“Living the Spiritual Gifts: Healing”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
January 24, 2010
Matthew 10: 1-8; I Corinthians 12: 1-28
When Jesus calls his apostles together, he gives them the authority to heal. In fact, that is the prime power and authority that Jesus gives them.
In our first lesson for today, we hear that Jesus gathers together twelve disciples, equips them with authority and power, and sends them out as apostles to do important work in the world.
The word “disciples” in the Bible implies people who sit at the feet of someone and learn.
Apostles differ from disciples in that they are given authority. Apostles are given general authority to speak for their master. Apostles are messengers sent out to spread the message of God through word and deed.
According to Matthew, these twelve apostles are sent out to proclaim good news, raise the dead, heal the sick and cast out demons.
What differentiates Jesus’ apostles from his disciples is the authority to speak and act that Jesus gives them.
According to Matthew’s Gospel, the two main powers that Jesus gives are the abilities to “cast out unclean spirits” and to “heal every disease and sickness.”
In other words, to become a healer.
Jesus gives them the power to cast out unclean spirits, to us today that might imply spiritual healing. And he gives them the power to “heal every disease and sickness.” That is to bring physical healing.
It is interesting that Jesus does not give the apostles the power to preach or proclaim the good news or raise the dead, though those functions are given to them.
The transfer of power to Christ’s representatives in Matthew 10 parallels Jesus’ own actions in Matthew 4 where Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee “teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news and healing every disease and sickness.”
While he was with them, Jesus gave the Apostles the abilities and the responsibility to teach, preach and heal.
For example, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, appropriately named, tells of how Peter, Phillips and Paul all healed in the name of Christ.
They discovered that healing was one of their spiritual gifts. As we read our call to worship, Paul referred to healing as a gift; a gift of the Holy Spirit.
During this past month, we have talked in worship about a number of spiritual gifts that are included in the first part of the twelfth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, many others are listed.
But as we read in our second lesson, the second part of I Corinthians 12 is all about the reason Paul says that God gives the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the first place. It’s so we all have something to contribute to the healing of our relationships and our community.
Reading now from God’s holy word.
Healing implies a wound, an injury or a challenge.
When Jesus gives the apostles the gift of healing, they typically use those gifts to heal individuals, one person at a time. Some of us here have come with particular concerns for our bodies and spirits or for the health of someone in our family or someone we love. We come in prayer and in faith believing that our God recognizes just how much in need of healing we all are. When we look at what happened in Haiti and ask the question which our experience and our faith do not answer completely - “why?,” we affirm our belief that God knows we are in need of healing and cares about us.
Paul writes his letter to the Corinthian church, a community in need of collective healing.
Paul had visited the Greek city of Corinth around 52a.d. on his second missionary journey and began preaching God’s good news. Unlike our lesson in Matthew, where Jesus tells the Apostles to visit the “House of Israel” and avoid the gentiles, Paul has most of his success with the gentiles. Paul had great success and in about 18 months had set up a thriving church community among the diverse gentiles of Corinth. So in 53a.d. he left for Ephesus believing the community in Corinth was in good shape.
However, while in Ephesus Paul received two letters from members of the Corinthian community, detailing divisions and immorality that was developing in the community.
The Corinthian community, which had begun with great unity, had divided along sectarian lines and the people had fallen into all sorts of corrupt activities.
So Paul writes a letter to the community at Corinth to remind them that they are part of one unified body.
Each week this month we’ve been talking about a different spiritual gift. About the diversity of God’s gifts that are contained in the first portion of I Corinthians 12. But the very next section of I Corinthians 12 is about the unity of God’s purpose. God’s people are gifted differently, Paul expressed that the people of God should be united.
Paul’s purpose in this section of the letter is to try and heal the church. To try and call it back to its better nature. Paul wanted to remind the people that the quality of their actions matter so that they would return to morality. He wanted to remind the people that they were one body of Christ so that they would turn their backs on division, not on each other.
When the spiritual gift of healing is given by Jesus to the Apostles, it was given to heal people who were hurting.
Paul uses the description of the various parts of the body each supporting each other when they are in need of help and acting in unity. Paul writes “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you….rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.’”
Paul writes further that “there should be no schism in the body….members should have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.”
Paul’s is trying to heal the divisions of the community by calling for the people of God’s creation to care for each other, to see each other as God’s children and for every member of the community to seek healing, for all are members of the body of Christ.
While particular members of the community are given particular gifts to heal disease and sickness, we all are given the responsibility to use all our gifts to heal.
When we read that individual apostles in Matthew are given gifts and authority to heal any sickness or disease, that can be difficult for us to relate to. Even the doctors among us, in fact, I bet especially the medical professionals, will express the limited ability of humans to cure all sickness and disease.
Yet, the reason Paul emphasizes all the variety and diversity of gifts, including the particular gift of healing, is because Paul recognized his own, and our own, responsibility to heal. Paul had been given the gift of healing. Acts 14 tells us how Paul heals a man in Lystra, for example.
Yet Paul wanted all faithful people to take seriously their responsibilities to heal when the opportunity presents itself.
He wanted the Corinthians to realize that God gives spiritual gifts “for the profit of all.” That rather than being envious of another’s gifts, we should give of ourselves to help others.
Paul believed that each human is given at least one charismata or spiritual gift.
The root of charismata is the Greek word charis, which means "grace or favor."
When we recognize that our gifts are not earned but graciously given by God, then it becomes easier for us to share what we have.
When we respect God’s creation in others as fellow travelers on the path of life, we can use our gifts to support others. As Paul put it, “if one member of the body suffers, all members suffer.” That is similar to Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that “when one is impacted directly, all are affected indirectly.”
There are specific gifts that we are given, but all of us are given spiritual responsibilities to heal where we can.
Over the past week our hearts and minds as a nation, as a human community and as a church have been fixed on the devastation that occurred in Haiti on January 12. Thanks to your generosity and the hard work of many of our members, Bradley Hills was able to contribute a significant number of relief packages and funding through relief agencies. We join with many other groups that I’m sure many of you are supporting as well.
The people of Haiti are in need of continued help and great healing in every way.
As Paul would remind us, when we come together, we can accomplish far more than we ever could apart.
We look at national political issues and wonder if there is ever hope for reconciliation of our policies and politics.
As the President prepares for his State of the Union speech this week, there is a real need for healing and civility between individuals and leaders. Issues of education, health care, national security, environmental sustainability and job creation require serious understanding between peoples and a healing of our national divisions for progress to occur.
This month at Bradley Hills, our adult education program focuses on “civility” as we think about how people get along in our diverse nation and world.
We look abroad at violence in war torn places and wonder if and how healing is possible?
Last Sunday night, our congregation co-hosted a “peace café” with Bethesda Jewish Congregation; it was an interfaith gathering that brought people together to discuss the possibility of healing and peace in the Middle East. Some of you were there. I brought my three and half year old, Andrew, along to take in the experience and he sat in the back playing with his toy zebra from the popular animated children’s film, Madagascar, as Sunny and I and others spoke. Andrew’s zebra is one where when you squeeze it is says, “You guys are crazy.”
At one point in the evening, one of the speakers said, “I believe peace in the Middle East may be possible in 2010.” And at that exact moment Andrew happened to squeeze his toy zebra which called out, “You guys are crazy!”
That is the usual feeling when we contemplate peace in the Middle East.
Yet perhaps healing is possible. Underlying all of Paul’s statements about the gifts we have to unite as the body of Christ, is a supreme confidence in Christ’s ability to heal.
According to Peter, “Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
Paul’s own fractured relationships, his life and his blindness, both spiritual and physical, were healed by God, and so Paul knew well that Christ had come to heal the relationship between God and all of us. God took the initiative to come to us and to make a healed relationship.
Whatever fractured relationships we have, God comes to us and gives us the simple responsibility to accept the gift of God’s healing.
We also have a responsibility to share that sense of healing with others. That is how we live the spiritual gift of healing.
If Christ came to heal our relationship with God than perhaps healing is possible in areas where we didn’t think it possible. Because of it, we have a responsibly to contribute to healing in Haiti and to strive for healing of the environment and in war torn areas.
Perhaps it is possible for people of different political backgrounds to work together.
Maybe we look at our family and say we’ll never have healing in our relationship with our parents or in our marriage.
The Christian writer Tony Campolo tells a great story, perhaps you’ve heard it, of a time when he was asked to speak at a Pentecostal college. Before the service, eight men had him kneel so they could place their hands on his head and pray. Tony was glad to have the prayers, but each of the men prayed a long time, and the longer they prayed the more they pushed on Tony’s head. And then they even seemed to wander in their prayers. One of the men didn’t even pray for Tony, he prayed for some guy he was concerned about. He began to pray and said, “Dear Lord, you know Charlie Stoltzfus. He lives in that silver trailer down the road a mile. You know the trailer, Lord, just down the road on the right-hand side.”
Tony writes that he wanted to interrupt and tell him that God already knew where they guy lived and didn’t need directions, but he just knelt there trying to keep his head upright. The prayer went on: “Lord, Charlie told me this morning he’s going to leave his wife and three kids. Step in and heal them, God. Bring that family back together.” With that, the prayer time ended and Tony went on to preach at the college chapel. Things went well and he got in his car and began to drive home. As he drove onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, he saw a hitchhiker and felt compelled to pick him up. Campolo writes, “We drove a few minutes and I said: ‘Hi, my name’s Tony Campolo. What’s yours?’ He said, ‘My name is Charlie Stoltzfus.’ Campolo couldn’t believe it! He drove right off the turnpike at the next exit and headed back.
The man, Charlie, got a bit uneasy with that and after a few minutes he said, ‘Hey mister, where are you taking me?’ Campolo said, ‘I’m taking you home.’ He narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘Why?’ Campolo said, ‘Because you just left your wife and three kids, right?’ That blew him away. ‘Yeah! Yeah, that’s right.’ With shock written all over his face, he plastered himself against the car door and never took his eyes off Campolo. Then Campolo drove right to Charlie’s silver trailer. When he opened the trailer door Charlie’s wife exclaimed, ‘You’re back! You’re back!’ He whispered in her ear and the more he talked, the bigger her eyes got. That afternoon was the beginning of Charlie taking seriously God’s healing presence in his life. Charlie Stoltzfus is now a preacher in California.
God comes to us through Christ so that healing is possible. So that we can keep on keeping on.
Yet we are still mortal. Some of us have come today with a heavy heart knowing that physical healing may not happen for someone we love. We read about the Apostles’ authority to heal “every disease” and cry out, “where are those Apostles today when I need them.” We experience emotional injury and know that healing is often less an absolute change than a process.
We know the limits of our humanity, and yet God’s gracious act of reconciliation through Christ gives us hope that perhaps we and those we love can at least find emotional healing, acceptance and even peace, with the path that they and we have to walk.
That is a key to living the spiritual gift of healing. To recognize when someone is lonely on a path of life and to find a way to walk with them, sit with them, talk with them and support them.
It’s recognizing when some people, nations or individuals might be isolated by unexpected events, and then using our gifts, spiritual, emotional and material, to build a bridge.
It’s the recognition that if the body of Christ, indeed all humanity, is going to be strong, than we have a responsibility to provide a portion of healing to the parts of the body that need attention.
For Christ’s sake and for ours.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
