Death Cannot Prevent Healing
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the
earth….[who] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
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| My Grandmother Leah |
As
a preacher, I must confess, I am not fond of the stories of Jesus healing the
sick. I tried this week to wrestle with
why that is so.
Certainly
it has something to do with the difficulty of interpreting these stories to a
21st century audience. There
is nothing like a good exorcism story from one of the Gospels (such as we had
last week) to underscore what a different world we live in from Jesus and his
contemporaries.
That
is not all, however, and it is really just the reason on the surface. If I dig a little bit I come face to face
with my own relationship with illness and, ultimately, death. It is something that most of us will avoid
coming face to face with as much as possible.
And why not? There does not seem to be any possibility for good news
there.
I
think the most awful thing for me about sickness and death is their capacity to
separate us from, well, ultimately, life.
We all know this from our experience of death, the overwhelming loss of
relationship that is almost too much to bear.
Illness
does this to us as well, though. When I
was sick three or so years ago and was on disability for awhile, I felt the
physical separation I experienced from this community acutely. Illness can isolate us from others. But illness also can divide us from ourselves
in a way, as we experience what seems like the betrayal of our bodies or minds.
And
then there is the separation we can feel from society and its sense of
well-being, no matter how warped that sense of well-being is. I remember one of my New Testament teachers
in seminary describing how in Jesus’ day, illness was a cultural
phenomenon. Illness almost always
resulted in a status of “unclean.”
Illness was a manifestation of weakness and/or guilt. Sin and illness were inextricably entwined.
I
approached him after class and said that such a way of experiencing and
interpreting illness was still alive and well.
“Yes,” he said, “in certain primitive cultures.” I responded, “You mean like 20th
century Western New York?”
My
great grandmother, Pearl, had a saying, “Growing old is fine unless you
weaken.” Being sick in my family did not
bring on a great deal of sympathy. Still
doesn’t. The assumption, even if
unspoken, is that you probably did something wrong. We still use that language,
don’t we? We say, “Something is wrong
with my arm.”
I
remember when my great grandfather, Carl, died in 1977. Grandpa Carl had sliced the fingers of his
left hand in the late 1950’s working on a potato harvester. I remember his son saying as we walked away
from the grave, “It is too bad he spent so many years being worthless.” And I remember when my Grandma Pearl had to
leave her home and go into a nursing facility at the age of 96. There was this sense in the family that she
had failed. And we use that language
too, don’t we? “I saw so-and-so in the
hospital. She’s failing.”
Interestingly
enough, the Greek word we translate as “devil,” diabolos, literally means “the divider,” or “the separator.” Demonic forces are forces that separate us,
draw us apart, split us off. Perhaps the
gut-level understanding of illness in Jesus’ day is really not very far from
our own.
That
means healing is a bringing together, or, one might say, a making whole. The trouble we have in the church is when we
use the word “healing” that is what we mean.
We do not mean “cure.” We don’t
even mean the lack of illness. It is
entirely possible for someone who is sick, even dying, to be healed in the
sense of “made whole.” I think this is
what we mean when we talk about dying “a good death.” It is to die healed, in a state of wholeness,
or something close to it.
We
get hung up on the “miracle” aspect of these healing stories, something I think
even Jesus knew was not helpful. I’m
convinced that was part of why he did not want people talking about him. He knew that a relationship with God based on
God’s ability to do miracles was a dead end, so to speak. Even if miracles happen, they are always a
short-term solution. Jesus may have
raised Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus died again at some point. In the long run, death trumps miracle every
time.
But
death cannot trump wholeness. Death
cannot separate us from God and, therefore, death cannot separate us from one
another. Physically, yes. Spiritually, no. In one sense the only miracle that counts for
us is the miracle of our baptism, when we are acknowledged as eternal members
of the communion of saints, “marked as Christ’s own for ever.” We are in an indissoluble bond with God.
In
our exuberance at this good news we sometimes are tempted to say too much, as
our ancestors have before us. We want
there to be a simple formula. If I am right with God, God will watch over me
and guard me. Take the hymn “Eagle’s
wings,” inspired by our passage from Isaiah this morning. The last verse:
For to the angels he’s given a
command
To guard you in all of your ways;
Upon their hands they will bear
you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a
stone.
Lovely,
but dangerous, I think. Very tempting. I
want it to be true. But I have plenty of
stubbed toes that seem to say otherwise.
And I think it is way too simple to say that they were my fault. Some of them, yes. But by no means even most.
Isaiah
actually says it better
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the
earth….[who] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
It
is God who creates, brings together, makes whole, gives power and strength,
courage and peace, even when our foot has been dashed against a stone, even
when we are well beyond the grasp of miracle.
So
is it OK to pray for a miracle? Or
healing as in a cure? Of course it
is. I think that’s about as natural as
breathing. But, keep your spiritual wits
about you when faced with illness—either your own or another’s. Wholeness is what is of ultimate importance. Relationship is what really matters.
I’ve
talked about my grandmother Leah some before. She was Pearl’s daughter,
although, unlike her mother, she did not live a long life. She died of colon
cancer at the age of 49, when I was 11.
I was her eldest grandchild and we were relatively inseparable.
The
day before she died I was sitting in the hospital lobby while my mother and
great grandmother went to see her. I
wasn’t allowed in, of course. But then
my mother appeared, and said, “She wants to see you.”
Blessedly,
this little hospital in Hornell was all on one floor. So my mom took me outside
and around to the window into my grandmother’s room. I was startled by her
appearance. It was my first time staring
death in the face.
The
window was open, just a screen. I don’t
remember saying any words. There weren’t
any words to say, just to be there. Against
the orders of the doctors, my great grandmother had brought one of my
grandmother's favorite meals, “peas and potatoes” cooked in hot milk and butter. She had eaten a goodly portion.
“I wish you could have some,” she
said. It was something we had shared
countless times. “The screen won't
open,” my mother added. I touched the
screen. My grandmother nodded, and
touched the screen back.
My grandmother died the next
morning. I was devastated but I was not
destroyed. I knew, even without the language
of faith, that the relationship I had with her would never die and I knew she
knew that too.
Death visited us and it was
terrible, but death could not take the wholeness away. Death could not prevent healing.
That is what Isaiah meant, I think,
when he said that we would soar with wings like an eagle.
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