Trinity 5: 19th
October 2008
Preacher: Nikki
Devitt
Churches: Draycott
and Rodney Stoke
Readings:
Ezekiel 36, 23-28
Hebrews 2;11-3:1
Luke 13, 10-17
Address for Healthcare Sunday 2008
Today is designated as ‘Healthcare Sunday’ because it is the closest Sunday to the
feast of St Luke.
As well as being the writer of the 3rd gospel,
and the travelling companion of Paul,
He is described as ‘the dearly beloved physician’ in the
letter to the Colossians.
And so Luke is now regarded as the patron Saint of Doctors,
and by extension, of all heath care workers. (We regard the delivery of
healthcare as a team effort these days, and not the exclusive preserve of
doctors...and all healthcare workers need a patron saint!)
So on this St. Luke’s day I would like to reflect on our
readings not only as a ‘cub’ reader, but also from the perspective of a
healthcare worker :
As many of you know, I work as a doctor at Weston hospital:
I spend my days caring for people who have various diseases,
…. which have stopped people in their tracks, and often put
limitations on them
which they will have to live with for the rest of their
days.
Of course, people’s
illnesses don’t define them, and people often feel enemies to a
body that has let them down. People who have suffered stroke, or heart disease,
or cancer for example, feel that they are so much more than the wasting flesh
that is somehow betraying them and stopping them living their lives to the
full…
Which is true, of course they are more than just
their damaged bodies,
Nevertheless, our flesh is what we live in,
however damaged and imperfect it may be.
The self that we communicate to others
and indeed the self that God deals with
is not some mysterious inner core,
but you and me,the whole of us, just as we are, in our
bodies.:
I think we’re very ready to be persuaded that the higher
activities of the human mind, like learning and relating to others, and indeed
praying, are about some other realm than flesh.
But flesh is, the way we communicate with other people,
and how we learn ,
through hands and eyes and lips and tongues…and that most
remarkably specialised bit of flesh, the human brain. These are surely gifts of
wonderful complexity…and to be celebrated , not denigrated or denied: we should
surely say with the psalmist:
I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
And yet, unfortunately St Paul in particular has given
‘flesh’ a bad press over the years. Somehow he always speaks of flesh as a
downward drag
or source of deception, and there has been no shortage of
puritanical voices through the ages to re-iterate the message:
So Paul declares
‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,’ (1Cor
15)
We who glory in Christ put no confidence in the flesh—(Phil 3)
Now I would suggest this negative idea of the
flesh seems quite at odds with the promise of God to Ezekiel in our 1st
reading.
I will give you a
new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you
your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh.
I think this suggests that God’s way is towards
and into the flesh, not away from it (pace Paul!)
Ezekiel is implying that if we refuse to be flesh,
we become less, not more, than human:
we acquire instead a heart of stone.
For Ezekiel that means a heart which cuts itself off from
God,
a heart which becomes selfish, idolatrous, incapable of
sharing, or learning.
But instead, God promises us hearts of flesh- warm, mobile
and fragile…
So at the very centre of ourselves there will be something
essentially fragile and vulnerable:
Because it is our flesh which enables us to communicate and
relate to others:
To listen to and
speak with, and share with the poor, the ill-treated, and , the despised in our
society
in short it is only
through our flesh that we can be compassionate or literally to feel with other people.
And as well as this promise to Ezekiel, to give us hearts of
flesh, we know that God’s way is to be incarnate, or fleshed out in
Jesus.
Even the writer of Hebrews, with his High priestly theology,
reminds us that Jesus shares our flesh and blood, and is not ashamed to call us
brothers.
And it is a very human,
a very flesh and blood Jesus who reaches out to the sick
woman in the synagogue in this morning’s gospel reading, and heals her.
Luke describes the woman’s illness in a very striking way:
he says
(literally)she had ‘a spirit of weakness and was not able to
unbend at all’
..the way Luke has phrased this suggests that perhaps no
organic cause had been found for her disability (such things still happen):
·
perhaps her daily labour was back-breaking
·
…or perhaps her spirit had been crushed by bullying or abuse
over the years and she had forgotten how to look up, with confidence and pride.
Whatever the cause of her symptoms, Jesus saw her
predicament, her broken body,
and he touched her and healed her.
The synagogue president was quick to criticise: Jesus was
quite out of order:
it was risky in that
society for a man to touch a woman at the best of times, she ‘d be ritually
unclean if she happened to be menstruating, and would contaminate the person touching her.
And not only that, this particular woman is crippled, which definitely
makes her unacceptable, and worse, Jesus has broken the Sabbath
observance by healing her on that day, and in the synagogue, of all places.
But Jesus criticises the hypocrisy of the synagogue elders:
‘You untie an animal to give it water on the Sabbath; how much
more should I untie this woman from what bound her?’
(You get the point about the untying?..It’s not always that
clear in the translations we use)
So the purpose of the healing is to free the flesh which has
been in bondage to oppression …of whatever kind…
and let it dance free.
So…the woman bent double is an image for the flesh turned in
on itself
unloving and unlearning, self-serving and self-defensive.
That’s what Ezekiel
would call having a heart of stone
But the healed or released body can turn outwards again: it
is our way of connecting with God and with the world.
And how else can we do it, but in our flesh?
And so we ask our incarnate God to give us hearts of flesh,
to free us up to be welcoming and compassionate.
And so may God make of us
all that he would have us be. Through Jesus Christ.
Amen.