Sermon notes from 5/8/22
There is a story I’d like to share with you this morning about a time when I was wrong. Some time ago, I was serving in a large parish with a long list of ministries. One of the first women to welcome me to the parish asked which ministries I would like to visit - which groups might be of some interest to me - and of course I reviewed the list and noted many of the ministries that were familiar: Bible Study. That sounded good. Contemplative prayer. Okay. Meals on Wheels, well sure. But there was one ministry on the list of which I was suspicious. It was simply listed as “Healing Ministry.” I asked what this was, and the woman who was my gentle shepherd responded with eagerness and joy: “oh, that is where we lay hands on people and pray for God to heal them.”
Oh. I didn’t know about that…It sounded…charismatic. Different. I told the woman that I was interested in just about all of the parish opportunities, but not the “healing ministry.” But she was wiser and holier than I. She looked me dead in the face. “When you’re up at the altar celebrating the Eucharist, do you believe in what you’re doing? Do you believe that the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is showing up there?” “Well yes,” I said, “I believe it with all my heart.” “And when you pray for people, do you believe that it does something, that God is listening and responding? Do you believe that what you say to God matters?” “Yes,” I said. “I do.” “Do you believe that God cares about us and is present with us?” “Yes,” I said, “yes, I believe that.” She looked at me with pity, “Then what is limiting your faith in the possibility of being healed?”
What is limiting your faith in the possibility of being healed? She was right. Something was limited in my faith. I had had some vision in my mind of people gathering around to ask God for something impossible, not connecting how odd it was to be so limited in my imagination when the Bible tells us - more than once! - that nothing at all is impossible for God. I had failed to see how all of the rest of it - the Eucharist, the prayers, God’s presence - all of that would be as good as washed away if I did not believe in a faith founded upon the true and physical reality of the Resurrection. It was almost like I had been afraid to really take a good look at Easter and believe it was meant for me - for us - today.
In the Gospel of Saint John, just before his arrest, Jesus is teaching his disciples and tells them, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” And yet it is still a shock to the friends and companions of the widow Tabitha when Saint Peter calls her back to life. After Jesus himself, the act of someone dying and being returned to life is very rare, even in the early church, certainly as it is remembered to us in scripture. Even in the immediate years after Jesus’ own Resurrection, this is still a miracle that seems to exist beyond possibility. And yet Peter, in the name of Jesus, continues the story of God’s extraordinary insistence upon calling life from death. Something new is happening here. This fresh faith is larger than the limits of imagination. It is wilder than the fragility of the body. When God has declared that those who believe will work greater things than these, this is not just a proclamation but also a promise.
And yet we hold these things at a distance from ourselves. We are bold in our prayers for many things, but there is still a part of us that remains limited in our capacities to imagine laying a hand upon another and asking for God to heal them. We are afraid to ask someone to lay their hands upon our own bodies and pray for us. Maybe we’re afraid because it’s intimate. Maybe because it feels…somehow out of place for modern, intelligent people. Maybe we’re truly afraid to ask for these things, because…what if nothing happens?
This story of the revival of Tabitha in the Acts of the Apostles brings us a stunning revelation of the power of God, the power of Easter resurrection, and yet we wonder about the widows who remained quite certifiably dead. What about those widows’ husbands, leaving their families to lives of fear and precarity, perhaps great poverty and suffering? What about those of us who are sick who pray to be made well and are not? What about the prayers we have whispered tearfully into the night that fall into nothing when the one we love still suffers? What does it mean when we pray and are still in pain?
Well, it means we are close to Jesus. It means that we are fully within the embrace of the one who makes us to lie down in green pastures, who leads us beside still waters. We are held by the one who spreads a table before us in the presence of our enemies, who annointeth our head with oil and maketh our cup to overflow. We are nearest to the one who pursues us with goodness and mercy all the days of our life. And in this intimacy with Jesus Christ is found true wholeness.
We spend these holy days of Easter encountering the Acts of the Apostles within our liturgy. The Acts of the Apostles describes the very beginnings of first Christian communities, and it is essentially an adventure story, a mystery, and a great romance - recalling the first people and places that encountered the miracle of the resurrected Christ. All throughout, we see a remarkable thing happen. This community is comprised of people who have witnessed the Resurrection of Jesus - many of them had seen the resurrected Jesus firsthand. And yet they are continually surprised by the power of the Son of God. They are plunged into something fresh and new, something wild and impossible. They had seen the Messiah come back from the dead, and yet they are still being surprised. They, like us, have moments of holding the glory of God at a distance, believing in the possibility of grace and yet so often not seeing how profoundly it has already come among them.
What is limiting our faith in the possibility of being healed?
Sometimes we pray for small things, not wanting to be disappointed, and God deeply cherishes these prayers. But with Easter comes another invitation too. We are reminded to pray boldly. To not let ourselves remain limited. God wants us to pray for bold, weird, holy things, trusting that even if we do not receive them, we are still being instructed in speaking the language of hope. It is already a bold thing to pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
For God, even these are possible.
Preached by Mother Brit Frazier
5/8/22
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia