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Sermon
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| DOES GOD HEAL? I had a ‘vigorous conversation’ several years ago with a chap from a pentecostal congregation who recounted a sensational case of miraculous healing. The beneficiary of this had been facing some costly orthodontic treatment and repairs to a number of cavities. In a service with the accent on healing and wholeness she was ‘slain in the Spirit’; she had fallen and been caught just before hitting the floor. The man telling me about this said, “And guess what! When they got her up, not only were her crooked teeth made straight – but the cavities had been filled!” I hasten to say he had not witnessed the miracle, but had heard of it from a reliable source – so he said. I suppose there was just a hint of incredulity on my face. He said, “John, does your church believe in healing?” Our conversation was inconclusive because I doubt we were speaking the same language. How would you have answered that question? In your way of regarding the world and your understanding of our faith, does God heal? I want to address this under three headings. I
First could be called ‘the false dichotomy’. That word means dividing anything into two parts. Here I refer to dividing the world into sacred and secular, spirit and flesh, God’s domain and the rest. The problem is with implying that there are places where God isn’t, issues in which God has no interest, matters which are somehow apart from God. This is where I put my cards on the table, so to speak – or my fish in the water. I believe that everything is in God, as fish are in the ocean – and that God is in everything. In July I met up again with a Fijian friend of many years; he is a very well-known figure, and was here as manager of the Fiji rugby squad. Each evening he led prayers with them, read from scripture and looked at its implications for the way they played rugby. I joked with him about how one could rip another man’s head off in a Christian way! Then, going back over our conversation, I wondered by what manner of logic I could argue that God was less interested in rugby than in a Syrophoenician child recovering from sickness. I was wrong. In his book “Praying a New Story” Michael Morwood refers to ‘the elsewhere God’ – the One who lives somewhere removed from the action, indifferent to what happens and unaffected by it. This ‘elsewhere God’ can be contacted and consulted, perhaps occasionally cajoled into doing something. However, most of the business of planet earth (not to mention the rest of the universe) finds this God absent, unaffected and largely inaccessible. My own introduction to the relation between science and godtalk came fifty years ago courtesy of Professor C A Coulson, distinguished British scientist and Methodist layman. Coulson said, and many have since echoed him, that God is either in everything or is in nothing. So much then for the sacred and the spiritual being somehow separate from the earthy and the secular! II
What follows (my second point) is that God is engaged with every act of every health professional, whether or not that person is conventionally ‘religious’ and irrespective of what he/she believes. To propose there is a God interested in human wellbeing only when the workers are Christians (or even Christians of a particular sort) is nonsensical. And to propose there is a God who can be let in or locked out is to have something like your pet dog (‘God’ spelled backwards!) My interest in healing dates from the same time as my interest in science and godtalk. Much of the credit is due to three influential figures; let me tell you who they were. One was Dr Leslie Weatherhead, minister with the City Temple, London. Weatherhead was a pioneer in the area of psychology, religion and healing. He wrote a book with that title. He visited Melbourne in 1950 at the instigation of Gordon Powell, and I heard every one of his lectures. The second significant figure was Dr Powell himself. Deeply influenced by Weatherhead, Gordon Powell was at the forefront among Australians working in this area, as many of his books testify. The third was Dr W Langley Carrington, Melbourne psychiatrist, Anglican layman and pioneer of marriage guidance counselling. In my student days Dr Carrington often had us in his home for enthralling discussion about psychology, religion and healing. It was he who opened to me a way to bring all this together. Bill Carrington would say, “No doctor but the most conceited would call himself a healer. Doctors don’t heal. Bodies heal.” He went on to explain that there was in the body a natural predisposition toward wholeness. Cut your finger, give it a wash and watch it for a few days. Assuming you’ve not left some contaminating material in the wound, it will get better by itself. What causes this can be called vis medicatrix naturae – Latin for ‘the healing power of nature’. Dr Carrington said the doctor’s role was to remove obstacles to this, whatever form these took. They could be bone fractures, bacteria, blocked arteries or a thousand other obstacles to the healing power of nature. Then he said, “Believers need change only one word here. They speak of vis medicatrix dei – ‘the healing power of God’.” Same thing. This takes us back to what I said earlier; all healing is of God, or none is! So, what the doctor does is seek to remove, or reduce by surgical or medical means, whatever obstructs the healing power of God. This I believe is the way most of my medical friends and family would regard the matter. So to my third point. III
How do non-medical approaches figure? More specifically, what is the place of counselling, spirituality, networks, intercessory prayer and so on? These can in some circumstances be very significant. Let me dash quickly over three; for convenience calling them ‘composure’, ‘companionship’ and ‘catharsis’. First, ‘Composure’, the opposite of sustained high stress. We have long known that sustained high stress affects our immune systems adversely. Short-term ‘stressors’ aren’t the problem; in fact, they can even boost the immune system. It is chronic, long-term stress that can suppress the immune system and make us more susceptible to attack. Conversely, if we can counter this kind of stress, we are less likely to get sick, and in some cases may recover more quickly if we are sick. If meditating, listening to music, coming to worship or just sitting by the sea can help you maintain a level of composure, there may be health benefits. Second, ‘Companionship’. Persons who have a strong sense of belonging have a better chance of staying healthy than those who are isolated and don’t have a support system – or ‘cheer squad’! In addition, a person with strong social bonds who does get sick has a better chance of surviving a serious illness. People who don’t have such networks are more likely to develop illnesses that lead to death. An interesting sidelight on this is the place of pets. I’ve read that pet owners have fewer illnesses and recover faster than those without pets. Third, what we call ‘Catharsis’. From the Greek word for cleansing, this means getting something out of your system. It can be something that is not physical. Best if I offer an illustration. In my first church there was a woman about 50 with a persistent form of dermatitis on the inside of both forearms. She wore long gloves to cover it. Her general practitioner sent her to a dermatologist, but the condition persisted. At her kitchen table I tried a long shot, asking what she was upset about. Out poured an incredible tale of warfare with the neighbour. Some of you know how venomous that can be. It was like opening a boil. As I left she said she felt at peace for the first time in months. The following Sunday she held out her arms and said, “Look!” They were clear. Intercessory Prayer, given that we engage in it here on Thursdays as well as on Sundays, and some of you more often than that, is too important to be dealt with in haste this morning. What do you think happens when we do pray for others? I am firmly convinced that prayer is not telling God what to do or how to do it. The hallmark of prayer is openness, receptivity, listening. It is putting ourselves at God’s disposal, to be ‘a conduit’ of God’s boundless mercies into the life of another. We claim these resources by faith and give them to those for whom we’re praying. That’s it in very condensed form! But it doesn’t always seem to work, does it – at least, the way we wish. Some-one will say “I knew a person who had the very best that medicine can offer, and who had all those ‘non-medical’ things you mention – and he/she still didn’t get better.” That, of course, is true. The world has many ragged edges; quite enough to block the will of God. But that must wait. Meanwhile, this to conclude. On December 4th 1871, a new ‘working men’s block’ was opened at Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham. For the occasion a special hymn was written by Charles Kingsley, Canon of Chester Cathedral and, of course, well known author of Westward Ho and The Water Babies. From thee
all skill and science flow,
all pity, care and love, all calm and courage, faith and hope: O pour them from above; and part them, Lord, to each and all, as each and all shall need, to rise like incense, each to thee, in noble thought and deed. ___________________________________________________
An address presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 10th September, 2006 IT MAY BE REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT. |
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Page updated 11/09/06