St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, September 27, 2009

Christ’s Healers – Rev. David Mundy

James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-41

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our twenty seven-year-old son, Isaac, is preparing for the United Church ministry and a year ago he entered into a program to train students for chaplaincy in hospitals. He isn’t sure that this is what he wants to pursue, but the eight months of the internship gave him the opportunity to explore this option for ministry.

At the end of the program, he was offered a job as a chaplain for the four summer months and he took it. Of course he was no longer the chaplain intern, moving into the role of a chaplain at the big trauma hospital in downtown Montreal. This hospital serves all of Quebec and part of New Brunswick for patients who have experienced serious injury.

During the summer, we talked on a number of occasions and I was aware that my son would likely have more experiences with those in severe medical crisis during those four months than many ministers contend with in a decade or two.

I was also struck by the fact that he was constantly in demand, day and night, when he was “on call.” You are probably aware that Quebec is perhaps the most secular of provinces in this country, with a strong suspicion of organized religion, yet in that hospital setting he was constantly sought out by injured individuals or their families for spiritual care and support. He told me about persons who had suffered brain injuries who were desperately attempting to communicate with him in garbled English and French, the languages he speaks, as well as those he doesn’t know including Inuit. He stood by the bedsides of those who had just died providing solace to stunned family members.

Near the end of the summer he told me that after months of working with medical staff members he had established rapport and trust, and so the healers began to share their own emotional losses. As a chaplain he had an important role as a source of spiritual support.

Today we listened to the last of several passages from the New Testament letter called James. I have said before that I like James because it is gritty and down to earth. The message of grace in Jesus Christ is “don’t do something, stand there. Receive God’s love.” James says “now that grace is yours, don’t stand there, do something.”

Today James is as direct as always with the passage asking three questions: “Are any of you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.”

These questions are really a strong encouragement to accept a role as healers within the Christian community. When we think of the passages about sickness and healing in the New Testament, they are usually the stories of Jesus as a miraculous healer which come to mind, or perhaps the stories in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The leper is healed or a blind person is given sight. Even the dead are raised to live again.

In James though there is more of a sense of the ongoing work of the newly formed Christian community where prayer and praise and anointing are offered for those who are not well. I won’t go so far as to say that expectations were lowered or that the results were less spectacular, but there does seem to be a realization that

We need to remember that in Jesus’ era the average lifespan was thirty-eight to forty years and there was no such thing as medical care in the way we know it and expect it today. Over the centuries the church accepted that it could provide support and care for those who were sick and dying and often monasteries and convents were places where people would go to address ailments of the body and mind. Even as recently as the last century there were many hospitals and clinics in our own country and other parts of the world which were sponsored by Christian denominations.

Where does that leave us now? Is the passage we heard from James just a historical curiosity representing a very different time? So much has changed, and today we expect that good health care is a basic right and will be sponsored by the government – at least in this country. We could listen to this passage from James as something to be archived because our world has changed so significantly.

Yet the role of faith and religion persists in our culture. You might wonder how often I hear about the medical problems of our folk here at St. Paul’s and the answer is that some weeks it is every single day. Why do you think that is? I do not have a medical degree. I have not been trained as a nurse. I am definitely not a psychiatrist.

Now, I do watch the television medical drama House fairly often, but that only counts as entertainment! Actually the bad-tempered Dr. House may help explain why I hear from parishioners so often. House is a nasty man who doesn’t care about the feelings of those under his medical care. He is convinced that there is no God and he scoffs at what he views as superstitious nonsense such as prayer. Because he is a TV doctor, he is the genius who can solve every medical problem, but his approach has no sense of humanity.

Thank God I have never met a physician who is even close to this one, but perhaps he represents both the best and the worst of our medical system. The very medical technology which allows us to discover our diseases and to live longer lives can be dehumanizing. When I began in ministry a CAT scan was the dirty look your pet gave you, and none of us had heard of an MRI. What a difference these technological procedures and others have made in our lives. Certain treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy were almost worst than the illness they were treating, while now they have been “fine tuned” to be less debilitating and more effective. But our batteries of tests and treatments are often very impersonal and frightening. And while most of us trust our doctors -- more than 2/3rds of Canadians are very satisfied with their doctors -- many physicians admit that they can’t give the time to patients they would like. We can actually feel alienated by the very system that saves our bodies.

We feel, for the most part, that we have souls as well as bodies, and we desire a balance of mind, body and spirit, a catch phrase we hear often. There is a “gut” sense that when we pray for one another, we are working toward a healthy spirit and a healthy body. So when you contact your ministers you do so because you sense the importance of including God in your desire for health and wholeness.

So do we believe that we are Christ’s healers? I have a confession to make. When I began ministry I felt extremely awkward when I entered into hospitals and other institutions. I wanted to keep out of the way of the healthcare professionals as they carried out their work. I wasn’t even sure whether I should pray in those settings. As the years have passed, my perspective has changed. I am now convinced that my role is essential, and I want you to believe that your roles as Christ’s healers are essential as well.

Rather than viewing the encouragement in James as something from the distant past, we can believe that it is more important than ever.

The good news is that we are involved in that important ministry of healing. This congregation has a history of supporting the parish nursing program which does address body, mind and spirit.

On Sundays, our prayer box is brought forward as a reminder of the important work of intercessory prayer for those who need God’s healing and hope in body, mind, and spirit.

We have an important prayer shawl ministry which is a tangible way of demonstrating the love of Christ. So far more than a hundred shawls have been created and blessed and given to those who have experienced loss or are dealing with illness.

Every informal visit, every meal provided, every note written, every drive offered, is a gift of grace in Christ’s name, if we are willing to understand them in that way.

There are even times when we actually anoint people with oil, as an outward sign of the inner healing which is our gift in Christ.

Of course many of you active beyond these walls, in the Terry Fox Run and the MS walk and the Run for the Cure for breast cancer, along with other causes.

I will leave you with a story of healing this morning which comes from our church family. During the summer, one of our members died - someone who did everything possible to get here on Sunday mornings. Her name was Eileen and you may know her as the woman in the wheelchair who sat near the front of the sanctuary. She would drive from the hospital, which was her home for two years, in just about any weather to attend worship at St. Paul’s. Eileen was what we often term a “character” and she was proud of it. She had a great sense of humour and gave as well as she took when it came to teasing. She tried to tell jokes and managed to botch the punch lines on most of them but she never gave up.

Several of us visited her on a regular basis and sometimes, the normally cheerful Eileen would be upset about something. She would ask for a “special prayer” which I suppose was different from a garden variety prayer and I tried my best. A faithful friend from the congregation visited Eileen one day and was concerned that she was talking about dying, so they called me. I went to see her and tried to encourage her. Apparently, she knew better. Three days later, she was gone.

At the funeral which I conducted with Rev. Cathy, I was touched by the number of people who were present from the church. In addition, one choir member played the accompaniment for another, who sang a solo. It was a fitting send-off because in my opinion, the kindness and practical support of many people from St. Paul’s made a difference to the quality of Eileen’s final years of life. A number of those same people honoured her in death. And while she was not cured, she was healed in many ways. Not long after Eileen’s death I received a note from her daughter thanking the St. Paul’s congregation for the love and care extended to her mother.

When we laugh together, and pray together and sing together and even cry together, we are Christ’s healers.