Archive for the ‘healing’ Category

Gratitude or salvation – the thankful leper

October 11, 2025

Pentecost 18 – 2025

Luke 17:11-19

Marian Free

In the name of God who leaves no one out and no one behind. Amen.

Ward 13 is the last remaining structure of the former Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island in Morton Bay. Stradbroke Island is 62 Kilometres from the mainland and 2 hours 8 minutes by boat. The Benevolent Asylum housed many different groups of people particularly those who were unable to support themselves for a variety of reasons – age, unemployment, illness or mental or physical disability. Immediately next to the Asylum and beside a swamp was a Lazaret – which housed men who were diagnosed with leprosy – a disease which, rightly or wrongly was deemed an incurable, communicable disease.

A visit to Ward 13 and the associated information centre reveals just how isolating and cruel the treatment of lepers used to be. A person, once diagnosed, was sent to Stradbroke (and later Peel) Island with no hope of ever returning home. A married man would never set eyes on his wife and children again. A child would be separated forever from her siblings and a mother from her children. Though the care of such people seems to have been reasonable, nothing would ever have made up for the stigma, the shame, the self-loathing, the pain, but above all the isolation and the sense of loss.

Leprosy which leads to the damaging of nerve endings and the disfigurement and subsequent loss of digits, hands, feet and even limbs is a dehumanising disease which for millenia created fear and disgust in the wider community. A leper not only had to deal with the disease and its consequences, but also with the reaction of those around them. In order to protect themselves, communities from ancient times have secluded and excluded not only those with the disease that we know to be leprosy, but also those with any form of obvious skin disease[1]. This is why the lepers in our gospel story this morning are keeping their distance from Jesus.

For obvious reasons, Jesus’ healing of the lepers is most often interpreted as a story of gratitude – the gratitude of the Samaritan in contrast with the apparent self-absorption of the nine. There are a few problems with this simplistic approach, perhaps the most serious of which is the implication that gratitude is an obligation. The idea that God demands our gratitude turns gratitude from a freely offered reaction to God’s love to a formal, superficial response. Gratitude that is not freely given is not really gratitude but rather the rote observation of a code of conduct. It does not come from the heart but is simply the fulfilment of an expectation. 

Another problem with an emphasis on gratitude is the implied judgement of the nine who did not return and the belief that Jesus’ comment is pejorative and judgemental. Certainly, Jesus expresses astonishment and perhaps disappointment that nine of the ten did not return, but after all they were doing what Jesus told them to do. 

Luke’s first readers will have noticed a number of other surprises that are at least, if not more, significant than gratitude or lack of it. Firstly, the one who did return was a Samaritan, a person who was doubly burdened by the disease and by his race, who was considered doubly unclean because of the leprosy and his exclusion from the religious practices of the Jews.  He was an outsider. He did not, could not belong.

Readers would also have been surprised that it was the Samaritan, a man who not Jewish by heritage, who was the only one of the ten to identify the hand of God in his healing and therefore the only one to recognise that Jesus was God, that is, the only one of the ten to demonstrate that he truly belonged in the family of God[2]. 

A third and perhaps the most important surprise for the first readers of this gospel would have been Jesus’ response to the Samaritan’s declaration. Here, unfortunately, our translation lets us down. The English usually reads: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” This leads us to the conclusion that faith and wellness are connected and to the misconception that if only we have enough faith we will be made well. In fact, it is only after the Samaritan notices that he is healed that he understands that the one who made him well is God – his healing has led to faith, not the other way around. 

The Greek text makes more sense of this order of events. Jesus actually says: “your faith has saved you”. By identifying Jesus as God, the Samaritan has been saved from exclusion and has earned the salvation previously associated only with the Hebrews. In other words, the Samaritan’s faith has earned him a place in the people of God. The one who was doubly excluded – from his community and from God’s family has been doubly saved – restored to his family and friends and saved in the sense of becoming a child of God.

In my experience, it is much easier to construct a faith based on rules and expectations. Many of us want to know what to do and how to behave so that we can be sure to get it right.  Such a view can lead to rote performances of gratitude and praise, a desire to please instead of a wiliness to be pleased.

The Samaritan shows us that our sense of belonging depends not on timidly, fearfully doing things that might earn us God’s good favour, but by recognising that God’s abundant love is already poured out on us and responding freely and spontaneously with joyful gratitude and praise that springs from our wonder and delight at all that God does in and for us.

Let us not be tied down by rote observance of rules, but liberated to joyfully and gratefully praise the God who has already saved us.

[1] That “leprosy” included diseases which could be cured or could be temporary, is evidenced by the fact that those who were “healed” could be reinstated into the community if the priest gave them the all-clear.

[2] In fact, the Samaritan has a unique role in this gospel as he is the only one apart from Peter, who identifies Jesus as God, a point that is often overlooked. 

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in healing, Luke's gospel | 1 Comment »

Law or Compassion – healing on the Sabbath

August 23, 2025

Pentecost 11 – 2025

Luke 13:10-17

Marian Free

Loving God, grant us a clarity of vision, that enables us to determine right from wrong and gives us courage to act when others believe that we should not. Amen.

There are some choices which simply shouldn’t have to be made – neither choice has a good outcome. That we are often faced with difficult choices is evidenced in the popular sayings: “Choosing the lesser of two evils” or “it’s a lose/lose situation”. 

Recently in Queensland, we passed laws to enable Voluntary Assisted Dying. This was in response to a question: do we stand by and allow a dying person to live with unbearable pain, or do we give them some agency, the freedom to choose when to bring that life to an end? For Christians this is a choice fraught with danger not least because of our belief in the sanctity of life and the thought of hastening death by artificial means (or by suicide) raises the question as to whether or not VAD contradicts that belief. Over and against that is the fact that by not freeing someone to end their life, we know that we may be condemning them to a long, drawn-out, undignified, and agonising death.  Which is the lesser evil – showing love and compassion to the dying or allowing nature to take its course?  Which better demonstrates the love of God?

That the church can, and has, made choices between law and compassion is evidenced in our changed attitude to divorce and to the re-marriage of divorcees – the former of which was almost impossible until a century or so ago and the latter impossible until the 1970’s. In allowing divorce, the church eventually came to the conclusion that the pain and suffering inflicted on those in unhappy, violent marriages surely did not match up with the love, compassion and understanding that Jesus showed to people in a variety of situations and Jesus’ insistence that we have life in abundance.

In more recent memory, the church has also faced the reality that: “Till death us do part” does not mean that a spouse must stay in a marriage which is stultifying, dangerous and psychologically damaging for the person and for any children in the relationship. Jesus’ teaching against divorce and re-marrriage has been set aside in favour of what we believe Jesus’ response would be in the current era – that he would want an abused spouse to be set free to live.  

There are times when, as a church, we have to choose the lesser of two evils – disobeying Jesus’ teaching as it appears in the bible and interpreting Jesus’ actions and teachings for a different time and place. More than once, we have had to try to balance Christian ideals and values against regulations which have become untenable, unreasonable and harmful.

In so doing, we have Jesus as our model and guide.  Jesus was faced with difficult choices on many occasions – mostly in relation to whether or not it was right to break the Sabbath rule. He had to consider whether the health and well-being of a person was more important than the prohibition against working on the Sabbath and he always chose the needs of the person. Over and again, Jesus was faced with making a choice – between cultural norms and God’s love of all people, between religious norms and the social/psychological needs of the person in front of him, and between the norms surrounding family and the possibility that his teaching might split families. Overwhelmingly, Jesus’ chose to ignore law and convention in favour of God’s unconditional love. 

Jesus allowed a woman off the street and a woman with a haemorrhage to touch him, he ate with tax collectors and sinners, and he extended his healing power to Gentiles. Jesus’ insistence on putting people first, of showing God’s love rather than rigidly applying the law, meant that he was misunderstood, condemned and ultimately put to. death. Jesus risked social condemnation, religious persecution and the rejection of his message because he made choices which was contrary to what was expected of him. Always he chose compassion and love over a strict adherence to the law.

Jesus’ actions have, over time lost their power to offend and to shock. We take for granted that healing should be allowed on the Sabbath and forget that Jesus was deliberately making a choice to ignore or to break the law. It makes sense to us that Jesus’ should allow himself to be anointed by a strange woman – what a wonderful loving act we think. However, we don’t take into account the strict separation of men and women in the first century and the deep offense that her actions caused to those who witnessed it. We think, ‘of course Jesus would heal the leper’, forgetting the deep fear around the transmission of leprosy and the strict cleanliness laws that were instituted to stop the spread of the disease. 

Jesus was out of step with his time and culture, he was a troublemaker, a lawbreaker, a radical. He was arrogant enough to believe that the religious law did not apply to him.  He ignored social and religious convention and tried to behave as he believed God would behave – always prioritising the health and well-being of a person over strict adherence to laws that had reached their use-by date. 

Throughout history the church has made, often uncomfortable, decisions between law and compassion. The church has tried to make decisions based on what Jesus might do in the present moment, rather than on what he said or did in a vastly different time and place. We must pray that we have Jesus’ clarity of vision so that we can recognise when laws that were intended to set us free have become laws that bind, when regulations designed for our protection have become instead our prison, and when laws that force people to endure unbearable suffering have lost their power to heal. May we see as Jesus saw and have the courage to break the law, when breaking the law more powerfully demonstrates the love and the will of God.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in healing, Luke's gospel | Comments Off on Law or Compassion – healing on the Sabbath

Do you want to be made well?

May 24, 2025

Easter 6 – 2025

John 5:1-9

Marian Free

In the name of Christ who came that we might have life and have it in abundance. Amen.

“Do you want to be made well?” The invalid in today’s gospel has been unwell for 38 years – an enormous amount of time in any century, but an extraordinary length of time in a period when the average life span was around 30 years! There is no indication how long the man actually enjoyed good health or what his problem was. Perhaps he was born with an unnamed frailty. Regardless, for 38 years the invalid has been dependent on others for his existence – for food, for clothing, for shelter, and as he says, for help to get him into the healing waters of the pool.

“Do you want to be made well?” In all the gospels no one else is asked such a rude and intrusive question. Often Jesus is asked for healing, or he simply assumes that someone wants to receive healing and there is no interaction at all. Jesus isn’t always directly involved. The woman with a haemorrhage merely reaches out and touches Jesus’ cloak and healing flows from him to her. Jesus never asks whether a person deserves healing or not nor does he demand that the person seeking healing has faith.  On the one occasion on which he might have withheld healing, he allows the Canaanite woman to convince him that her daughter is as worthy of healing as any other. 

“Do you want to be made well?” Of all the people waiting for the water to move, Jesus approaches this one man. He doesn’t ask about the man’s condition, doesn’t say who he is, doesn’t engage in small talk – just asks one direct question. “Do you want to be made well?” The answer would appear to be self-evident – of course someone whose life had been limited and marred by frailty would want to be made well.

“Do you want to be made well?” Instead of giving a resounding “yes”, the man becomes defensive. “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” In other words, he is implying that his continued incapacity is everyone else’s fault but his own. Jesus is offering healing but what the invalid really wants is pity!

Jesus has touched a sore spot, forcing the man to ask himself what he really wants.  No doubt man thought that he had no choice, or maybe – at least subconsciously – he had understood that there were some advantages to being unwell. Thirty-eight years is a very long time, long enough for someone to get used to the situation, long enough to be resigned to this way of life, long enough to be unsure that an alternative way of life could be better. The man’s life may seem limited and impoverished from our point of view but that he was still alive after 38 years suggests that he was receiving sufficient support to live whether from his family or from strangers.

 If he were to be made well he would have to take responsibility for himself – find work and somewhere to live, he would be expected to marry, to have and support children of his own. He may have had no skills to earn a living or to reintegrate himself back into a society from which he has been absent for so long. He may have become used to the sympathy and attention that his condition afforded him and, in a world in which most people lived on or below the poverty line, begging may have been as good a way of earning a living as any other. In much the same way that a prisoner who has become used to prison – its routines, and the protection it offers – commits a crime in order to return, so our invalid appears to have become so used to his life that he can see no better way of living.

“Do you want to be made well?” “Are you living your best life?” “Are you making the best of your present circumstances?” “Are you using your God-given gifts to the best of your abilities?’

These are questions Jesus might be posing to any of us who have allowed ourselves to become so comfortable in our present situations that we see no need to change, to any of us who have turned down opportunities because we could not predict the consequences, or because we were worried about what we might have to leave behind, or to any of us who have drawn boundaries around ourselves that limit our growth and our experiences.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus wants us to live our best lives, to be and to do all that is possible with the gifts we have been given and the opportunities with which we have been provided.  He does not want us to be bound by people and things that do not need to be limitations.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus takes no notice of the invalid’s excuses. He can see the possibilities that await a man restored to health, to strength, to his family and his society. He can see, that despite the potential difficulties, the man’s life will be fuller, richer and happier if he stops making excuses, if he steps out in faith, if he believes that God does and will be with him. So, without waiting for an affirmative answer, he orders the man to: “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Without hesitation, the man does just that.

“Do you want to be made well?” Do you trust that God knows your potential and has your well-being at heart?                                                       Stand up, take your mat and walk.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in healing, John's Gospel | Comments Off on Do you want to be made well?

I once was blind but now I see – the healing of Bartimaeus

October 26, 2024

Pentecost 23 – 2024

Mark 10-46-52

Marian Free

In the name of God who opens the eyes to the truth of God’s being.  Amen.

One of the privileges of ministry has been teaching religious education. Trying to share the faith at age-appropriate levels or finding ways to encourage children to understand that God wants to encourage, not demand; to affirm, not condemn has led to some very deep reflection, to some amazing insights and above all to some magical moments in the classroom.

Children, at least those of eight years old and older, bring to religious education a degree of scepticism. Without fail, someone in the class will ask: but what about the dinosaurs? They, possibly influenced by their parents, want to challenge the creation story – the one at the beginning of Genesis that, if taken literally, suggests that God created the world in seven days. As someone who grew up with a copy of The Evolution of the Species on my bookshelf, I was never fazed by the question. The problem was, how could I explain say that I didn’t think the Genesis story was true without discrediting the Bible as a whole – especially when the students were only in year four (turning nine).

After some thought and much prayer, it occurred to me that Aesop’s Fables might provide the answer. When asked the question I would tell the story of the tortoise and the hare and ask the children if it were true. Students, eager to please, often said: ‘yes’. To which I would respond can animals really talk? ‘No’ they would say. ‘Does it tell us something that is true?’ I’d ask. ‘Yes!” would be the answer. This gave me an opportunity to draw a parallel with the accounts of creation in Genesis. They are not historically accurate, but they do reveal truths – truths about creation, about the human desire to be independent of God and so on.

One of the most rewarding lessons was the occasion on which I could almost see the cogs turning in a young girl’s head and a light bulb coming on as she realised that the Bible didn’t have to be historically accurate to be true. It was truly like watching her eyes open for the first time, as if this was something that had puzzled and now everything had fallen into place. 

Many of us have had such light bulb moments – those occasions when suddenly we see clearly – what we have to do, how to move forward, how to let go of the past. Sometimes those moments are lifechanging and we cannot believe that we had lived without such insights.

What does this have to do with Bartimaeus I hear you ask. Well, in one sense nothing. But it does have a lot to do with Mark’s telling of the Jesus’ story and in particular Jesus’ teaching on discipleship.

Many scholars believe that Mark 8:22 –10:52 form a discrete section in which Jesus teaches the disciples. Here, Jesus is revealing his true self and his mission to the disciples and educating them as to what it means to be disciples. Three times in these chapters Jesus announces that he is to suffer and die and to rise again, twice he reminds his disciples that the greatest among them will have to become their servant, and that they must become like children to enter the kingdom. The disciples are told that they must take up their cross and follow Jesus, that they must lose their life to gain it, and that with mortals it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Throughout this section, as Jesus tries to prepare the disciples for what Jerusalem has in store and the disciples consistently reveal their failure to understand, their determination that Jesus should be the type of Messiah that they were expecting. Peter rebukes Jesus when he says he has to suffer, the disciples argue about who is the greatest, and James and John ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand and his left.

Interestingly, the discussion on Jesus’ suffering and what it means to be disciples is framed by accounts of Jesus’ healing a blind man. The stories are very different, which suggest that Mark has deliberately sandwiched Jesus’ announcements between two stories of receiving sight. It is the differences between the healing stories that lead to this conclusion.  

In the first account (Mk 8:22-26) the blind man is brought to Jesus. Jesus takes the man outside the village, puts saliva on the man’s eyes and lays hands on him. When he asks if the man can see, he responds that he can see people but that they look like trees walking. Jesus tries again and this time the man is able to see. Once he is healed, he is sent (and he goes) home.

Bartimaeus does not need to be brought to Jesus. He is sitting begging on the road to Jerusalem.  When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is near, he calls out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Bartimaeus has agency (he does not need to be brought to Jesus). He has insight: he knows that Jesus is the one promised by God – Son of David. He is enthusiastic: he springs up and goes to Jesus. He is healed by Jesus’ word, and he is fully healed. He is told to go but instead he chooses to follow Jesus.

That Mark has chosen to frame Jesus’ journey and his revelations about himself, his mission and discipleship with stories of people coming to sight suggest that the gospel writer is describing for his readers a process of coming to understanding, of gaining insight that leads them to a fuller understanding of Jesus. That the first blind man didn’t see immediately reflects partial knowledge, knowledge that allows one to accept healing, but not to follow.  Bartimaeus is healed, he sees clearly, he leaves everything[1] and follows Jesus. All that Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples, Bartimaeus knows in an instant. His eyes have been opened to the truth and he cannot unsee it.

By framing the section on discipleship with the two different descriptions of healing, Mark illustrates the journey to faith – with all its missteps, setbacks, misunderstandings and finally submission. It is a story for all time. A journey into discipleship through ignorance and self-centredness to yearning, comprehension and finally to complete surrender.  

[1] It might not seem like much, but begging was a source of income, and presumably his home and family were in Jericho.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Bartimaues, healing, Mark's gospel | Comments Off on I once was blind but now I see – the healing of Bartimaeus

Who infects who? Woman with a haemorrhage.

July 2, 2024

Pentecost 6 – 2024

Mark 5:21-43

Marian Free

In the name of God who sees our deepest needs and sets us free. Amen.

Thanks to Reginald and Catherine Hamlin, the prevalence of obstetric fistula in Ethiopia became known and, more importantly, addressed. Their story is well known. The medical couple responded to an advertisement for a medico to establish a midwifery school in the hospital in Addis Adiba. Once there, it was not long before they observed the huge number of untreated injuries caused by childbirth. Instead of returning to New Zealand when their contract was completed, the couple founded the Addis Adiba Fistula Hospital. It is the only hospital of its kind and has treated over 60,000 women.

The tearing of the fistula during childbirth can have devastating consequences. It is especially prevalent in places where there is inadequate access to pre-and peri-natal care and where there are no midwives to assist with birth. In countries where child marriage is allowed and in which female circumcision is practiced the situation is even more dire. Girls whose bodies are not ready for childbirth become pregnant and genital mutilation can make the birthing process even more difficult. In Ethiopia something like 100,000 women and girls live with a fistula and around 9,000 new cases occur every year (this in 2022).

An obstetric fistula is a hole or tear that is created during a long or obstructed labour.  The tear creates a hole between the bladder and/or rectum which leads to leakage of urine or faeces over which the woman has no control. This in turn results not only in physical discomfort, psychological distress and infertility but also in rejection by the spouses and families of these women and social isolation. Rejected by their communities, young women who suffer from this condition become homeless and impoverished.

The medical situation of the woman with a haemorrhage in today’s gospel is different but the resulting situation is similar – rejection, isolation and penury. In the ancient world, blood, especially menstrual blood, rendered a woman unclean, a source of contamination and therefore as someone to be avoided. The woman with a haemorrhage would not only have been unclean, but also infertile. She would have been socially isolated and her value as a woman (able to bear children) would have been seriously compromised. The woman would have been an object of fear, isolated, destitute and desperate.

No wonder she takes her chance with Jesus. No wonder that she is driven to break the law, to cause offence and to risk the wrath of the crowds.  Jesus is her last and only hope of restoration – to health and to the community.

We know nothing of the woman, but we can imagine that she had been a person of some means, because she has, over the course of twelve years, been able to seek the help of doctors. Now she has spent all that she has on doctors – to no avail. 

Jesus’ reputation has reached the woman, and while the woman dare not appeal to him openly for fear of the crowd’s reaction, she presumably knows that that Jesus has not demonstrated an unwillingness to engage with those deemed unclean. After all, he has healed lepers who, like her are considered impure and forced to separate themselves from family and community. 

So when she learns that Jesus is near the woman somehow slips into the crowd, makes her way to Jesus and touches, not him, but his cloak.  Two things happen simultaneously – the woman knows that she is healed, and Jesus feels power flow from him to another. 

In Jesus, the process of contamination is reversed. His purity is not polluted by her impurity, her uncleanness does not taint him but rather her impurity is sanitised by his purity. His ‘power’, his pureness, moves from him to her, cleansing and restoring her. In healing the woman, Jesus not only sets her free from her suffering, but restores her to her family: “Daughter” he says.

It is easy to fool ourselves into believing that notions of purity and impurity belong to another time and age, but I challenge you  to think of the ways  in which we limit and exclude those who do not fit the norms of our own time, the ways in which we judge those with health issues that we do not understand, the barriers we place between ourselves and those who are different, the ways in which we exclude people from participation in things we take for granted. 

The examples are manifold so I shall only list a few – women with endometriosis who spend years and fortunes convincing doctors that they are unwell and are made to feel that the problem lies with them, the rough sleepers who endure our discomfort rather than our compassion and who feel our discomfort, fear and revulsion, our physical environments that make it impossible for the differently abled to fully participate in the lives we take for granted and which tell them of our indifference. Consciously or unconsciously, we isolate and protect ourselves from the suffering of others. 

Consciously or unconsciously, we send the message that we are repulsed or affronted by those whose situations we do not fully understand.

Time and again, Jesus demonstrates that compassion for and engagement with the despised and rejected takes nothing from himself and gives everything to them – restoring them physically, psychologically and socially. If we are willing to learn from his example, we will create a society in which everyone is valued, included and made whole, a world infected and transformed by kingdom of God.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in healing, Mark's gospel | Comments Off on Who infects who? Woman with a haemorrhage.

Holding on to Jesus

February 3, 2024

Epiphany 5 – 2024

Mark 1:29-39

Marian Free

In the name of God who will not be held or confined. Amen.

The gospel reading set for today raises far more questions than it answers. What looks like a relatively simple healing story, followed by a story of Jesus’ sense of mission is much, much more. You will remember that Jesus has spent time in the synagogue. There he was confronted by a man with an evil spirit.  When he cast out the demon he raised the ire of the leaders of the synagogue because they interpreted the exorcism as ‘work’, something that was forbidden on the Sabbath. 

In today’s reading Jesus leaves synagogue and goes to the home of Simon and Andrew.  On hearing that Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever, Jesus goes to her, lifts her up and the fever is gone. The mother-in-law immediately gets up and serves them. At sunset – when the Sabbath has ended – people (the whole city!) bring the sick and the possessed to be healed by Jesus. We are not told, but we presume that Jesus has some time to sleep, because he gets up before dawn to find somewhere quiet to pray.

The account seems straight forward, but if we look closer we are left wondering about a number of things.

  1. Why, in a patriarchal society, is Peter’s mother-in-law living in the home of Peter and Andrew? If she is a widow, her sons not her daughter would be responsible for her and yet she is here with Peter.  
  2. If Peter has a mother-in-law, then he has a wife who is never mentioned and is presumably left to run a household and care for children while her husband and sole source of support abandons his job and his family to go with Jesus. 

We learn nothing else about Peter’s family life.

  • Another puzzle is this – why does the author say that the woman (Peter’s mother-in-law) got up and served them? Is it to prove that she is completely made well or is something else happening here. Peter’s wife is the host, it would be her role to serve the guests. The woman’s actions make sense if we understand that in the ancient world healing was seen not just as a cure for the physical ill, but as a restoration of the person to the community.  Serving guests would have been a sign of the woman’s full re-integration into the family and the community. That is well and good but why, one might ask, does the author use the word ‘diakonos’ for serve? Diakonos – the word we use for deacon – is used by Mark only for Peter’s mother-in-law, angels, and Jesus. Is this a hint that women had formal liturgical roles in the Marcan community or played a significant role among the disciples?
  • Another Greek word is equally puzzling. Mark uses the word “katadiöxen” when speaking of the disciples looking for Jesus.  This word can be translated in a number of ways – “hunted” (as in our translation), “pursued”, “looked for”, or “searched for”. ‘Hunted’ gives us a sense of the disciples’ urgency. They have woken to find Jesus missing and are anxious to bring him back. By now, they have seen what Jesus can do, and they know that they want to be part of it. As his disciples, they would also have felt a sense of responsibility for all the people of their city who still seek Jesus’ healing power.
  • Lastly, and this is the question I’d like to focus on, is why, when the crowds are searching for Jesus does he insist on abandoning them and moving to another place?

The author gives us the answer. Jesus responds to the disciples: “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

“So that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

Jesus’ primary focus was never on the miraculous, but on the message. It was never about having crowds of adoring fans, but on challenging people to change their lives around. His mission was not to heal, but to proclaim the good news, to teach God’s inclusive, unconditional love and to draw the whole community into a relationship with God that was based not on their observance of the law, but on God’s love for them.  Jesus heals because he can. Jesus heals because he has compassion not because that is what he was sent to do. Jesus casts out demons because they stand between him and his message of love and inclusion. He casts out demons because they hold people in their thrall and keep them separated from the love of God – not because he wants to draw attention to himself. 

Jesus’ mission was never about building his ego as is made clear in the accounts of the wilderness temptations in Matthew and Luke. There, the devil tempts him to turn stones into bread, to jump from the Temple so that the angels can catch him. Jesus resists the temptation to do the showy and obvious – even though that might have been a much quicker way to gain an audience and to build a following. But it is not about him. It is not about what he can do, but about the message he has come to bring.

Jesus knows that some will follow him because of what he has to offer them. He knows too that they will not last the journey.

If we turn Jesus into a miracle worker, we see only the surface. If we want a hero who works magic then we will lose interest when the magic is not in evidence. If we want someone to make everything right, we will fall away when life gets hard.  So when the disciples seek him out and urge him to return, he turns his face away from the easy option. He will not stay and be made a local hero. He will do what he came to do and preach God’s kingdom.

Who is Jesus to you?  Would you like to own and contain him as your personal helper or are you willing to stand on your own two feet, take Jesus’ teaching as your standard and your comfort and let Jesus go so that his message might ring throughout the world?

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in healing, Mark's gospel | Comments Off on Holding on to Jesus

Just how blind are we?

October 23, 2021

Pentecost 22 – 2021
Mark 10:46-52
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver. Amen.

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself wondering what is going on in the Marcan community and why the author of this gospel has felt the need to be so repetitive in chapters 8 through 10 of his gospel. With any luck you haven’t noticed, but I feel as though I have been saying the same thing over and over for the past five weeks. In this time, Jesus has, according to our gospel readings, announced his death and resurrection on no less than three occasions and on each of these occasions the disciples have wilfully or foolishly chosen to misunderstand his teaching. Peter rebuked Jesus, the disciples competed among each other to determine who was the greatest and James and John asked to sit at Jesus’ right hand and his left.

It seems that it is impossible for the disciple to believe that the one whom they have chosen to follow will not be triumphant – whether against the power of Rome or the power of evil. Despite everything that Jesus says – that those who follow him must take up their cross, that those who want to save their life must lose it, that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all, and that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve – the disciples seem to be blind to the implications of Jesus’ announcements and of the consequences of following one who will suffer and die.

Today’s gospel addresses this question of blindness. What appears on the surface to be a simple account of healing has, on closer examination, hidden depths. To fully understand the healing of Bartimaeus we must place it into its historical/cultural context as well as into its literary context.

Current scholarship believes that the gospel of Mark was written in about 70CE for a community who lived in rural Syria-Palestine. This being the case, the Marcan community would have recently been victims (or at least witnesses) of Vespasian’s brutal put down of the Northern revolt in 68CE. In the year 70 Jerusalem was razed to the ground, and the Temple – the centre of Jewish faith – destroyed. The impact of these events must have been profound. It is plausible that the community of faith were both confused and frightened. What sort of God would allow Jerusalem to be destroyed? Why did God not intervene and defeat the Romans instead of allowing them to destroy all that was holy?

Mark’s threefold repetition of Jesus’ announcement of his death makes sense against this background, as does the emphasis on servanthood and the instruction to take up one’s cross. In effect, Mark is reminding a community that is uncertain about their place in the world and anxious about their safety in the present and future that faith in a crucified Saviour turns everything upside down. It is not about triumphalism or success, but about submission and service. Following Jesus means being prepared to lose their lives in order to save them.

By the time Mark put pen to paper, Jesus had been dead for forty years and it is almost certain that any eyewitnesses to the events of his life and death were also dead. No doubt the community of faith had settled into some sort of comfortable existence – a comfort that has been shattered by recent events. It should come as no surprise to us that they needed a reminder of the origins of their faith and of the gruesome death that lay at its heart.

In literary terms, today’s gospel concludes a section of the gospel that began in chapter 8 with the healing of another blind man. The disciples’ blindness (or unwillingness to see what it means to follow Jesus) is framed accounts of blind men receiving their sight. Of significance is the difference between the two healing stories. In the first (8:22) the blind man does not see clearly after Jesus’ first attempt at healing. Initially he can see people, “but they look like trees, walking.” Jesus has to lay his hands on the man’s eyes for a second time before he can see clearly. In this morning’s account Jesus only has to say: “Your faith has made you well” for the man’s sight to be completely restored.

It would appear that Mark has structured his account of Jesus is such a way that he is able to confront the blindness and the misunderstanding of the community for whom he is writing. Their blindness is represented by their competitiveness, their striving for recognition or for positions of power and above all, by their failure to understand that following Jesus means both service and suffering. Forty years after Jesus’ death it seems that they need to be reminded of what it means to follow a crucified Saviour.

At the beginning of this section of the gospel Mark portrays the understanding of the disciples is as cloudy and indistinct as that of the blind man. The immediate healing of Bartimaeus at the conclusion of the segment appears to signify that Jesus has told the disciples all that they need to know and that the disciples should now be clear both about Jesus’ mission and about the roles that they must assume as his followers. In other words, over the course of this period of teaching Jesus has opened the eyes of the disciples to the reality of discipleship.

In what are challenging and confronting circumstances, the author of Mark’s gospel seems to be reminding his community that suffering, not victory, lies at the heart of their faith and that discipleship means following in the footsteps of Jesus, even to the point of death.

If I am right and Mark is writing to a specific group of people at a specific time in history, what does his gospel have to say to those of us who are so far removed from that time and place?

Our challenge is not that we are experiencing persecution and destruction, but rather that we comfortable and complacent.

I find myself wondering – How would the author of Mark speak to our situation? What misconceptions do we hold that he would have to address? What are the blind spots that he would feel that he had to call out?

Are our lives a witness to the fact that we follow one who put others first – to the extent that he gave his life for the world?

What would the author of Mark have to say to us – to me, to you?

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Bartimaues, healing, Mark's gospel | Comments Off on Just how blind are we?

Praying for a miracle

February 3, 2018

Epiphany 5 – 2018

Mark 1:29-39

Marian Free

In the name of God who brings us to newness of life and calls us into service. Amen.

For the last eighteen months or so, I have been praying for a miracle. A young woman of my acquaintance has terminal cancer. The best that the medical community can do is to delay the inevitable. To that end Mary, who gave birth to her child shortly before the cancer was diagnosed, is enduring endless surgery and chemotherapy in the hope that she might live long enough to see her child go to school. I have been praying for a miracle – hoping against hope and against all evidence to the contrary that somehow the cancer can be reversed, that the damage to this Mary’s body can be sufficiently healed that she can watch her child grow to adulthood, that her child can have a mother and her husband a wife. I am praying for a miracle because I believe in miracles not because I expect a miracle or understand what a miracle is or when a miracle happens. I am certain that God acts in this world in ways that we cannot begin to understand, but I am equally certain that we cannot control or manipulate God or force God to do our will. So I am praying for a miracle, but I am also praying that my friend will know the presence of God in her life as she faces whatever future lies ahead of her.

It is true that the gospels record instances of Jesus’ healing all kinds of injury and ailments. There is even evidence that Jesus raises the dead. Jesus quite clearly responds with compassion to those in need and we can be confident that he was able to perform miracles. In reporting Jesus’ miracles the intention of the gospel writers is more complex than simply presenting Jesus as one miracle worker among many. The gospel accounts of Jesus’ healing are multi-layered and are intended to expose more than the surface event. Today’s gospel reading, in particular the account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, is an example of the complexity of Mark’s story-telling and an indication that his intention is not so much to reveal Jesus as a healer but to point to the deeper meaning of Jesus’ ministry and purpose.

Reading the story in isolation fails to do it justice. Mark skillfully works into this account for example, that the occasion is a Sabbath day (Jesus has just been in the synagogue where he has cast out a demon). In these verses, we see that Jesus moves between public and private spaces – synagogue, house, crowds, wilderness and towns in Galilee. At the same time Jesus’ fame is spreading and this serves to increase the tension not only between Jesus and the sources of evil, but also between Jesus and the authorities.

At the heart of today’s reading is the healing of Jesus’ mother-in-law. All the elements of this story are important. The one healed is a family member. She has a fever – something that in the first century could lead to death. As a result of her illness the woman is no longer able to function in the way that she normally would. She is unable to play her role in society. The woman is at risk of dying, restricted in what she can do and her social interactions have been significantly curtailed.

Jesus responds by taking her hand (as he does in many other healing stories) and raising her up. The Greek word translated as ‘lifted’ is in fact the word for ‘raised’. This word appears in a number of healing stories and, of course, points forward to Jesus own resurrection. As a result of Jesus’ actions the fever leaves the woman (as the demon left the man in the previous story). Restored to health and life, the woman ‘serves’ those who are present.

It is this last that is most misunderstood. Some have tried to theologise or explain away this part of the story. Others are concerned that the woman is being returned to the domestic sphere (being kept in her place as it were). What we see however is that Mark’s account of the healing conforms to the pattern that is generally used for miracle stories: the healer touches the person – who is cured instantly and who then acts in such a way that it is clear that they have been healed. The woman’s service then is an indication that she has been cured – she is doing what women do – it is also more than that. The Greek word ‘diakonos’ means to serve food or to wait on tables. (It is from Acts 6 and the choice of Gentiles to serve at tables that our ministry of the diaconate has emerged.) Mark then may be intending to suggest that Peter’s mother-in-law is exercising a form of ministry or discipleship. The word ‘diakonos’ is used for discipleship in Mark 9:33-37 and 10:43-45 and of the women who followed Jesus in Mark 15:41. Jesus’ own ministry is described in terms of service. It is possible then, that rather than confining Peter’s mother-in-law to the domestic sphere, Mark is opening up possibilities for ministry and discipleship.

For the author of Mark’s gospel miracles have a significance in and of themselves but more important is their significance for our understanding of Jesus’ mission and of our response to that mission.

I will continue to pray for a miracle, but I will do so as I have: aware that Mark reports on the miracles of Jesus, not so much as events of themselves but as a sign that Jesus can raise people from lives that are deadening into lives that are fulfilling, that Jesus restores the lost to their families and their communities and gives meaning to their existence and that those who have been raised from death to life respond through discipleship and service. Above all when Jesus raises the sick to wholeness, he is pointing forward to his own resurrection and to the assurance that no matter whether we are healed or not in this life we will all, with Jesus, be raised to life eternal.

(I am indebted to Cynthia Briggs Kettridge for some of these ideas http://www.workingpreaching.org and to Ben Witherington III for the reminder about the structure of miracle stories The Gospel of Mark a Social-Rhetorical Commentary.)

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in healing, Mark's gospel, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Praying for a miracle