New Life from Healing

“Forward Day by Day” is a quarterly pamphlet published by Forward Movement in Cincinnati.  It has been an Episcopal Church publication since 1935.  It consists of daily meditations on biblical verses written by a number of clergy and other authors.  The present editor and Executive Director of Forward Movement is the Rev. Scott Gunn who served for a time in our Diocese of Rhode Island.

A reason for mentioning this is that in the current quarterly issue of “Forward Day by Day,” the meditation selected for last Tuesday, June 4^th is about faith that makes us well.  It is based on today’s Gospel reading.  As we heard in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said to the widow’s son, “’Young man, I say to you, rise!’  The young man got up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”  The crowd that gathered around Jesus was amazed, and word about Jesus’ healing powers spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

This is an awesome account. Is it magic?  Is it a miracle?  Does it reflect the power of God’s Spirit at work in the world?  How do we account for it and how are we to understand this brief story?

The meditation in “Forward Day by Day” says, “The man who recognizes his healing comes back in thanks and then discovers healing at an even deeper level.  That’s the way it is in life: generosity becomes its own generator of further generosity…. Jesus is calling attention to the way the world works and to the power that is available in it.”

At another level, Jesus is repeating an action that the Prophet Elijah did as we heard in our reading from the First Book of Kings.  In this story the son of a widow became ill.  “His illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.”  So Elijah took the child to the lodge where he was staying and cried out to the Lord. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”  He then asked the Lord to let the “child’s life come into him again.”  The Lord listened to Elijah, the child was revived and restored to his mother.  Then, in gratitude, she said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

These are stories about healing and generosity and gratitude.  They are stories that reach out beyond the comfortable boundaries of the local community.  Widows had no power.  People of other regions like the Samaritans, were not “one of us.”  They were not part of the worshiping community.  In both of these stories, Elijah and Jesus are calling their followers and thereby all of us to reach beyond our comfort levels and welcome others into our community.  Healing the divisions that keep people separate from one another, being generous toward those in need, and being grateful and offering thanks to God for the new life we experience as a result is what matters.

As our Collect, our opening prayer for today states, “O God,…grant that by you inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them.”

There is nothing magical about these stories.  They are practical narratives to inspire us to do what God expects of his people.  The only thing miraculous about them is the results that accrue from healing the divisions that separate us one from another.  The generosity we show to those in need brings rewards of thankfulness and appreciation; it is the new life bestowed on those who are outcast because of their circumstances.  They may be hungry or homeless, in need of health care or a job or a place to live.  They may be immigrants from other lands in need of welcome and friendship. 

The Spirit of God at work in the world is what the season of Pentecost is about.  It is a time for ministry to others.  It is a time for imagining what the Church is and can become in our time as it was during the times of Elijah and Jesus.  What is good and right and beautiful comes from God.  What we do with the gifts we have received is our response to the life-giving spirit of God.  Amen.