Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

February 5, 2006

Edgewood United Church UCC

Rev. Karen E. Gale

Retreating to Move Forward
Mark 1:29-39

How do you know when you are healed?

Maybe when you are feeling better, able to move around again, or the spots go away. Maybe then you are cured. But how do you know when you are healed?

In today’s scripture from Mark, Jesus and the disciples enter Simon’s house and his mother in law is sick in bed with a fever. They told Jesus about her at once and he comes to her, lifts her up, the fever leaves her and she begins serving them.

Let me deal with one of your first reactions, one that is mine as well.

Immediately she gets up and starts serving them. Geez, can’t the woman catch a break! She’s in bed, nearly dying, and then Jesus heals her so she can be slave to a bunch of hungry helpless men? Give me a break.

Except that it was not like that at all. Offering hospitality was extremely important in the ancient world. When friends, relatives, strangers or even enemies came to your door, you invited them in and served them. It was a foundation piece for life in Jesus’ time. To be the host or hostess in such a situation, especially when an esteemed guest comes to your home, is a position of great honor.

Simon’s mother in law was unable to take up that role. That was shameful not only to her but to her whole household. This famous prophet Jesus comes to her house and yet she is in bed. To be ill was also thought of as a sign of God’s displeasure upon a household. If you were sick you must have sinned or angered God in some way.

In healing this woman, Jesus restores not only her health, but her honor and the honor of her household. And her response is to rise and to wait upon the Lord.

We all understand what it means to be cured, but being healed is different. Being healed means we can move outside own self. Now we all know that when we are sick we can be the most self centered people in the world. Misery has a way of doing that. So can depression or grief or chronic pain.

How do you know when you are healed? You are able to look toward another with compassion. You are moved to serve

Looking ahead in the story, it was also good that the mother in law could provide this meal because immediately after sundown folks started streaming toward the house. The day Jesus arrives at the house is the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest, for remember he has been teaching in the synagogue. The Sabbath is counted from sundown to sundown. Thus, once the sun sets there is a mad rush to bring the sick to him Jesus. People start streaming toward the house.. Hundreds came pressed upon him, to have demons cast out and illnesses cured and despair lifted. Soon the whole village would be there crying out to Jesus for healing and hope. Pushing and grasping on to him. Jesus has rough evening

Claustrophobia anyone?

Jesus healed them and cast out the demons. And eventually they all went away.

In the morning, Jesus left the house early, before dawn, and went to pray with God. He went to recover. To find strength again. To heal.

How do we know Jesus was healed?
When disciples found him he said, “pack your bags, we are ready to go. It’s time to move on and do it again. This is the call. To serve.”

Jesus could have stayed in that village, been a local hero, and set up shop as the resident mystic and healer.

But he goes out on the road “to proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came to do.” Jesus knows who he is. He is called by God as the great healer and his call is to move forward. He retreats only so he can move ahead--healing his own soul so he can heal others. And off they go throughout Galilee proclaiming the message in the synagogues and casting out demons.

I’ve been listening to reviews of a new book by John Tayman called The Colony. It is an historical account of the place once known as the Leper Colony on the isolated peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokai where for 103 years, up until the 1960’s, folks diagnosed with leprosy were committed.

Life was terribly difficult in the colony. Sometimes it was brutal and violent and it was always isolated with terrible food shortages. Once a person was diagnosed (and often misdiagnosed) with leprosy, they were arrested, charged as a criminal, had their possessions taken, were divorced from their spouse and chained up and deposited on this inaccessible spit of land stretching out into the Pacific.

Over time missionaries were sent to serve this population. One was named Father Damian, a 33 year old Catholic priest.  At the time, going to a leper colony was considered a death sentence. No one knew how leprosy was transmitted but just that folks in close proximity with infected persons got sick.

It turns out that leprosy is a disease caused by germs but it really is not all that contagious. 95% of the population has a natural immunity to it.  About five percent of the population is not naturally resistant to the germ and so those people contract the disease through respiratory means. A Norwegian bacteriologist Dr Hansen discovered the origin and basis if the disease and leprosy is now known as Hansen’s Disease. In fact to call someone a leper today is truly a rude and appalling epithet not unlike some racial epithets we know. Hansen’s disease is now curable though not that uncommon as more people in the US have Hansens disease than measles.

But when Father Damien went to Molokai to be with those sentenced to live in the colony, he was giving his life to the task. It is said that the residents of the colony tested those who visited them and still do to this day in much the same way. When someone comes to visit and steps off the boat to visit the residents of the colony, 27 folks are still living there voluntarily now, the residents offer a hand to them for a handshake just like we do in so many social situations. If the visitor ignores the hand, shies away or puts on gloves, they are ignored. If the visitor shakes hands either secure in their knowledge of how the disease is transmitted or is willing to risk contracting the disease in order to do good, the visitor is accepted into the colony.

Father Damien truly took on the call to live and work with the residents to the furthest degree. He shared common meals and a common food bowl. He shared a common pipe and preached and taught and listened and was present in the lives of these folks. He felt to do otherwise would not allow him to be a priest to live the call that Jesus exemplifies: “let us go on to proclaim the message for that is what I came to do.”

Through him, his love, his deep religious conviction, the residents on this forsaken place were healed. They were not cured of their illness, but rather healed from the doubt of God’s love for them or their worth in the eyes of the Almighty.

Ultimately Father Damian did contract the disease and died of it himself.  He would then say “We lepers” in his sermons. A healing of solidarity to the last.

How do we know when we are healed? When we rise to the service of others. When we can see beyond our own suffering, and move to aid in the suffering of others, to serve God and in the ministry of Christ.

Simon’s mother in law is healed not only of her illness. She is healed of her shame at not being able to properly receive a guest. She is made whole and out of that turns to offer herself and her abilities, her efforts and what she does well to Jesus and his ministry.

We are healed when out of our illness, our grief, the ashes of our lives, we find strength in God to rise again and heed the call to serve.

Coretta Scott King, the wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died this week at the age of 78.  King was assassinated almost 40 years ago. The loss was devastating. There were four children to raise. I am sure the grief was unbearable. But in the midst of this she said not long after his death., “"I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality,"

Corretta continued her husbands work for social justice. She established the King Center in Atlanta and working for decades for a federal holiday in his honor.

“In 1969, she founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. King saw to it that the center became deeply involved with the issues that she said breed violence -- hunger, unemployment, voting rights and racism. "The center enables us to go out and struggle against the evils in our society," she often said.

“In recent years, King spoke out against racial profiling, mandatory minimum sentences and attacks on affirmative action.  She became increasingly critical of businesses such as film and television companies, video arcades, gun manufacturers and toy makers she accused of promoting violence. She called for regulation of their advertising.” (npr.org)

Out of the ashes of grief, Corretta Scott King was healed and moved forward to fight for the justice and peace and wholeness that her husband believed in and that she dedicated her life to as well. She sought the healing of racism in this country and believed that was the message she was charged with proclaiming.

How can you know when you have been healed? It seems like an odd question. “For many, the answer is obvious: when the pain is gone, the fever has come down, and the disease is no more. But the Gospel gives a better answer. “The fever left her,” we are told of Peter’s mother-in-law, “and she began to serve them.” As she was healed, she immediately began to serve others. When we are ready to help others in their need and focus once again outside ourselves we will know that we too have been cured. We will no longer be slaves to our hurts and resentments. We will at last be made whole. And we shall live.” (Anna Henderson, midrash.org)

National Public Radio has a wonderful on going series called This I Believe which invites both famous people are ordinary people to write and speak about what they believe. This past week Mary Cook who lives in a small town of 450 outside Juneau, Alaska was featured.

She says, “The day my fiancé fell to his death, it started to snow, just like any November day, just like the bottom hadn't fallen out of my world when he freefell off the roof. His body, when I found it, was lightly covered with snow. It snowed almost every day for the next four months, while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up.

“One morning, I shuffled downstairs and was startled to see a snowplow clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling my walk. I dropped to my knees, crawled through the living room, and back upstairs so those good Samaritans would not see me. I was mortified. My first thought was, how would I ever repay them? I didn't have the strength to brush my hair let alone shovel someone's walk.

“Before Jon's death, I took pride in the fact that I rarely asked for help or favors. I defined myself by my competence and independence. So who was I if I was no longer capable and busy? How could I respect myself if all I did was sit on the couch everyday and watch the snow fall?

“Learning how to receive the love and support that came my way wasn't easy. Friends cooked for me and I cried because I couldn't even help them set the table. "I'm not usually this lazy," I wailed. Finally, my friend Kathy sat down with me and said, "Mary, cooking for you is not a chore. I love you and I want to do it. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for you."

“Over and over, I heard similar sentiments from the people who supported me during those dark days. One very wise man told me, "You are not doing nothing. Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you will ever do."

“I am not the person I once was, but in many ways I have changed for the better. The fabric of my life is now woven with gratitude and humility. I have been surprised to learn that there is incredible freedom that comes from facing one's worst fear and walking away whole.” (This I Believe, npr.org)

A year after the tragedy Mary went to work as a hospice volunteer to be with others as they traversed this passage of grief and loss. Mary had been healed.

And so shall we. In the name of Jesus Christ, the great healer, may we find healing in his words and touch, and go out to proclaim a message of wholeness for all. Amen.