To Touch and to Heal
My friend, Carrie, had a bad year. In 2011, two of her family members died, one after a long battle with cancer, and one relative died quite unexpectedly. She also lost her job and could not find a new one. She was struggling emotionally, economically and spiritually.
And, as if this were not enough, she couldn’t eat.
She tried, but her stomach would not tolerate it. The only thing she could keep down was liquids. And some days even that was a stretch—some days it was all she could do to get 20 ounces of fluid down.
Carrie’s doctor was concerned and suggested a round of tests on her stomach. But she knew her stomach was not the issue. And she wasn’t too anxious to pay out of pocket for the tests—being unemployed meant she had no insurance and no way to pay for the expensive tests.
As a last resort, and if led by the Spirit, Carrie went to a massage therapist her friend had been talking about for years. Up until the moment Carrie got onto the massage table, she would have called healing massage “hocus pocus.”
And then the massage began. Carrie began to relax into it, and as she relaxed, she began to cry.
The massage therapist pointed out things to Carrie about her body. She noted that Carrie was holding a lot of pain in certain parts of her body, and began to work on them. And Carrie continued to cry, releasing all the pain and sadness she held on to from her terrible year. And from that day on—after that kathartic massage–Carrie was able to eat.
I cried with Carrie when she told me this story. It was truly unbelievable, miraculous. Carrie said she would have never believed it herself, except that it happened to her. She was healed on the massage table. Now, this doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t grieve her awful 2011, and this doesn’t mean that doesn’t have any work to do. But she saw that healing massage as a turning point. All because she was willing to let this woman touch her and notice her pain. She opened herself to the possibility that healing could happen, and it did.
I have been thinking about Carrie’s story as I’ve been reading this story from Mark this week. How powerful it was for Jesus to touch people, to speak directly to them, and to heal them. How powerful it was for Carrie to let someone touch her, to be open to healing. And how incredible it was that Simon’s mother in law–sick with a fever that they feared would kill her–was able return to her work immediately after a touch by Jesus.
The story of salvation—the good news Jesus was declaring in the first chapter of Mark—was not just an intellectual message. “The reign of God is here—change your hearts and minds and believe the good news!” This is not simply something that creates a shift in perception—although it does—it’s more than that. Jesus impacted the emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical lives of the people he encountered.
In our text last week, Jesus declared in the temple that the reign of God is here. And then, as if to give us a visual demonstration of the reign of God, Jesus cast out the demon, he cast out fear. Jesus silenced fear so that the reign of God could be more fully visible.
In this week’s text, after the unclean spirit was cast out of the synagogue, Jesus immediately went to the house of Simon and Andrew, and gave us exhibit B of the reign of God—he healed Simon and Andrew’s mother in law.
He put out his hand, she took it, he helped her up, and she went back to work. Her fever was gone.
We have two examples in the first chapter of Mark of what it means for the reign of God to be here—Fear is cast out, and people are healed. In fact, after Simon’s mother in law was healed, it says that people brought to Jesus those who were sick and possessed, and he healed the sick and cast out the unclean spirits. The healing and casting out got mixed up together into one messy group of people, sitting together in awe of what God could do.
This week, when I was picking up my daughter after school, I ran into someone who had a question about church. He asked me, “What does it mean to worship? Why do we do it?” The standard, pat answer is “we worship to glorify God, to say thanks”. But, there are other reasons too—particularly in the way we see the text as Mennonites. As followers of Christ, we see God in each other. The chairs face towards each other, so that we can hear the harmony in our singing, so that we can see the face of God in each other. We come to offer strength and healing and hope when we have some to spare, and we come to seek healing and hope as we need it. We come to give and we come to receive. We come to bear one another’s burdens. And as we leave this place, we go out to serve God, renewed and refreshed. That’s the ideal at least.
The people that Jesus healed in his ministry became the church. Those that had been healed, who had fear cast out of them, they gathered together to follow Jesus, to live the life that God had called them to live. And those that had been healed—like Simon and Andrew’s mother in law—in response to their healing, went out to serve.
As our congregation grows, being church to each other—taking care of each other, and being present to each other’s needs—this can get challenging. We don’t know everyone here. The size of the group on a given Sunday can sometimes discourage folks from disclosing their joys and pain in our sharing time. Sometimes we worry that our pain and joy may seem small in comparison to the others, and we hold back.
As a newer person, it can be intimidating to join in, to participate in the life of the church, when we don’t know everyone’s names and stories. And for a person that has been her for a while, new folks means new names and stories to learn too.
Sharing our stories, sharing our hope and healing, can be a challenge in a larger group. There are no simple answers to the challenges of a growing and evolving congregation. But just as Carrie sought healing and a sign of hope in the hands of a healing massage therapist, we seek healing and hope here. We seek to be touched by our brothers and sisters in Christ, to find support and encouragement, to name those things that give us pain and to cast them out.
And as we are being healed, we offer that healing hope to others. We follow in the way of Christ, who lived fully the life God called him to.
Let us offer our hands to those around us, to lift them up, to share their burdens. Let us together—with God’s help and guidance–cast out fear. AMEN.
(Dis)Possessed
Mark 1:21-28
January 29, 2012
When I was a teenager, I was introduced to a Christian novel series by author Frank Peretti—the series was all about demons and evil forces in the world. It captivated Christians because it dealt with the matter of spiritual warfare. In the small town of Aschton—the town where the series was set—a reporter discovered that the local New Age society had conceived a plot to take over the town, while at the same time a local pastor discovered that the town was full of demons. The reporter and pastor met by chance, compared notes, and discovered that something truly sinister was going on.
The plot sounds rather silly to us post-modern progressive Christians. But, this book sold millions of copies. People loved it, because it explained in story form this thing that Christians wonder about. Possession. Demon Possession.
What are we to make of demon possession and exorcism? Does this really happen today? Do people really become possessed by demons, a la Linda Blair in the Exorcist? Is that possible?
Or do we have a more sophisticated way to understand this? Perhaps it’s a form of schizophrenia manifest in a pre-psychiatric world? It could be, considering what little people knew about mental illness centuries ago.
But, to go down this road—to try to understand what exorcism is—would feel like it was losing sight of the story, I think. As entertaining as it may be to go think about demon possession, what it meant then, and what it means now, I think we miss the point of the story to do this.
So let’s get a better sense of the context of this story by starting at the beginning. The beginning of Mark.
Mark begins with the words of Isaiah—I send my messenger before you to prepare your way, a herald’s voice in the desert, crying, “Make ready the way to our God. Clear a straight path.”
Jesus is being set up as the one sent by God.
Following this proclamation, John the Baptizer arrived from out of the desert and baptized Jesus, and immediately the Holy Spirit showed up, and descended on Jesus in dove form.
That same holy spirit, after blessing Jesus, sent him immediately into the desert to be tempted.
After the desert, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming, “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and minds and believe this Good news!” And then Jesus called the disciples and they went—without questions or debate.
Next, Jesus went to the temple in Capernaum and taught the people—“This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and minds and believe!” And the people were astonished—a combination of fascination and outrage. But, Jesus taught with authority. It was like nothing they’d ever heard.
It’s with all this background—the Isaiah passage, the baptism, the desert, the declaration that the reign of God is here, the calling of the disciples, and the teaching in the temple—that we meet the demon, or the unclean spirit.
This unclean spirit recognized Jesus and freaked out—“What do you want from us, Jesus? Are you here to destroy us?”
Reading this story sequentially and contextually, there’s a stark difference between the holy spirit, that called Jesus to share the good news, and sent him out, and the unclean spirit who was so afraid of what Jesus might do.
Rather than Frank Perretti-izing this story—making it about spiritual warfare—and rather than making this story about mental illness, I’d like to think about possession and this unclean spirit as something more universal—Fear.
This unclean spirit said to Jesus in the temple, “I know who you are. Are you here to destroy us?”
Notice how the pronoun changes. I know who you are. Are you here to destroy US? This unclean spirit is worried not only about himself, but about the whole group gathered there in the temple that day. Perhaps even the whole people of Israel.
The good news that Jesus came to the synagogue to share—that was terrifying to people. “The reign of God is here. Change your hearts and believe the good news.”
What is so terrifying about the good news to the unclean spirit?
What is Jesus offering the people that evokes such fear?
You need not look any further than the beginning of the story to see why this unclean spirit might be afraid. Jesus said yes to the call on his life, was baptized by John the Baptizer, and then the holy spirit showed up, blessed Jesus, and sent him out to the desert. This does not seem like a good thing. This could not possibly be a blessing.
From the desert Jesus went to Galilee to call the disciples. The disciples believed and followed, and left their lives behind. And then Jesus showed up in that temple in caperneum, preaching the message of liberation, freedom, and hope. Isn’t it a little ironic that after spending all that time in the desert, Jesus’ message is about liberation?
It sounds strange at first that this unclean spirit would oppose the message of hope, and freedom and liberation. What does fear have to lose?
Perhaps this unclean spirit was worried that believing in God’s reign would mean that he would be sent into the desert too. That perhaps—if he accepted this good news—that God might ask something of him, and of the people of Israel?
Belief, salvation, conversion—this is scary stuff.
My favorite story of conversion comes from Sara Miles in her memoir Take this Bread. This is what she writes:
“Early one morning, when I was 46, I walked in to a church, ate a piece of bread, and took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans—except that up until that moment, I’d led a thoroughly secular life. This was my first communion. It changed everything. Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d never imagined.”
Sara went on to organize food pantries all over her city of San Franscico, recruiting thousands of volunteers to help her.
She said of her new call, “(it) didn’t turn out to be as simple as going to church on Sundays, folding my hands in the pews and declaring myself ‘saved.’ Nor did my volunteer church word mean talking kindly to poor folks and handing them a sandwich from a sanctified distance…I had to struggle with my atheist family, my doubting friends, and the prejudices and traditions of my newfound church…I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians, schzophrenics, gangsters and bishops—all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people, widening what I though of as my ‘community’ in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, often scary.”
“This is my belief: that at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak to and transform us. As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak even to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering hellfire of the religious right. What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, that all things, including my own faulures, are being made new….It doesn’t promise to solve or erase suffering, but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find new life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers…we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: Gods.”
Sara Miles’ story is compelling, partly because she breaks all the rules, partly because she can name what happened to her. But, most profoundly she can name the salvation, the liberation that is brought about by following in the way of Jesus.
When we believe this message of liberation, it is taking the place of fear, of that unclean spirit that is part of all of us. With God’s reign fully present, we don’t need to hold on to the fear any more. Something better and more sustaining is exorcising that spirit.
And when we believe, we know that letting go of that fear is a journey we take, on a path which we do not see clearly. It leads us to the waters of baptism, and from there—who knows. Perhaps the desert, perhaps the church. Maybe to the food pantry, or to the street, or to our neighbors. There is no certainty, but there is the holy presence of God, leading and sustaining us.
When we lay down the fear, those demons—unclean spirits—whatever you want to call them—can be exorcised, and we experience the terrifying liberation of Christ.
I understand what scared that unclean spirit that day in the temple. This journey of discipleship is not safe or clear nor does it make a lot of sense. Holding on to the fear can feel safe than jumping into the unknown. But we hold onto the promises today that love is stronger than fear, and that discipleship is freedom.
AMEN.