. We’ve got our sister churches throughout this Presbytery, and beyond, that “whole cloud of witnesses” known as Presbyterian Church USA. We’ve got community in abundance, and we’ve got . . .
2. Hope. The Bible teaches us “to hope for more than we have yet seen.” Confronted by medical malady, frightened by the deepening recession, grieving the loss of loved ones, we have hope.
In Christ God gives us hope for a new heaven and a new earth, certainty of victory over death, assurance of mercy and judgment beyond death. This hope gives us courage for the present struggle (whatever it may be.)3
We’ve got community, we’ve got hope, and we have . . .
3. A meaning system. Our “Brief Statement of Faith” summarizes our “meaning system” this way:
In life and in death we belong to God.
Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel,
whom alone we worship and serve.4
Knowing that come what may “we belong to God,” to this communion and that we are loved by God, gives meaning to our lives. We’ve got community, we’ve got hope, we got a meaning system and we have . . . .
4. Behavioral constraints: The 10 Commandments, of course, Plus, “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6.8)? Plus, “Love the Lord your God AND your neighbor” Plus, the biblical mandate to live in faithful, committed relationships; And “(Treat) your body (as) a temple of the Holy Spirit”(1 Cor. 6). These are just some of the behavioral constraints we operate under as people of faith, and turns out they are good for our own health and wellbeing. We’ve got community, we’ve got hope, we’ve got a meaning system, we’ve got behavioral constraints, and . . .
5. Elements of Church practice and church life.
The Service of the Lord’s Day--every Sunday.
The Christian calendar--the cycle of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and
Easter
The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The great hymns of the church, choral and instrumental music.
Fellowship supper and Youth Group and Presbyterian Women.
Bible study and prayer groups
Who would have ever thought that even church committee meetings could be good for your health!
So, these are the tools, these are the instruments--community,
hope, a meaning system,
behavioral constraints, sacred practices of the Christian faith . .
. . These characteristics of Christian community give us no
guarantee against suffering. “No more than Christ are we spared the
darkness, ambiguity, and threat of life in the world.”5
But as Christians we believe that human suffering matters to Holy
God!
We see that quite clearly in Mark’s story of Jesus and the leper. And what begins as healing stories in the Bible becomes healing ministries in the world6 as the Church responds to the sacred call of Christ--Christ’s call to each of us to live a life appropriate to the coming reign of God: to serve as he has served us; to take up our cross, risking the consequences of faithful discipleship; to walk by faith and not by sight; to hope for what we have not seen.7
Now to the One
who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly
than all we ask or imagine,
to God be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever. Ephesians 3:20, 21
1Charles, Gary W., “Exegetical Perspective,” Mark
1:40-45, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, FEASTING ON THE WORD, Year B,
Vo. 1, p.359.
2Perry, Gail Frankel, “The Relationship Between Faith and
Well-Being”(abstract), JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND HEALTH, vol. 37, no.
2, Summer, 1998, p. 125.
3“Declaration of Faith,” X.1. , PCUSA, 1977, 1991.
4“Brief Statement of Faith,” PCUSA, 1991.
5“Declaration of Faith,” IX.5.
6Enniss, p.360.
7“Declaration of Faith,”IX.5.