Pondering the Word
Risky Business
by June Mears Driedger
Congregations take quite a risk when they begin holding healing services. The pastor and members begin to encounter the deep pain— physical, mental, spiritual—of those who long for God’s healing.
For congregations, the risky business of healing include:
1. It can be risky relating to those who need healing.
Sometimes those that need healing aren’t always “nice and polite,” in the way we like church people to be. Take Bartimeaus in Mark 10:46-52. He was blind since birth and was accustomed to doing what he needed to do to get what he needed. In verses 47-48 Bartimeaus hears that Jesus is nearby and begins shouting, “‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly order him to be quiet but he cried out more loudly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” Note that the people tried to silence him and continue to marginalize Bartimeaus—and probably not for the first time. He was annoying them, bothering him with his disability, with his illness. He was defying the code of proper behavior. Sometimes those who need healing can be offensive or scary.
I remember a woman who started yelling during the worship service, “I love you, I love you.” She was promptly led out of the sanctuary by the ushers but not before she blew kisses to the preacher and the congregation. Clearly this woman was struggling with some kind of mental illness—and she scared us.
2. It can be risky to admit to not knowing the how and the why of healing.
Healing often brings up questions of theodicy—why are some people healed and others are not? Why are some people disabled and others are able-bodied? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers for healing? These are challenging questions that are often answered, “I don’t know.”
But we do know that God is present to each of us, extending a gracious embrace: “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you,” according to the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 42:6a).
My friend Ann went along with her friend as they took her friend’s brother to the community mental health services after he suffered a series of schizophrenic episodes. It was a long day that included traveling to another city to admit the brother into the psychiatric hospital. Ann silently prayed throughout the day for her friend and the family as they began the journey of seeking healing for him. As Ann dropped off her friend that night, Ann prayed aloud and blessed her friend. Although the brother was just beginning to be healed from mental illness, his sister experienced the healing presence of God through Ann.
3. It can be risky to change our understanding of what constitutes healing.
My grandmother was dying of pancreatic cancer in my late teens. My parents prayed faithfully and vigorously for her total and complete healing but I could see that she was becoming more jaundiced every time I visited. I didn’t know what to think about prayer, healing and God, until after a conversation with my grandfather and I asked him why God wasn’t answering our prayers. He responded, “Oh, God is answering our prayers. Lois (my grandmother) will have a new body when she gets to heaven. She will be healed.”
I learned from my grandfather that we don’t control the healing. Just as the psalmist wrote, “Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul,” (Psalm 143: 8), so my grandfather had learned to put his trust in God and that God’s ways are best. My grandfather knew that after my grandmother died he could still lift up his grieving soul to God for comfort and healing.
As Marlene Kropf notes in the introduction to the healing worship services on p. 29 “If we do not pray for healing, we may miss many blessings God intends for us.” If we do not enter into the risky business of healing, we may indeed miss the many blessings God intends for us.
June Mears Driedger is managing editor of Leader magazine.