Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
We don’t know
what to make of the demons in the New Testament.
Our modern minds
and worldview leaves little room for ghosts, demons, and other spiritual
beings, even good ones such as angels.
Also, our
understanding of the world and our growing expertise in healthcare changes the
way we view diseases, either mental health issues or physical health issues.
And so today,
when we read the scripture, we recognize many of the ailments that Jesus cured
and understand them, not as demons, but in light of our 21st century
medical knowledge.
Epilepsy.
Hemoraging.
Blindness.
Mental health.
And in today’s
lesson, Osteoporosis.
Even in the
lesson itself it is viewed in two different lights.
We read on the
one hand that she had “a spirit that had
crippled her for eighteen years”, but also Jesus refers to it as an “ailment”.
Is she ‘possessed’,
or simply suffering from a disease?
According to Dr.
Ira Brent Driggers, who wrote the commentary in Working Preacher for today:
“Luke and the other evangelists emphasize
Jesus’ power to heal physical brokenness because they are convinced that God
created everything and called it good, meaning Jesus’ messianic mission is not
some Gnostic deliverance of the spirit out of the body but a healing of the
entire person. In the case of the bent
over woman, Luke goes so far as to call her condition a form of Satanic bondage,
which is an ancient apocalyptic way of saying her condition violates God’s will
for her life (and is not her own fault!).
To be clear, she is not demon-possessed.
But according to the Lukan Jesus, she is tragically broken.
Disease is not
God’s will for our lives.
And it is not our
fault.
That’s what demon
possession in the New Testament signifies.
In contrast to
this we often hear people respond to adversity in their lives by saying “it
must be God’s will”. There is a sense
that everything that happens, happens according to God’s plan and will.
People will say
all sorts of things in this light, for example, when a child dies they will say
things like “God needed another little angel in heaven.”
Against all that,
the Bible uses demonic possession as a way of saying that no, everything is not
according to the will of God. Evil
exists.
And neither is
everything bad that happens to you a punishment for having done something
wrong.
We know today
that some diseases are the consequence of our actions.
You smoke your
whole life and the risk of lung cancer and other diseases goes way up.
People who drink
excessively experience health issues related to that drinking, including cirrhosis
of the liver.
If you’re obese,
other risk factors come into play.
And in addition to this sort of thing, other
actions on our part may contribute to suffering, such as taking risks driving,
or carelessness at work, and such.
That said,
though, most of the diseases we will experience are not our fault.
Nor are they the
will of God.
To the contrary,
it is God’s will that we be set free from this type of bondage.
Bottom line: call it a disease, or call it demon
possession, it is against God’s will and his plan is that we be set free from
it.
One of the things
that strikes me about Jesus’ ministry is how much of his time and energy was
devoted to the task of making people well.
Jesus was not
just about saving souls, and neglecting the rest of our lives, our bodies and
minds.
Rather redemption
means wholeness in body, mind, and spirit.
And yet, so often
we suffer for years without hope of getting better. Eighteen years this woman in our Gospel
lesson suffered.
It is simply part
of life, it seems, that each of us will eventually get some chronic condition
from which there will be no relief.
One of the
conclusions that I have come to over the years is that no one can pray their
way out of their own mortality.
We will die.
And yet we have
the promise, that even in death God is at work bringing about a new creation
and wiping away every tear from our eyes.
Again, redemption
means wholeness in body, mind, and spirit.
If Jesus’
ministry is in any way instructive to us, then we would devote ourselves first
and foremost to this task of health and wellness.
Somewhere along
the way, though, we got distracted.
We started
focusing more on being religious, than on being well.
And believe it or
not, Jesus had very little time for our religiosity. He did not come that we might be more
religious, he came that we might be made well.
When Jesus cured
the woman in today’s lesson, all the religious leaders could think about was
that he had done so on the Sabbath.
Their religious traditions were more important to them than the wellness
of this woman.
This was a
pattern that was repeated throughout Jesus’ ministry.
The religious
leaders were more concerned about people being religious, than they were about
them being whole.
As a pastor, I
find myself questioning whether I am likewise more concerned about how
religious people are, than how well they are.
And if we are
totally honest, our well being as pastors and the Church is dependent in no
small way on the religious devotion of our parishioners.
Let’s just focus
on the Sabbath as an example.
We don’t have the
same sorts of Sabbath laws as they did in Jesus’ day.
But we have our
own religious practices associated with the Sabbath.
“Be in Church.”
That’s something
we highly value. Be in Church on Sunday
morning.
Yet we live in a
world that draws people away from church on Sundays.
All sorts of
activities compete for our time.
And in the face
of that, there is an unwritten rule that says that “good Christians” will be in
Church each Sunday morning. That’s what
it means to be religious, right????
And the truth be
told, there is a very self centered reason that religious leaders are concerned
about people observing the Sabbath by being in Church Sunday mornings.
That’s when we
take the offerings.
People who are in
Church every week tend to give more than people who aren’t.
And so the Church
as an institution, and pastors as leaders, tend to promote religious behaviors
that are beneficial to the Church and to the pastor’s own well being.
Go to Church.
Tithe.
Two measures of
how religious we are.
OK, so these
things are important.
It’s important
that we hear God’s word and receive the sacraments.
And none of our
ministries would be possible apart from your gifts that make them possible,
gifts not only of your money, but of your time and talents, as well.
And yet, that
said, it is far more important that you be made whole, than that you become
religious.
There was even a
book written about this back in the ‘60s.
One of the ways
that this comes into play, is that when a new visitor, especially one who has
never or rarely been to church before, comes to worship they find themselves
feeling rather lost and alone because they don’t know all the religious rituals
that we observe.
But what brought
them here?
Was it a desire
to learn all sorts of religious rituals and observances?
OK, here’s a news
flash.
People who come
to the Church for the first time are not concerned with how to hold their hands
in prayer, or when to stand and when to sit in worship, or any other such
things.
There is one
reason above all others that brings people to Church for the first time.
It is a sense
that there is a void in their life, that something’s missing, or something’s
wrong.
And they long to
be made whole.
People yearn to
become spiritually whole, not religiously devout.
That is what
Jesus’ ministry was all about, and it remains the most important thing about
our ministry.
If someone is not
healed, in body, mind, and spirit, it does not matter how religious they are.
What matters is
if they are well.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment