St. Charles Episcopal Church - Saint Charles, IL

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - Feast of Luke the Evangelist

Sunday, October 30, 2011- Installation of New Member of the Order of St. Luke

Ecclesiasticus 38:1-4,6-10,12-14 – Psalm 147:1-7 – 2 Timothy 4:5-13 – Luke 4:14-21

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

To listen to the sermon as it was preached at the 9:00 am service, click here.
To listen to the sermon as it was preached at the 10:45 am service (text below), click here.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

This week as I prepared for this celebration of feast of St. Luke, my mind was very much focused on healing. I knew that we would be installing Kathy and Jerry Mertes as the newest full members of the Order of St. Luke, as well as our normal offering of healing prayers, and I wanted to illuminate the theme of healing using today’s readings. Just back from my wonderful retreat time in the desert of Arizona, I was very optimistic because there seemed to be no end of examples available for a pithy, learned, tight, and of course theologically sound discussion on the need for healing in our world today--The racial divisions in our society, so clearly illuminated by the continuing problems in immigration reform. The class divisions in our allegedly classless society, between the rich and the less so, illuminated by the ongoing anger and unrest of the occupy Wall Street protests. The religious divisions that continue to boil in a country founded among other things on the premise that a diversity of religions ought to be able to live side by side and strengthen rather than weaken a country. Issues of justice too fought for my attention; The end of capital punishment, and the rights of gay couples in our society, to name just a couple. All of these topics crowded around me, pressing in on me as I worked on the sermon. That’s a lot of healing to do in 12 minutes of preaching.

It took me a day or so to realize that I was going about it all wrong. I had a point that I wanted to make, and had wasted a day and a half trying to find a way to do it by using our texts for today. (I know better than that...usually). I threw out my newspapers and notes from evening newscasts. I even threw out my premise of preaching on healing. It was Saturday night and I was getting desperate. (No scratch that...centered). I read the readings again.....and again. And I sat and waited.. a bit like the people of Nazareth in their synagogue, eyes fixed on Jesus.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Fresh out of the desert where he was tempted by the devil, and still filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, Luke tells us that Jesus entered the synagogue where he was raised and heralded his ministry to humanity with those words. The announcement of jubilee – the loosing of the law. Wiping the slate clean. The good ol’ do-over of my childhood. That ultimate healing.

OK. Perhaps there’s a spark there, I thought.

I threw on my jacket and walked out into the night to muse. Looking up at the stars peaking around the clouds, I thought about the last time I gazed up at the night sky, two weeks ago in Arizona.

On that night I was walking back to my cabin staring up in wonder at a sky ablaze with starlight. I could see a lot more stars because I was looking up through desert air, which is clearer, and from a few thousand feet higher than here, so the air was thinner than here as well. At the time I was feeling almost euphoric because I had just laid down a burden that I didn’t even know I had been carrying. In one of those strange moments of clarity I found myself bouncing back in my mind’s eye to my middler year of seminary, another time of heavy burdens, when I had been gifted through my wife’s good graces with a free trip to Australia.

We were only there for 7 days, but it certainly was a time of jubilee; The week of the Lord’s favor. Seven days in 5 star hotels at someone else’s expense. The whole time Beverly and I were there, we kept saying to each other, “This is like a dream.” Knots of tension and pressure were untied. The pain and loss of the death of two close friends in the previous year, dissolved in the anointing of jubilee. We discovered again the gift of joy and wonder in all the works of God. We were healed. As I remembered that time in Australia, while walking in the desert air of Arizona, the two moments seemed fused together by the power of remembering and knowing again what healing feels like. It is wonder; that moment when body, mind, and spirit together stand in awe before the infinite. It is to be made new again.

Walking back inside, this new/old memory reminded me of what I know when I am paying attention. Healing isn’t about curing, though they often go hand in hand. Curing is about an absence of disease. Healing is about the presence of health and relationship; a connection with God that transcends disease. Two of the most powerful sacraments of healing lie at the core of who we are as a people of God, and yet they are rarely thought of in that way. Through baptism, all the sickness of sin is washed away in a torrent of healing that in the early church was often delayed until late in life to assure that a person met their maker as free from sin as possible. Bad theology, I know, but there you go. The other “unknown” sacrament of healing is actually Eucharist. In the regular communion with the spiritual food of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we invite Christ into ourselves, as we offer ourselves to Christ. Through this mutual indwelling of Spirit the healing power of Christ lives and works in us, but even more wonderfully, lives and works through us. These two sacraments empower all the ministry of the church. Later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus will charge his followers to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick. All of the mystery of healing begins with a question. It is a simple question to ask, but behind it lies the healing power of God working through you to change the world. “How may I pray for you?”

Today, and on the last Sunday of every month, at our early and late services, members of the Order of St. Luke offer an opportunity to ask for healing through the sacramental act of laying on of hands and anointing. To bring before God all that is not well in our lives. To offer it up, and to stand in awe before the infinite grace of God. And to be prayed over and anointed. Anointed for healing, yes, but also for ministry. To bring good news to the poor in spirit. To proclaim release to those in the captivity of anger and recovery of sight to those blinded by greed or power. To let those oppressed by anxiety go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lords favor. In short, to bring God’s healing into the world, as you are healed.

I bid you, go to all those in need, and to ask them simply, “How may I pray for you.” And then, listen to their concerns. Pray for those who can’t, or won’t. Praywith those who will. Be an agent of God’s healing in the world. And through Gods grace the scripture will be fulfilled in our hearing.... again and again and again. Amen.