Epiphany 5
Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39
February 8, 2012
God heals us.
What do we know about God? We know that God heals us.
God knows, there are all kinds of ways we need to be healed. We have so many places in our lives where we need to turn around, head the other direction. When struggling with addiction, that need is clear. As soon as I wrote that, I realized that one of the insidious things about addiction is that it isn’t clear to an addicted person that they need help.
Even when we are not addicted to some easily recognized substance, some easily labeled evil, we still have areas within us where we need to turn back to God --
to walk more closely,
to listen more deeply,
to direct our attention away from ourselves and our worries,
to focus on God, on seeking to be in God’s presence.
We all need healing.
We are most vulnerable when we think we do not need healing.
Josh Hamilton is the center fielder for the Texas Rangers. You remember. If you’ve watched the Rangers but can’t place him, he’s the white guy covered in tattoos.
The tattoos are a reminder of a very bad time in his life. After being the first overall pick in the 1999 MLB draft, he was in a serious car accident in 2001. The accident didn’t derail his career, but the addiction that came after did. For five years, he was completely out of baseball. It was only after he lost everything that confrontations with his grandmother -- and with Jesus turned him around. And turn around he did. He was the 2010 MVP.
But last week, Josh slipped. He went out and had a drink. Then another. And another. After calling teammate Ian Kinsler, who took him home where Josh promised not to go out again, he went back to the bar.
It was a very hard fall off of the wagon. He was apologetic, of course. He promised, of course, to never let it happen again. But he had to know he was starting over.
Blogger ----- wrote, A lapse constitutes a reboot in his sobriety, where Hamilton once again must see every decision through that binary prism. Drink or don’t. Use or don’t. For Hamilton – for every addict – sobriety boils down to that. It is a battle between him and his disease, one studded with detours, landmines, temptations, problems, wickedness – life, really, only with an ever-present magnetism toward that which is worst for him. It’s an unfair reality. It is his nonetheless. (Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports)
Why spend time thinking about Josh Hamilton?
Because I received word that the older brother of a high school classmate died last week. His car was found at the bottom of a pond at an apartment complex. Though rescuers revived him at the scene, he died later that night. He was drunk.
He was a star in our high school. It was back when Liberty Union had an amazing basketball team -- and he was a big part of it. I remember watching him when I was in elementary school. It was THE THING, going to those basketball games.
But when I think of him, I don’t first think of him as a basketball player. I think of him as one who battled addiction all of his life. He was married, had three daughters. But his addiction made their presence, the love and concern of all his family, meaningless. His family wasn’t enough in his brain to free him. It did not hold the same power as his addiction.
It is devastating to his family -- wife and kids, parents, sister. A death like this, following a battle with addiction, is devastating. I pray for them...
And I reflect. Here are two men. Two men battling addiction. Can’t Jesus set them free? Certainly, he had for Josh Hamilton... But what about my fellow high school alum? Why didn’t Jesus free him?
I reflect on Jesus’ seeming capriciousness when deciding to use his healing powers. In today’s Gospel, we have Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus reaches out, takes her hand, and raises her up to a healed life. No longer sick, she is freed to do, to be. She becomes host to Jesus.
More people come to Jesus, seeking healing. He healed many. Then he got up early in the morning and prayed. People were looking for him -- more needed healing. But Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let’s go on. I need to go to other places, tell more people about God’s kingdom.”
So everyone wasn’t healed. It turns out, healing was not the only purpose of his ministry. It was not his ultimate work. His primary ministry was teaching and healing.
Maybe it’s because that ministry, sharing the Living Word, could heal even more people.
And maybe it’s because that living word shapes people... that they can grow in Christ, and Christ can grow in them. Maybe it is so they can go and continue his work. So we can continue his ministry.
Someone once wondered, “What if your church, the people within it, are ‘the only Jesus some people will ever meet’?”
Does that feel too big, like too much responsibility? After all, some people can’t be healed, it seems. Who are we to take on that responsibility?
We are children of God. Disciples of Jesus. Followers of the Way.
We are people who need healing. Who:
still need to turn back to God --
to walk more closely,
to listen more deeply,
to direct our attention away from ourselves and our worries,
to focus on God, on seeking to be in God’s presence.
And the good news is, within that presence, we are renewed.
Remember the words from Isaiah, “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” (Is. 40:30-31)
We are given grace to do some things. We cannot heal everybody either, nor can we promise healing. But, because we can do some things, when we are open to and depending upon God’s grace, who knows where that might lead?
May it lead to allowing us to glimpse God’s kingdom coming, on earth as in heaven.
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St. Mark Lutheran Church
Gather, Grow, and Go Forward in Christ |
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