Soulistic Healing
06-28-09
Today I want to talk about health and wholeness. Now if you look at me, you’d probably deduce that I have some work to do on health and wholeness, but I speak from a place of struggle and a place of prayer, and I know that I’m not the only here who struggles with their health.
Health and especially Health Care Reform is a big issue in the media these days, right behind the death of Michael Jackson and the affair of South Carolina governor Sanford. It seems for years now we have been living in the middle of a tremendous health-care revolution. Health insurance still is a mess, Medicaid still inadequate, but the way we think about our health has changed radically in the past two decades. Most of us now realize that we cannot be truly healthy if we segregate our lifestyle and our environment from our physical well-being. Most of realize that our environment, and our emotionality greatly affects our physical bodies. Our health has become an industry. It seems that taking care of our bodies used to be as simple as eating a well-balanced diet, getting regular exercise, and avoiding tobacco and alcohol. But now you look in the phone book or you go online and you will find Naturopaths, homeopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists, aroma-therapists, massage technicians, reflexologists, psychotherapists, as well as MD’s all applying for the privilege of being your health-care provider. All these practitioners now talk much more about maintaining health than they do about curing illness, because in the midst of the continuing health-care revolution, and the advent of scientifically based medicines, illness has become a collection of bothersome bacteria and viruses. Being sick was no long anyone’s fault…it wasn’t a sign of weakness, or sin, or divine displeasure. At the dawn of the 20th century, it was about finding the magic drug that could cure all.
Have you noticed that illness is our fault again? Illness is about our inability to handle stress, our love affair with pepperoni pizza and beer. Our ailments stem can come from curling up in the hammock with the newest novel instead of exercising. It seems that everyway our bodies are out of whack or off key, or out of breath, comes from some sin we have committed in our lives.
What does our gospel story this morning have to tell us about health and wholeness? "When Jesus' healing power brought the miracle of health to the hemorrhaging woman in this week's gospel text, he immediately sought her out to speak with her about her experience. Impressed by the power of her faith, Jesus proclaims, "your faith has made you well." Furthermore, Jesus adds a standard Jewish blessing -- "Go in peace." He then uses a Greek blessing, "Be healed of your disease." A more conversational rendition of this text could justifiably have Jesus reminding this woman to "take care of yourself so that you remain healthy." Jesus is not bestowing some mystical healing verse on this woman. He is urging her to stay healthy, to be whole.
Jesus calls each one of us to "stay healthy," to "stay whole." When we are healthy and whole we are at our best, we are able to live into our calling in life, we are better able to listen to the voice of God, we are better examples to our friends, our family, our future generations, and we are better equip to help others in their healing processes. Jesus calls us to be whole. But what does wholeness mean? To be healthy and whole means we must have body and mind and soul in sync. This balance can be difficult to achieve and especially difficult to maintain. We are all thrown out of whack by life and circumstance. Yet it is key to recognize that wholeness is about knowing that our spiritual needs are just as critical as our physical needs. Wholeness means that our emotional needs are just as important as our intellectual needs. Wholeness is a lot about trying to achieve a balance in our lives.
The woman healed of her hemorrhage "felt in her body that she was healed of her disease" (v.29). She found power in that simple touch. Touch can be so extremely powerful. It can be powerfully destructive or wonderfully healing. She registered how her physical self was healed, but she also recognized it mentally and emotionally. She reached out and touched Jesus, but she was also touched by the healing experience. Our text tells us that she was overcome with "fear and trembling," her entire spirit had been touched and she needed to tell the truth. Jesus' "soulistic" (thanks to Keith Haverkamp for this phrase) healing reached into every essence of this woman's being.
Here’s the thing. Holistic medicines and an awareness of the mind, soul, body health connection has been growing in popularity and acceptability. But that doesn’t mean that our cultures has been able to transfer this "holistic" into our "soulistic" attitude into an experience of wholeness. What we have seen are holistic junkies trying every new remedy and path in hopes of finding the cure-all remedy. An important part of balancing our lives is relationship…it is faith and love and trust and laughter, and partnership. The women that touched Jesus had gone a step beyond the remedies offered by local physicians and she put her faith in Jesus Christ. Faith was important to her healing…that interaction with Jesus was important to her healing. And Jesus simply announced to her what was already an existing fact - her faith - had made her well.
"While it is imperative that we do take responsibility for and control of our lifestyle, we cannot manipulate and maneuver our life force. We have only to look at our postmodern culture to see the glorious failures of our attempts to extend control beyond lifestyle into life force. Take something as basic to human existence as eating: Despite all we now know about diet, nutrition and healthy eating, our stomachs sometimes still drive us to act in ways beyond all rationale. We have a culture that is increasingly more anorexic and more obese at the same time. We can provide an environment conducive to healing and health. We can change our lifestyle."1 But only an experience of divine love like that offered to us by Jesus Christ will make us truly whole. Only the safety of a trusted companion, or the touch of another will make us truly whole. The Divine works through us. We work for each other. Jesus offers us healing that goes beyond the therapies of holistic medicine, beyond our personal search for a whole and healthy self. God offers us a "soulistic" cure which binds together body, mind and spirit into a living force, a vital love.
I would like to share a poem by Ann Weems. I think she talks to the importance of relationship in healing…the importance of touch and interaction...the importance of faith and partnership in the longing for wholeness. Finding balance is not always easy. Healing and wholeness can stretch us along the way…but soulistic care goes beyond ourselves. It goes beyond every new remedy and path. In her poem "Touch in Church", she writes:
What is all this touching in church?
It used to be a person could come to church and sit in the pew
and not be bothered by all this friendliness
and certainly not by touching.
I used to come to church and leave untouched.
Now I have to be nervous about what's expected of me.
I have to worry about responding to the person sitting next to me.
Oh, I wish it could be the way it used to be;
I could just ask the person next to me: How are you?
And the person could answer: Oh, just fine,
And we'd both go home . . . strangers who have known each other
for twenty years.
But now the minister asks us to look at each other.
I'm worried about that hurt look I saw in that woman's eyes.
Now I'm concerned,
because when the minister asks us to pass the peace,
The man next to me held my hand so tightly
I wondered if he had been touched in years.
Now I'm upset because the lady next to me cried and then apologized
And said it was because I was so kind and that she needed
a friend right now.
Now I have to get involved.
Now I have to suffer when this community suffers.
Now I have to be more than a person coming to observe a service.
That man last week told me I'd never know how much I'd touched his life.
All I did was smile and tell him I understood what it was to be lonely.
Lord, I'm not big enough to touch and be touched!
The stretching scares me.
What if I disappoint somebody?
What if I'm too pushy?
What if I cling too much?
What if somebody ignores me?
"Pass the peace."
"The peace of God be with you." "And with you."
And mean it.
Lord, I can't resist meaning it!
I'm touched by it, I'm enveloped by it!
I find I do care about that person next to me!
I find I am involved!
And I'm scared.
O Lord, be here beside me.
You touch me, Lord, so that I can touch and be touched!
So that I can care and be cared for!
So that I can share my life with all those others that belong to you!
All this touching in church -- Lord, it's changing me!
1Taylor, Bob, "Soulistic Healing," Homiletics, June 1997.