Sermon Title: - “Healed"
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
In the summer of 1974, I traveled from Gaithersburg to Westminster for 10
weeks with a woman who was partially deaf. She introduced me to lots of her
friends and taught me some of the basics of American Sign Language. Her
husband was completely deaf and had been from birth. She had two little
girls, one completely deaf, the other who had no hearing problems at all. We
became friends and often visited. I learned that being deaf is much like
being a member of a different language group like being a Filipino American
or a Mexican American. Sign language is their language and though it is
entirely visual, it has all the nuances and subtleties that we who hear
often use.
In our Gospel lesson today Jesus heals a deaf man. We don't know much about
him. We can read between the lines a little bit and see that he probably had
been a hearing person at some time in his life because he has some speech
and people who have been deaf from birth have great difficulty producing
sounds that they cannot hear.
We don't know how he came to Jesus, presumably he hadn't heard about him but
he has friends who have. What does this say to us?
Many people have not heard about Jesus and must be brought to him. In
another parish, I had a member who was a wonderful evangelist. She
befriended her next door neighbor's children - always remembering their
birthdays, making them co okies, inviting them to play with her in her raked
leaves, inventing small gardening, weeding or cleaning jobs so that she
could spend time with them. She always gave them something to eat and drink
after these little projects were done and then she'd read to them. She asked
their parents if it were okay for her to read Bible stories to them and they
said fine. She invited the children to come to Sunday School and church with
her and before long their parents were coming too.
The faith is shared when friends lead friends to Christ. It is an act of
love.
In many of the healing stories of the Bible, Jesus says to the healed
person, "your faith has made you whole." Here, none of that is suggested.
The man's faith is not mentioned. The healing doesn't depend on him; it is
simply an outreach of the loving God, a sign of God's grace, mercy and
compassion.
One of the most powerful stories of healing I've ever heard was to ld to me
by a Methodist Army Chaplain who participated in my pastoral training at
Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. He was working at Walter Reed Hospital
in D.C. and came into the room of a veteran who had lost the use of both
legs in a land mine explosion.
The man was angry, furious. He railed against the government for drafting
him and against his captain for ordering him into unsafe territory. He
vented and spewed all the ugly emotions inside him.
The chaplain let him vent.
After his fury was spent, the chaplain asked, "Can I pray for you?"
The man lying prostrate in the bed said. "I think it would just made me
angrier. I'd like to believe in God, but I talked to him and he didn't
prevent this from happening. You go ahead and pray but don't talk to me
about God."
The man had several surgeries and months of rehab, and he and the chaplain
developed a relationship of trust and mutual understanding. To the man's
amazement, he recovered completely. He would have scars and walk with a limp
for the rest of his life, but he was whole and well.
The day before his discharge when the chaplain came in, he greeted the
chaplain sincerely and before long said, "Chaplain tell me everything you
know about God." To which the chaplain replied. "Soldier, six months ago
when you first came in here you like to have bit my head off. You weren't
even sure you wanted me to pray!"
"Six months ago, I thought that I'd never be whole and well. I thought I
would end up in a wheelchair and be someone's object of pity. Now I am
healed." With tears in his eyes he said. "Chaplain, I need to thank
someone."
The chaplain replied. "Now we've got something to talk about."
Sometimes, faith comes as a result of our encounter with the Risen Christ,
as the healed soldier of the above story suggests. Jesus, as the story comes
to us from St. Ma rk's gospel orders the man who has just been healed to "tell no one." But the scripture goes on to say "the more he ordered him not
to tell, the more he told it."
What does today's story from Mark have to say to us?
First and foremost, this story reminds me to get in touch with ways that God
has blessed me, and I have been richly blessed. God spared me from cancer
when it threatened. God restored me to psychological health after a messy
marriage and divorce in my early twenties. God grabbed me and restored me to
faith when I had lost my faith. These are the most vivid healings in my
life, but if! were to count my blessings we'd be here all day.
God wants us to "unstop" our ears and the internal ears in our head. He
wants us to hear of his unqualified love for us and his reaching out. And
when we hear, he wants us to share that Good News with someone who is
longing to hear of His love and to bring them in.
In Je sus' Name, Amen.
Who We Are