Healing and Wholeness

Sermon

A friend of mine, a pastor in Chicago, gave me a wonderful gift when I was new in ministry. I frequently felt like I was carrying the burdens of the world on my shoulders. But she reminded me that the calling to ministry is not about curing the world’s ills. It is about being rooted in God’s love, and letting that love flow through to others. Her gift was a physical reminder of God’s desire for our wholeness, shalom. She was the one who first helped me to understand that curing and healing are different. Curing means completely getting rid of the disease, while healing means becoming whole.

Westminster long ago established the pattern of sharing joys and concerns from the congregation. We get to hear from one another hopes, triumphs, and what is weighing heavy. It’s good to know what’s on each other’s hearts. C.S. Lewis said that we pray not to change God, but to change ourselves. When we pray with one another, we are being shaped by the cares of others, and hopefully, we are also praying God’s joys and concerns. This approach on prayer seems a far cry from the example we heard in James about Elijah first praying for a drought and then praying for rain. How do we approach that text today? (If you want to read the story of Elijah and the drought, it’s found in I Kings, 17 and 18.)

I suspect James recounts Elijah’s story not because Elijah had power over nature but because his prayer ultimately was about restoring wholeness to the community. He saw how divided his nation was. He confronted the leaders who neglected the most vulnerable and used their power to plunder and enrich themselves. Elijah prayed for a severe drought, and with that, got the king’s attention. Then, after three years, Elijah prayed for rain. His prayer turned the kingdom back toward God and brought (at least for a time) wholeness to the community.

In our time of being broken apart, isn’t wholeness exactly what we yearn for? When we are not able to worship in person, when children and teachers are in school online, when universities rely upon remote learning, are we really “gathering”? Our physical distance isn’t the only ill. I don’t know a soul who isn’t shaken by the tragedies of Black lives lost in confrontations with the police, of protestors shot, of the murkiness of what’s true and what’s not. As the summer winds down, our nation is boiling over into increasingly open violence. Even in our own families and church community, we can’t quite agree upon wearing masks or not and how far away from one another we need stand. (At least we usually disagree politely!)

We are sick and it’s not simply COVID-19. Deep and ancient injustices are throbbing. Seeing so many things fly apart at once is overwhelming. What’s the cure?

James’ writings are dotted with examples of how we are to be whole. The sick are not to simply pray by themselves and have an individual faith. The healing of the individual is deeply intertwined with the wholeness of community. No person is an island, entirely of themself; every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main, to paraphrase poet John Donne.

“Are any among you suffering? Then, pray. Are any among you cheerful? Then, sing. Are any among you sick? Then gather with the faith leaders, and have them pray, anointing with oil.” If you have ever been to our monthly service of healing and wholeness, you know that that is precisely what the prayer team does. We also keep a prayer list daily. We still lead a Service of Healing and Wholeness every third Saturday of the month via livestream. Our deacons continue to make phone calls, to keep connection, and to learn of your needs. We still share prayers at daily noon prayer. Our Stephen Ministry at Westminster continues with Facetime, phone calls, and safe-distance walks. But there is more to do, and it involves asking for help. James reminds us: we bear responsibility for one another. Part of our responsibility is to let others know when we need help. I know that’s uncomfortable. But it’s what we do, as a family, in love and trust.

“Is anyone among us cheerful?” Well, I admit this wasn’t a very cheerful sermon. However, I do believe that singing can be a pathway to heal the sin-sick soul. For safety’s sake, I can’t sing this to you, because Michael and I are here together. But I can read the lyrics of the hymn, from the Presbyterian hymnal, “O Christ, the Healer,” with words by Fred Pratt Green:

“O Christ, the healer, we have come to pray for health, to plead for friends.
How can we fail to be restored, when reached by love that never ends?
From every ailment flesh endures, our bodies clamor to be freed;
yet in our hearts we would confess that wholeness is our deepest need.
How strong, O Lord, are our desires, how weak our knowledge of ourselves!
Release in us those healing truths unconscious pride resists or shelves.
In conflicts that destroy our health we recognize the world’s disease;
our common life declares our ills: is there no cure, O Christ, for these?
Grant that we all, made one in faith, in your community may find
the wholeness that enriching us, shall reach the whole of humankind.”