Mark 10.46-52

During the fourteen years I served as rector of St. Luke’s Church in San Diego, I tried every year to preach about healing ministry on a Sunday near St. Luke’s Day (18 October). The reason I developed this tradition is that Luke is the patron saint for doctors, and for all of us who are somehow engaged in healing ministry. So I wanted to lift up this ministry at least once per year and remind the church that our Lord has called us to be involved in it.

Now I am here at St. Dunstan’s Church, and I want to do the same thing---I want to preach about healing ministry at least once per year, preferably near St. Luke’s Day, and recognize those from our church who are engaged in it. When I asked Fr. Fred about this, he was enthusiastic. So today I’d like to talk to you about Jesus’ healing ministry in the Bible, about the church’s healing ministry throughout history, and about our healing ministry here at St. Dunstan’s.

JESUS’ HEALING MINISTRY IN THE BIBLE

Where did our healing ministry as Christians begin? It began with Jesus’ own ministry that we read about in the Gospels. Matthew 9.35 describes his ministry with these words: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness.” Jesus taught, evangelized, and healed people---the sick, the deaf, the leprous, the demonized, and the blind. Our four Gospels have twenty-six different healing stories in them, one-fifth of their content.

Today’s Gospel from Mark 10 is one of those healing stories. It was obviously an important story for the first Christians because it is in three Gospels, and it gives us the name of the one healed: Bartimaeus. He is a blind man, sitting by the road outside of Jericho, begging money from the crowds traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover. When he hears that Jesus is in the crowd, he cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” The people around him try to quiet him, but he just keeps yelling. And Jesus hears him, stops, and calls him to come. That is all the encouragement Bartimaeus needs. He jumps up and comes to Jesus, who asks him this important question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus knows what he wants, and it’s not money---he wants his sight back. Jesus gives him what he wants, and more, because the Gospel tells us that after Bartimaeus was healed he followed Jesus on the way!

Although there are many lessons we could draw from this healing story, I want to point out just one. Jesus’ purpose in healing is not just that we might be restored to health, but that we might follow him as his disciples. All physical healing in this life is temporary---one day we will die. But following Jesus as his disciples is forever. Healing ministry, if it is from Jesus, is not about the healing received, but about the healer who brings it. If Jesus heals us today, it is because he wants us to follow him.

THE CHURCH’S HEALING MINISTRY THROUGHOUT HISTORY

What did the followers of Jesus do with his healing ministry? The New Testament tells us that they continued it. In the book of Acts, we read about the apostles teaching, evangelizing, and healing just as Jesus did. In Acts 3, Peter and John heal a man lame from birth, who is begging outside the temple. Acts 6 tells us that Stephen, the first deacon, “did great wonders and signs among the people.” And later in Acts, the apostle Paul heals people in Jesus’ name as part of his missionary work.

But it wasn’t just the apostles who carried on Jesus’ healing ministry. In 1 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul includes gifts of healing among the various gifts of the Spirit which are given to the whole church for its ministry in all times and places. In James 5, a passage I use when I visit the sick, the brother of Jesus writes, “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” Throughout the history of the church, there have always been gifted lay people and clergy who have visited the sick, prayed for them, anointed them with oil, given them loving care, and continued Jesus’ healing ministry.

This summer on vacation I read the book Christianity on Trial by Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett. In it the authors trace the development of hospitals and modern medical care back to the first few centuries of the church. Medical care did exist before Christianity, but it was usually for soldiers or important people. Christians, on the other hand, cared for the sick who were poor, leprous, unwanted, or abandoned. The Council of Nicea in the year 325 ordered that “hospitals should be erected in every city of the empire” (p.148). In the middle ages, monasteries had infirmaries for the sick and houses for lepers. In the nineteenth century, an Episcopal priest named Thomas Gallaudet pioneered ministry to the deaf, and became the inspiration for the premier school for educating the hearing impaired, Gallaudet University. I think it is fair to say that much of modern medicine today is a direct result of the church continuing Jesus’ healing ministry.

OUR HEALING MINISTRY AT ST. DUNSTAN’S

How do we do healing ministry right here at St. Dunstan’s Church? We have several ways that we carry on Jesus’ work in and through this congregation. Some of you are in healing professions (doctor, nurse, dentist, therapist, social service). Jesus is at work through you in your job. Some of you are Stephens Ministers, trained to come alongside and listen to people who need a spiritual friend. Jesus is at work healing people when you listen. Some of you are part of the prayers and squares ministry, sewing quilts that go to the sick. Jesus is working through you to heal those who receive the quilts. Some of you are in The Daughters of the King. You pray daily for those on our parish prayer list who need healing. And some of you are part of our Healing Prayer Team that makes itself available on Sundays and by appointment during the week to anoint and pray for the sick. It is this last group I particularly want to recognize today, and describe for you.

Over fifteen years ago, a group of people in this parish felt that God was calling them to anoint with oil, lay hands on, and pray for the sick. The group has changed over the years, but recently we have felt a renewed call to the healing ministry here at St. Dunstan’s. Every Sunday members of our Healing Prayer Team are available in the prayer garden to your left. They are there to pray for healing in any area of your life---physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. They are carefully trained and supervised in this ministry as members of the Order of St. Luke the Physician. They keep confidential whatever you share with them. They are loving, Spirit-filled people who carry on the healing ministry that Jesus began in the Bible. In just a few moments I will introduce them to you.

So today I am beginning here the tradition I developed at St. Luke’s Church. God willing and Fr. Fred permitting, every year around St. Luke’s Day I plan to lift up the healing ministry that Jesus began and entrusted to his church. It is a ministry that this church already has in abundance, one that I will continue to lift up and support as long as I am around here.

The Rev. David Montzingo, Associate Rector
St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church
San Diego, California, USA