Or has made all things “Whole”. Readings for the upcoming weekend are intended to reassure hearers that God is not only all-powerful but has mercy and compassion on even the least of Creation, even (and especially) the growing things and the young ravens. There’s a definite connection between WHOLENESS and HOLINESS–and completion. When we seek healing we’re really after perfection, a restoration of How Things Should Be. Some of that is a matter of taking our assigned spot, humbling as that may be, and letting God BE God.
Second Isaiah writes from Babylon (40:21-31) that God is beyond our imagination: “To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?” Despite this majesty, God is One who renews the strength of the exhausted and the weary, causing them/us to rise up with eagle wings and resume their allotted space in Creation’s scheme. It appears that God will comfort us despite our earthly limitations–if we totally renounce our arrogant desire to control everything…
Paul continues (I Corinthians 9:16-23) what he broached last week, that our “freedom” is limited by our responsibility: we’re not to pull the fire alarm during a crowded basketball game! His desire is to become like even those “outside the law” in order to understand their point of view better. Has not God, in the Incarnation, done the same? Stepped “down” from Heaven’s clouds to be human? This identification with the un-Whole is the real freedom, and from this healing proceeds. V. Bruce Rigdon maintains that “the Gospel envisions freedom as the right of individuals, not to do as they choose, but rather to relinquish their rights for the sake of others.” (FEASTING on the WORD, B 1:33)
After exorcising the demon in the synagogue, Jesus & Co. go to Simon Peter’s house for supper (Mark 1:29-39). But Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed! Not to worry: Jesus took her hand, she got better, and served them supper! Sexist, at first view, we see here classic healing: the touch of Jesus restores the sick one to their normal role. There seems to be a need for touch, an intimate knowing of the person and participating in their bodily imperfections. Dr. John Sherwood, a wise physician, told me always to touch the patient in some way, affirming their “touchability” and thus noting their worth. In an important footnote, Jesus isn’t content to stay caged in Capernaum as a resident healer and economic source. He has a wider area in which to teach and heal…
These readings speak kindly to the “lame, the least, and the lost” and the reader will do well to present them clearly and with a sense of “right now”. The quest for Wholeness is an everyday occurrance, especially in the grip of a never-ending pandemic. Many (most?) of us don’t expect to survive, no less return to what we remember as “normal”. Yet in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All is well…”
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
You’re invited to watch me get slapped by Scripture readings assigned to the upcoming weekend every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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