1st Reading: 1
Kings 8:22-23, 41-43
2nd Reading: Galatians 1:1-12
Gospel: Luke 7:1-10
A couple of days into my first week as
a chaplain at California Pacific Medical Center, I was so happy to
get parking at the Mass Transit station. As I got on the hospital
shuttle, I heard my first news reports, that the twin towers had been
struck. The announcer actually said, “There are planes falling out
of the sky all over America!” Of course I pictured hundreds of
planes falling from the sky and we certainly watched in San
Francisco, because not all aircraft were accounted for and reports
were that there might be one headed our way. We glanced at the
television screens in the lobby as we walked by and in the patient
rooms. Of course it was the same 5 seconds of video over and over
again with the bright circle drawn around the second plane to hit the
towers as it crashed.
That day I was called to a patient
room. A man there was unresponsive. His sisters had come to be with
him and they wanted a chaplain. I sat down with them to hear their
story. This brother had been estranged from his family. They hadn't
spoken in years, but when they got the call he was sick, they dropped
everything to fly across the United States to be with him. I was
there in the room when the doctor broke the news to them that their
brother was dying. I talked with the sisters about what kind of
prayers would be meaningful to them in saying goodbye. We all headed
off to lunch with the agreement we would come back at 1 and pray over
him. The guy died during lunch.
I was beside myself. We said our
prayers there in the hospital room, anyway, but I felt like I had
failed. This man was alone when he died, and of course that is the
last thing any of us would want, right? I went to debrief with my
supervisor that week. I had so many questions. Why are some healed
and some not? Why couldn't he have waited for our prayers? What
more could we have done? I wanted to know because I was just
beginning my chaplaincy and I wanted to do better in the future. I
wanted to be there for my patients. I wanted to have all the right
prayers. I wanted families to have closure.
My supervisor told me that each person
dies in their own way and it made absolute sense to her that this man
died on lunch. He was estranged from his sisters. Why would he want
them there at his death? He waited until they left and then he did
what was more comfortable for him. He wasn't with them in life. Why
would he want to be with them in death?
Through my year-long chaplaincy, I had
a lot to learn. I'm glad I did chaplaincy, because it was ministry
where people are hurting most and most open to thinking about their
higher power's hand in their life and how they might be a better
person. And it prepared me for this ministry, where I get to visit
all of you in the hospital and talk about questions of life and death
and why is there suffering and the different forms that healing takes
in each of our lives.
I think the Disciples, too, were
wondering about these questions of life and death and healing.
Certainly the crowds that were following Jesus around wondered. Here
is this Centurion, a very powerful man, used to having everyone obey
his commands. Except this disease in his servant won't obey him and
his servant can't obey him as long as he's got this disease. This
important Centurion, this powerful man that has slaves and messengers
and has built the temple and commanded in the military, now finds
himself powerless. So he goes to one he believes has power, Jesus.
But he's so used to the way his life usually works, that he first
credentials himself. He wants to make sure that Jesus knows he is a
man worth helping, that he would be in a position to help Jesus
someday, and pay back the debt he would incur by having Jesus heal
his servant.
It reminds me of Martin Luther caught
in the storm, “Spare my life and I will become a monk!” Doesn't
this sound like some of the bargains we make with God? “Heal me,
heal my daughter, my son, my husband, and I promise I've learned my
lesson. I'll be kinder to others. I'll eat all my vegetables. I'll
(fill in the blank).”
So what do we know so far about this
Gospel story? 1. The Centurion is a powerful person. 2. The
Centurion finds himself powerless. 3. He admits his powerlessness
and asks for help from Jesus, who he believes to be more powerful
than he is. 4. He gets others to make a case for why he is worth
helping. 5. The Centurion sends a message to Jesus that he doesn't
need to be physically present to heal his servant. The Centurion
expresses a deep and profound faith in the power of Jesus for
healing.
This Centurion goes from putting faith
in his own credentials and worthiness, to putting his faith in Jesus.
This Centurion, who we never see—he always sends a
messenger—believes in Jesus, who he never sees, to heal someone
important to him without coming anywhere near him. And Jesus holds
up the Centurion as an example of what it means to have faith.
Paul is writing the people of Galatia
about what it means to have faith. They are turning to a different
Gospel. Gospel means “good news.” There is all kinds of good
news in this world, but not a lot of it is lasting and real. One
false Gospel the world holds up is that if we have the right
connections and friends, if we are important enough, nothing is
impossible—we can have whatever we want. However, I think we've
all figured out that no amount of money or fame or possessions will
ever make us happy or make our marriage healthy or make our kids
behave or keep us from illness or pain or death. Another false
Gospel is that we can have control. The sisters at the hospital
wanted to control their brother's death and they were disappointed.
I thought I could have control of people's grief and I lost that
assumption very quickly. And if you think I was struggling with
questions about the meaning of this interaction, you should have met
the young doctor who had to break the news that their brother was
dying. It was as if he had personally failed that this man wasn't
going to make it. Here is a doctor, someone with the power to heal
and to give life, who had passed countless anatomy exams and some of
the most difficult classes one can take, and he was reduced to this
pitiful, helpless person. He's a lot like the Centurion. Why
couldn't this man be healed? What more could I have done? What more
power could I have that would have kept his man alive? Weren't my
skills good enough? Wasn't I worthy?
I do have some good news. We have
very little power compared to God. Anything good we can do is
because of God. Why is this good news? When we have the power we
usually misuse it. God uses God's power for the life all Creation.
God doesn't use this power just on those who are worthy, thankfully,
since who among us would be good enough, or on those who can
reciprocate. Instead God has mercy and compassion on us and uses
God's power without prejudice, generously providing life and healing,
for the citizen and the foreigner, for the Christian and the Muslim
and the Jew, for the responsible and irresponsible, for the powerful
and powerless. God isn't seeking our approval, or taking orders from
us, but knows a better way and does what is best, whether we can see
that or not.
Neither are we slaves bound to do
everything our master commands. We do have the power of free-will.
So now I'll ask you the same question I asked the Confirmation class
last week. Does God's abundant love and grace and healing make you
want to sin less or sin more? Of course they were trying to get my
goat, so they said, “More!” But really, God is like a mother or
father, who finding out their child intentionally broke a window,
shows mercy and forgiveness on the child, and helps the child find a
way to make it right. Now because of that forgiveness, is that child
really more likely to want to do the same thing again? I doubt it!
We want to please God because God is so kind. We want to live
differently because of the forgiveness and healing God provides for
us.
So what about this man who died at the
hospital? Where was Jesus there for him? He wasn't healed. He
died. If Jesus can heal from far off, as the Gospel indicates, why
wasn't he healed? I like all my questions all tied up in a neat
little bow, so I'm going to offer a couple of different perspectives.
One is that God sees the bigger picture. What would this man's life
been like if he had been healed—what would have been the quality of
life for him? Many times death can be a relief—from pain and
suffering, from mental anguish, etc. Another perspective is that
Jesus brings life and healing to all living things, so maybe it meant
more life for someone or something else that he died. Healing can
take many forms. Maybe once this man died, his family came to a
place of peace about his role in their family, or maybe they learned
something about themselves. And finally, as Christians, death is not
an enemy, because death is not the end. There is eternal life. Yes,
we experience glimpses of it in this life, but in our death we are
reunited with God and one another, in the Kingdom of God.
Let us, too, put aside the false
Gospels of this world, stop trying to prove we're good enough to
receive God's healing and love, and simply open ourselves to
receiving God's generosity, and then stop expecting others to be good
enough or worthy for us to share our bounty with. Let us be just as
giving as the one who gives us life, shares power with us, and brings
us healing.
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