“Community of Healers”
1 Kings 17:8-24
Luke 7:11-17
Sandpoint United Methodist Church
June 6, 2010
Stan Norman
Please pray with me. May the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, and the conduct of our lives, be always acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our blessed redeemer. Amen.
A father wanted to read the paper, but was being bothered by his little daughter, Vanessa. Finally, he tore a sheet out of his magazine, on which was printed the map of the world. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to Vanessa, and said, "Go into the other room and see if you can
put this together."
After a few minutes, Vanessa returned and handed him the map correctly fitted together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly.
"Oh," she said, "on the other side of the paper was a picture of Jesus.
When I got Jesus in His place, then the world came out all right."
Two widows living in poverty lose their only sons. In Bible times, being a widow was like being an orphan: no reliable source of income, no social status, totally dependent on others for the basic necessities of life. But, the two widows we met this morning at least had hope – they had sons. When their sons came of age they could own land, claim their family birthrights, and take care of their widowed mothers. For the widows of Zarephath and Nain there was hope…then their hopes died. When Elijah and Jesus restored life to the widows’ sons through God’s healing power they restored life and hope to the widows as well. Healing has that “trickle down” affect, when one person’s life is restored, hope and healing extends to others.
Poverty is more than lack of money. Poverty is lack of status, lack of purpose, lack of freedom, and even lack of hope. Poverty breaks your spirit. In Hebrew, the words for spirit and for breath are the same. Elijah prayed to God that breath would be restored to the widow’s son. God listened to Elijah and put breath back into the boy’s body. God restored the boy’s spirit and in so doing, restored his mother’s hope.
If you have spent much time studying the Bible, you know that God is predisposed toward the poor. In the Old Testament, the Israelites are constantly reminded to take care of the widows and orphans, the slaves, and the foreigners in their midst. Through the prophets, God tells the Israelites to never forget that they were once a poor nation, slaves in a foreign land. Jesus spends nearly his entire earthly ministry among the poor, serving the poor. After Jesus healed the son of the widow of Nain, some of John the Baptist’s disciples reported to John that Jesus was healing the sick and raising the dead. I’ll pick up reading from the Gospel of Luke right where Sue stopped. You can follow along in your pew Bibles, Luke 7:18:
18The disciples of John reported all these things to him. So John summoned two of his disciples
19and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 20When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’” 21Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. 22And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.
The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive good news…God comes to us in human form to heal, to restore life, and to lift spirits – in other words: to restore hope. Jesus said, “I have come that they [“they” being the sheep – you and me and all people]…I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Today we will celebrate Holy Communion. We will celebrate being the Body of Christ, nourished by this meal, and sent forth into the world to continue Christ’s ministry. If Jesus spent his time on earth healing, lifting spirits and restoring hope, then that is what the church that bears his name is called to do.
Please take out your worship bulletins and turn to the back cover. We have been printing our church motto and our church parish there for several months. Please read them with me: Our Motto: Feed and Lead; Our Parish: “The World” beginning with Sandpoint and Bonner County. Please read those statements often, commit them to memory, and reflect on what they mean.
If our job is to feed and lead those who are in poverty in Sandpoint and Bonner County into a future where their souls and bodies are healed and the hope is restored, then we need to know the scope of the challenge we are facing. Let me share a few statistics from the Bonner County Circles Initiative Strategic Plan:
- 24% of the children in Bonner County under the age of five live at or below the federal poverty threshold.
- In 2005, Idaho topped the nation in poverty for young adults (ages 18-24) with 29% living in poverty.
- 44% of Bonner County school children receive free and reduced-cost lunches.
- Low-income parents make up almost half of Idaho’s working population.
- Every year a child spends growing up in poverty costs an estimated $11,800 in lost future productivity over his or her working lifetime.
Our signature ministries, Community Meal and Circles Support, are excellent first steps toward addressing the spiritual, emotional, and physical hungers in our community; but it is evident that we will need all the help that we can get, from our partners in these ministries, and from God. In order to tap into God’s power, we need to be clear about why we are helping others and who we represent.
To give our ministries balance and focus, David Lowes Watson has taken John Wesley’s General Rules and adapted them to create what he calls The General Rule of Discipleship:
To witness to Jesus Christ in the world and to follow his teachings through acts of compassion, justice, worship, and devotion under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
John van de Laar is a Methodist minister in South Africa. Here is what he has to say about balancing our love for God and our love for one another:
It is too easy to turn the work of justice and compassion into a kind of ’slightly sanctified social work’. But even ’social justice Christians’ need to recognize the Presence and availability of God and God’s Spirit to guide and empower both our work and the lives of those we seek to serve. So, a significant part of our serving and healing the world is to call leaders, influencers and care-givers back to vibrant spirituality and to ensuring that as they serve, they also enable others to find a faith that is authentic and alive for them.
In our churches and communities we have often divided our worship and our missions. We have often fallen into a functional atheism which leaves us doing good work in our world but lacking the spirituality which gives it life, lasting impact and truly transforming power. If we are to be more than just another social service organization, our missions must be flooded in worship, and our worship must overflow into vibrant, God-inspired missions. What might it mean for your church to seek to encounter God authentically, serve one another and your community with a visible dependence on God, and to build your life together around a true marriage of worship and missions. Is this not what ultimately protects the weak, leads to justice and heals the world?
Yes, we are called to be a community of healers, but not just any healers, we are called to be Christian healers and Christ’s ambassadors.
As little Vanessa said, “When I got Jesus in His place, then the world came out all right.”
Amen.
