Notes on Healing from January 2006

Ministry of Healing

As I prepare my sermon for this last Sunday in January, as I read and research the texts treating Jesus’ ministry of healing, I think, of course, about my own disease and the healing I hope for myself at Jesus’ hands. I think also of the many, many sick people I have visited as a pastor over the years. And I think of the visits I may have foolishly put off or failed to make because other things seemed more important or because I didn’t think my visit would be useful.

Many people have visited me in the past months. Many pastor friends and colleagues have come to the hospital or called and of course I appreciate their concern, but it is the lay visits that stand out in my mind, the visits by people who are simply “called” by the Spirit to bring comfort to the sick.

Indeed, visiting the sick, the ministry of healing, traditionally belongs to all the baptized, to the priesthood of all believers. Everybody is instructed to participate, to bring comfort and to pray with sick people. Everybody has the skill, the talent, the gift. What I need to hear, however wise or educated or old or experienced I am, can come from the mouth of the smallest child: God loves you. I love you. God wants you to be well. I want you to be well.

Words aren’t even necessary. The touch of a hand, the look of concern, the time spent getting to the hospital, the care taken. All these communicate. A prayer offered, silent or aloud, a song or hymn, a few moments of Bible reading. These “do the trick” of ministry, the ministry of the baptized.

Most pastors get a few weeks’ special training in a chaplaincy setting. They may take a class, read some books, go to a workshop on visitation. But it’s not at all the same as what I have learned the past months from you, from the priesthood of believers at Mount Olive as you have ministered to me!

Visiting the sick is not about expertise. Indeed, in the hospital I lay surrounded by “expert” medical people who were not doing much good at all. It’s not about knowledge or saying the right thing. It’s love in action. It’s faithful community. It’s pure Christian action.

So it’s not just about hospitals either. Lying immobile and dependent in my bed I have come better to understand the homebound and the shut-ins in my care through the years. (I hope they have found the consolation in lay visits that I have found!) I thought I had to bring wisdom and answers, expert help or inspiration. I didn’t understand that just “hanging out,” just giving a bit of time, just sitting quietly, was all that was required. Getting involved, offering to help, bringing a book.

Hospitals are busy places. Shut-ins live in a relatively boring, helpless and hopeless space. Shut-ins may get out sometimes. (I didn’t really understand that until recently.) But only with great effort and support, and often at considerable cost and discomfort. Shut-ins have embarrassing bathroom problems and hygiene problems and dressing and grooming problems. Mostly they suffer from a terrible sense of loss and marginalization.

Visits make a wonderful difference. We must remember this as a church community and learn a lasting lesson.

Thanks and blessings,
Pastor Gary