Surprises in a Healing Touch
Scriptures: 2 Kings 5:1-14, Mark 1:40-45
As some of you know, my wife, Ann, who is a nursing instructor, is an advocate of the healing technique called “therapeutic touch”. The basic concept behind it is that the human body includes an energy field which can be sensed if you put your hands close to the skin. When there is illness or pain that energy field becomes different – perhaps hotter, or colder, or static-y – and the administrator of therapeutic touch can sense that energy, carrying it across and out of the body, and eventually relieve some or even all of the painful symptoms.
Perhaps like some of you, I’ve been skeptical of the claims of this approach to a healing process – although it’s a bit hard to be too skeptical when you see it actually working. I’ve heard people refer to it as “magic” or “voodoo medicine” (or even “flaky”, as I heard from one nursing professor), which is probably something to be expected when confronted by a new and different approach to healing that you don’t at first really understand. I’m sure our forbearers had similar kinds of reactions to vaccines and x-rays and antibiotics – many of the advances in medical technologies over the past couple of centuries must have first come across as “voodoo medicine”.
While there isn’t specific research data to support the efficacy of therapeutic touch, there is research (according to Dr. Marsha Fowler, whom I heard speak at a Clark County Ministerial Association meeting this past Wednesday) that points up how important it is for a baby to be touched and held – in fact the lack of such touching for a baby can even lead to its death. Just about everyone finds a massage to feel pleasurable and to be relaxing. It’s clear that touching – hoding and being held – is central to our feeling good about ourselves.
Therapeutic touch, though, is not such a new concept. After all, that’s essentially what Jesus did in all of the healing stories that we have in the gospels. In fact, that’s a large part of what got him in trouble with the authorities. They thought he was doing what today we might call “inappropriate touching” – though nowadays that phrase is mostly reserved for a sexual context. But for Jesus it was important for him to feel the pain that he encountered in order to be able to find what it was that could be curative. And, of course, what he felt was not just the pain of the body but the pain of the mind and soul that accompanied physical suffering – the whole person, as we talked about last week. I also said last week that these two sermons provided a kind of arc into the healing ministry of Jesus that goes hand-in-hand with his message of proclamation.
Today’s lectionary texts are actually two healing stories: Mark continues Jesus’ journey throughout Galilee and the astonishing acts that he undertakes there, while in 2 Kings we have this interesting story of Naaman who seeks to be cured by the prophet Elisha. In both stories the person needing to be healed is afflicted with leprosy. Many commentators note that in the Bible the word “leprosy” can refer to a wide variety of skin ailments, much like we use the word “schizophrenia” today to refer to a potpourri of mental disorders. But the key to anyone who was described as a leper in the Bible is their ostracism – no one would touch them, no one wanted them as part of the community, no one wanted to come anywhere near them. In particular they were declared to be ritually unclean, which meant that they were even excluded from religious services, the very heart of the faith community. In Judaism there was a detailed and formal process of being examined by a priest before a person could be declared healed and allowed to again participate in community life.
Naaman was a high-ranking Syrian government official, and he was becoming very impatient with his illness. He wanted to find a quick and easy cure. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Whenever any of us is faced with a lengthy and wearisome rehabilitation process we yearn for a “magic bullet” – that pill or medicine that will make it all better just like that. And even though we have our own doctors and other medical professionals surrounding us, when we’re in pain like that we look for help wherever we can find it. (This is one reason, as a sidebar, why therapeutic touch can become an option for some, as indeed can other forms of what has come to be called “alternative medicine”.)
So, Naaman reaches out for some way to cure his ailment. And the first rather surprising thing that happens is that he is given some advice by a servant girl. Not only is she female and a servant but she is an Israelite, captured during an Aramean military raid. The second surprising thing is that she is willing to proffer this advice, going first to her mistress, Naaman’s wife, who tells Naaman what the girl is suggesting. You wouldn’t think a captured prisoner who had been pressed into slavery would be this forthcoming, would you? But hearken back to last week’s sermon on healing and service – this young Israelite realized that she was to be “of service” to her master, and so she was desirous of his healing. Plus, she knew that there was this wonderful prophet in Israel, Elisha, who knows something about curing a leper.
Now Naaman puts on a big show to try to impress the king of Israel and the king’s prophet with his wealth. We all know stories about people who think that power and authority and affluence can help them buy their way to better health. But such ostentatious displays do not help someone return to the healed and healing community, and here, too, Naaman’s lavish gifts do not impress either the king or Elisha. Instead, Elisha offers a simple procedure – wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River in order to become clean.
What a come-down and a put-down for the powerful Naaman! As James Howell wryly notes, “Pilgrims to Israel chuckle when they see the Jordan; it’s hardly a river at all, more like a stream or a creek.” Moreover, it was quite dirty. And seven times?!? Naaman was used to getting action much more quickly than that – even if this was a ritually significant number. But yet another surprise: his servants convince Naaman to do as the prophet bids. And so he does. The result? “(H)is flesh was restored like the flesh of a young man, and he was clean.” He became like a child again.
Here’s James Howell once more commenting on this result: “Without romanticizing childhood, we may recognize its virtues: vulnerability; an implicit demand for justice; the way children show their treasures, weep in the open, accept grace readily and are easily amazed. All of Christianity is a kind of return to childhood, a training in humility. All of our gestures seem silly: folding our hands, bowing our heads, kneeling….. We believe in vulnerability, humility and even dipping in a no-account river on the suggestion of a two-bit prophet who wouldn’t answer the door. The foolishness of God is wiser than all of us.”
There’s more to Naaman’s and Elisha’s story, but we can save that for another sermon. Despite his arrogance and display of wealth to try to effect a cure, Naaman is continually surprised and thereby humbled, and it is this humility that helps him find his place back into community, back into health, back into wholeness. His loneliness has been taken away; he has been touched.
This, too, is what the leper who confronts Jesus desires, begs of him, prostrates himself before him. Coty Pinckney puts this need quite poetically: “More than any other person in the world the person with leprosy needs to be treated by somebody who will reach out his hand . . . and touch him. . . . Oh, I have seen men break down into tears at that time because they have found someone who would touch them.” Jesus, the text says, was “moved with pity”. Earlier versions of this text, though, translate this to read “with anger”, and this is probably the more accurate translation. Was Jesus angry at the leper for interrupting him? More likely he was enraged at the man’s additional suffering by being isolated from his community – by the people all around him who refused to touch him. We often say that a person’s pain touches our heart, but Graydon Snyder reminds us that “in Hebrew thought compassion comes from the guts.” So, Jesus felt something powerful, something physical, when he looked at this man, an emotion better translated, Richard Swanson says, as, “Jesus felt his stomach turn.” This was no gentle healing, no “balm in Gilead”. This was closer to the casting out of demons that Jesus had done earlier at the synagogue and at Simon’s home after he had cured Simon’s mother-in-law. Both pity for his substantial suffering and anger at his social status were involved in what Jesus did for this man.
And the result was also dual: Jesus heals the disease and he cleanses the leper. These are two, separate results, not two ways of saying the same thing. What was it that the leper asked of Jesus? Note: not “Heal my disease”, but, “Make me clean”. With this simple phrase the leper is saying a multitude of things, all of which Jesus hears: “I want to worship God!” “I want to be a part of God’s people, in relationship to God!” “I want to touch others, to be in relationship to the people of God!” In other words, “I want to be part of the community once again, and I want people to feel free to be able to touch me.”
You’ll recall that I said earlier in relation to Naaman’s story that in Judaism there was a detailed and formal process of being examined by a priest before a person could be declared healed and allowed to again participate in community life. This is the path Jesus is now offering to this man: “’go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them,” meaning the priests. But now comes one of the surprises in this story. Instead of doing what you would have expected him to do and following Jesus’ admonition, because, after all, that would have been the way to get back into the community, the man goes about the countryside telling everyone what Jesus had done for him – despite Jesus having asked him specifically not to do that. And so the second surprise in this story is that the tables are turned: by healing and cleansing the man Jesus himself becomes a kind of leper, banished, in a sense, by his own popularity and power, by the overwhelming needs of the people, and perhaps by the rumbles of tension between him and the priests. Yet, at the same time, his fame is beginning to spread among the people.
Who do you identify with in this story? It’s easy, I suppose, to feel critical of and superior to the people who refused to touch this unclean man, out of fear of becoming unclean themselves, and who therefore ostracized him and caused his extreme loneliness. But don’t we 21st century, scientifically-minded folks know people we’d rather not see, let alone touch? Skin disease is difficult enough, but for a long time people with cancer and later those with HIV/AIDS have experienced a distance that surrounds them once they’re diagnosed. Many forms of mental illness cause us to shy away, preferring not to be in the presence of those whose behavior we can’t predict. Those of us with aging parents who may exhibit some form of dementia are often uncomfortable if we stay with them too long.
There’s a marvelous short film that came out in the mid-70’s called “Peege” in which a family – middle-aged parents and three college- and high-school-aged boys – visit the man’s mother (the boys’ grandmother, lovingly called “Peege”) in a nursing home at Christmastime. Her mind is completely gone, and their efforts to connect – such as by giving her Christmas cookies, which crumble as she tries to hold them – are really rather pitiful. There is no touching at all. But at the film’s end the oldest boy, whom you have seen in flashbacks remembering his grandmother when he was a small boy and she was a vibrant presence in his life, comes back in the room and simply holds her and talks about those reminiscences. The final image you see is of a smile slowly crossing Peege’s face.
That wonderful author Wendell Berry has said, “Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”
Who do you identify with in this story? We are both the leper and the people – both in need ourselves of healing and cleansing and wholeness and those members of the community who can reach out and touch and make whole. Our faith calls us to serve and to heal, to restore and rebuild community. Like the leper who went about the countryside proclaiming what Jesus had done for him, we have opportunities as individuals and as a congregation to tell the story of God’s love, of the healing power available to us and to all people in the good news of Jesus Christ. Let us, then, surprise others and surprise ourselves as we share ministries that in many ways, various shapes, and different forms offer a healing touch to our world and its hurting people. It is possible to touch with a healing power, because God’s love has said that it will be so.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ Las Vegas, NV February 15, 2009Surprises in a Healing Touch (2 Kings 5:1-1:14, Mark 1:40-45)
2 Kings 1:14-5:1
14 Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight.” 15 Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king 16 and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?—therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’”
17 So he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son. 18 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
2:1 Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. 3 And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. 5 The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. 7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” 10 And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” 11 And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 12 And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.
Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. 13 And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.
15 Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him opposite them, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. 16 And they said to him, “Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men. Please let them go and seek your master. It may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send.” 17 But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send.” They sent therefore fifty men. And for three days they sought him but did not find him. 18 And they came back to him while he was staying at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not go’?”
19 Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 20 He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” 22 So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.
23 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. 25 From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
3:1 In the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twelve years. 2 He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. 3 Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from it.
4 Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. 5 But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 So King Jehoram marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. 7 And he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to battle against Moab?” And he said, “I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” 8 Then he said, “By which way shall we march?” Jehoram answered, “By the way of the wilderness of Edom.”
9 So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. And when they had made a circuitous march of seven days, there was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them. 10 Then the king of Israel said, “Alas! The Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.” 11 And Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord?” Then one of the king of Israel's servants answered, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” 12 And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.
13 And Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and to the prophets of your mother.” But the king of Israel said to him, “No; it is the Lord who has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab.” 14 And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you. 15 But now bring me a musician.” And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him. 16 And he said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘I will make this dry streambed full of pools.’ 17 For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind or rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, you, your livestock, and your animals.’ 18 This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also give the Moabites into your hand, 19 and you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop up all springs of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones.” 20 The next morning, about the time of offering the sacrifice, behold, water came from the direction of Edom, till the country was filled with water.
21 When all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to put on armor, from the youngest to the oldest, were called out and were drawn up at the border. 22 And when they rose early in the morning and the sun shone on the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite them as red as blood. 23 And they said, “This is blood; the kings have surely fought together and struck one another down. Now then, Moab, to the spoil!” 24 But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose and struck the Moabites, till they fled before them. And they went forward, striking the Moabites as they went. 25 And they overthrew the cities, and on every good piece of land every man threw a stone until it was covered. They stopped every spring of water and felled all the good trees, till only its stones were left in Kir-hareseth, and the slingers surrounded and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. 27 Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.
4:1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” 2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. 4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” 5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
8 One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. 9 And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. 10 Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”
11 One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. 12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” 14 And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 15 He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 16 And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your servant.” 17 But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elisha had said to her.
18 When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. 19 And he said to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 And when he had lifted him and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died. 21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out. 22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may quickly go to the man of God and come back again.” 23 And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.” 24 Then she saddled the donkey, and she said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite. 26 Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’” And she answered, “All is well.” 27 And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.” 28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’” 29 He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.” 30 Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. 31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”
32 When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. 35 Then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house, and went up and stretched himself upon him. The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 Then he summoned Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” 37 She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
38 And Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 40 And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.
42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.
5:1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. (ESV)
Mark 1:40-45
40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter. (ESV)
