New Philadelphia Sermons
The Great Physician
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In his novel, The Testament, John Grisham tells the story of a sick man touched by the Great Physician. Nate O’Riley is a partner is a super successful law firm. His success has brought him only grief. When we first meet him he is in a drug treatment center. His stay is costing his firm $1,000 dollars a day. It is his 4th time, and. He has three ex-wives, and he does not speak to his children. He has had countless affairs, including one with a college girl who introduced him to the highs and lows of cocaine. He is a confirmed alcoholic, and an addictive personality. To say he is a burnt-out case is an understatement. Then Nate’s firm gives him an usual assignment. They send him into the rainforests of Brazil to seek out a woman named Rachel Lane. Rachel is a missionary doctor serving in a remote Indian village in the far reaches of the Pantanal. She is the illegitimate daughter of Troy Phelan, who has just died by his own hand. Moments before leaping from his penthouse in the skyscraper from which his 11 billion dollar empire is controlled, Phelan revoked a will leaving all his money to his six legitimate children by his three ex-wives, and signed a new will leaving his entire fortune to Rachel. Of all Phelan’s children only Rachel has used her life for a good purpose. When Nate finds Rachel. She is living in a grass hut in the middle of a remote Indian village. She owns nothing, and enjoys no physical comforts beyond sunshine and green grass. Unaccountably for Nate, Rachel is supremely happy. Nate does his job. He explains about her father’s will, and the money. He tells her that she is now the richest woman in the world. He tells her how much good she could do by taking it. He tells her how it will be squandered if it goes to her selfish brothers and sisters. To Nate’s surprise Rachel is not interested. She refuses to sign the papers that would allow her to claim the money. Nate has never met anyone like her. Rachel is not interested in the money, but she is interested in Nate, not as a potential lover, but as a human being for whom Christ died. One of the great scenes in the book occurs when Nate tells Rachel the story of his miserable life. He leaves out nothing. He confesses everything to her. She tells him that he needs God. He protests that he does not even know how to pray. Grisham writes: She took his hand and squeezed it firmly. "Close your eyes, Nate. Repeat after me: Dear God, forgive me of my sins, and help me to forgive those who have sinned against me." Nate mumbled the words and squeezed her hand even harder. It sounded vaguely similar to the Lord’s Prayer. She continued, "Give me strength to overcome temptations, and addictions, and the trials ahead." Nate kept mumbling, kept repeating her words, but the little ritual was confusing. Prayer was easy for Rachel because she did so much of it. For him it was a strange rite. "Amen," she said. They opened their eyes but kept their hands together. They listened to the water as it rushed gently over the rocks. There was an odd sensation as (Nate’s) burdens seemed to be lifted; his shoulders felt lighter, his head clearer, his soul was less troubled. But Nate carried so much baggage he wasn’t certain which loads had been taken away and which remained. He was still frightened by the real world. It was easy to be brave deep in the Pantanal where the temptations were few, but he knew what waited for him at home. "Your sins are forgiven, Nate," she said. "Which ones? There are so many.’ "All of them." "It’s too easy. There’s a lot of wreckage back there." "We’ll pray again tonight." "It was take more for me than most folks." "Trust me, Nate. And trust God. He’s seen worse." "I trust you. It’s God who’s got me worried." The rest of the book is about Nate learning how to trust God. It is about the resolution of a fortune, and it is about the restoration of a life. It is the story of a man who goes from total collapse to total health. It is the story of a life touched not just by a missionary doctor in a jungle, but by the Great Physician. Some will say, "This is only fiction." Yes, but it is classic fiction. It is the telling of a specific story about specific humans beings in a specific time and place, yet it tells the true story of countless individuals in a many of times and places. My story is different from Nate’s story, but is somehow the same. Certainly your story is different from Nate’s story, but it, too, is somehow the same. Perhaps it is wrong to speak of Nate’s story, and my story, and your story. Perhaps all stories are really, his-story. St. Paul was telling his-story in 1st Corinthians 15 when he said, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." St. Paul was telling his-story in Galatians 2 when he said, "I am crucified with Christ. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." The author of 1st Peter was telling his-story chapter 2 when he said, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." In Cormac McCarthy’s book, No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Bell reflects on his bad luck, then he reflects upon how much worse luck his bad luck may have saved him from. If bad luck can save us from worse luck, and I believe it can, how much more can a relationship with Jesus Christ save us from a multitude of self-destructive and others-destructive behaviors? Today it has become quite fashionable to bash religion. While I was on sabbatical, I read a lot of books by the opposition. I wanted to know what they were saying, and I wanted to see if my faith could stand the test. In his book, The God Delusion, the atheist Richard Dawkins said that, "God is just an imaginary friend." Is God a delusion? Does faith in God rob our lives of something essential? When I first picked up the book I remembered how the late E. Stanley Jones was once asked to speak of his life as a Christian missionary of sixty year’s experience. His audience was several-hundred mental health professionals. Jones told his story, and then concluded his talk something like this: "I don’t know if you will judge me as sane or an insane. However, if you judge me insane, I want you to know that my present insanity, has done me far more good than all my former sanity." Several hundred psychiatrists and psychologists erupt in spontaneous applause, not necessarily because they themselves had faith, but because they recognized a life well and selflessly lived. Dawkins says that prayer is just as worthless as belief in an imaginary God. As evidence he introduces a study conducted by an independent research organization. The study went like this: Several hundred people were patients in a variety of hospitals. The names of half were given to a devout congregation of Christians, and the Christians prayed for them. They were told they were being prayed for. The names of the other half were withheld. They were the control group. Supposedly, no one prayed for them. Dawkins generously called the study a wash, meaning that those who were prayed for respond to treatment and recovered about with the same relative frequency as those who were not prayed for by that one congregation of Christians. The study neglects several salient factors: First, it is hard to imagine that those in the control group did not pray for themselves. You have heard it said, "There are no atheists in foxholes." That is true of sick rooms, too. People may not pray to "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," using the all right words. They may pray with sighs too deep for words, and with the tears that run down their cheeks, but God hears those prayers. The denominational exec who said that God does not hear the prayers of unbelievers deserves all the raspberries we can give him! Likewise, "No man is an island unto himself." It is hard to imagine that the patients did not receive the benefit of prayers by members of their families, and by friends. I sometimes pray for total strangers just because they look sick. Now some people ask me about the relationship between faith and prayer and healing. Much of this remains a mystery to me. I marvel at those who suffer despite all our earnest prayers, and for their sake I am always cautious about giving God too much of the credit for those who recover. So, I don’t have a formula to pass along, but here are a few of the thoughts that occur to me. I believe that Jesus truly was the Great Physician, and through the power of the Holy Spirit he is still among us and still at work. You have heard of the Jesus Seminar. Some members of the Seminar think that Jesus was a faith healer who did indeed perform at least a few healings. Other members of the seminar think that the healing stories of the gospels are mostly late developments in the gospel tradition. Is that so? I don’t think so. In 1st Corinthians chapter 12, St. says that the gifts of the Holy Spirit include "gifts of healing." The early church certainly experienced healings, as did members of the Jewish community of faith before them. It is not such a stretch to accept the gospel stories as perfectly possible. Personally, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus. To borrow an image from C. S. Lewis, I have swallowed the camel. The gnats of the healing stories go down easily by comparison.. Prayer for the sick requires faith. Perhaps you recall the story from the 2nd chapter of Mark’s gospel about the four friends who carried a fifth friend, a paralytic, on a pallet. They tried to take him into a house where Jesus was teaching. They could not get in because of the crowds, so they hauled him up on the roof, made a hole in the thatch, and lowered him down on his pallet where the Master could see him. The text says, "When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "M son, your sins are forgiven." Some of those present been to question in their hearts saying to themselves, "Who can forgive sins but God alone." Jesus perceived what was in them. He said to them,: "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sin" -- he said to the paralytic -- "So that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the man, "Rise, take up your pallet and walk." To everyone’s surprise, the man did just that. When I go and see a person who is so sick that it is difficult for them to have faith. I always tell this story. I say to them, "I know faith is hard for you right now. That is o.k., I am like one of the four friends. I am having faith for you. So is your family. We are having faith for you, so you don’t have to carry the burden of your illness alone." Then I invite them to be like the man on the pallet and put their own faith to work. The late Dr. J.C. McPheters used to say, "Prayer changes things, prayer changes me." He meant that prayer changes the one who prays." I know that prayer does more, but if prayer only affected the one that prays, it would still be an invaluable aid in the healing process. There are countless health care professionals in every city that will happily say that the faith of a patient does make a difference in the course of an illness. That is why so many hospitals, including secular hospitals like Forsyth Memorial, have chaplaincy programs. Some healings in the here and now are not a part of God’s will. Three times the apostle Paul asked God to heal him of a "thorn in the flesh," and three times the answer came back, "My strength is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness." (2nd Cor. 12:9) God has a variety of tasks that need doing. Some of them require life, but not perfect health. Some illnesses are harder to cure than others. According to the gospels Jesus restored the sight of the blind, and caused the lame to walk, but there is no record that he restored a limb that was missing, or the sight of one who had no eyes. Sometimes the Master has to work on the inside of us, not the outside. Some healings are immediate, like those we read about in the gospels. I don’t know why are some healed while other are not healed. I do think that God still grants immediate healing for some people, even when they are seriously ill. You all know Hal Cole who was our Minister of Visitation for 4 years. In May of 2007 he had a massive stroke/heart attack that took out the back of his heart. He was immediately paralyzed from the chest down. Not one person in a million survives such a traumatic event. I was in the emergency room with him when the doctor told him he had just minutes to live, and that he could do nothing for him. When he said that, I was not so sure. I had a feeling. Hal is still with us. He is still paralyzed from the chest down. A second stroke took out his left arm. He has been in therapy for many long months. There is hope. Hal is coming home next month. His wife Joy approached me this week and told me that Hal had raised the possibility of someday volunteering his services here. Hal’s life is not easy. He will always be in a wheelchair, but he is grateful to be alive, and he is looking for a purpose. Many people who survive a radical illness invariably feel that they were spared because God had a particular purpose for them. Some healings are gradual, like those we that take place in hospitals. A great French surgeon once said, "The physician binds the patients wounds, but only God can heal him." Gradual healing works because God has put resilience and healing into our systems. Modern medicine works more miracles in more lives everyday than Jesus worked in the three years of his earthly ministry. Jesus looked back only his own ministry and said to his disciples and to us through them, "He who believes in me will do the works that I do, and greater works than these will you do because I go to the Father." (John 14:12). Not all healings are permanent, but some are. Unfortunately, the only permanent healing is the Resurrection Healing. Resurrection healing is not for this life. According to 1st Peter chapter 1 it is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading." God keeps us through faith, and "it is ready to be revealed at the last time." If the truth be told, most of us want to put off the Resurrection Healing as long as possible. The price of a resurrection healing is one physical death for one eternal life. In 1st Corinthians 15, St. Paul speaks of the Resurrection Healing which is available because "Christ died for our sins," and then rose again to give us a future and a hope. He calls Christ the first fruits of them that have fallen asleep, implying that a greater harvest is to come. He says that as by a man came death, by a man also has come the resurrection. He writes: "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. A favorite Moravian Easter hymn tells a similar story: The graves of all his Saints Christ blest, Thence he rose, no more to die; Finally, I think the Great Physician wants our help. There is an abundance of suffering in this world and God wants us to help relive some of it. There are many things we can do. We can give our money to fight cancer, aids, heart disease and starvation. We can feed the hungry, and work to see that people around the globe have clean water to drink. We can also invest our lives in the care of others, including the sick. God has given certain people special gifts to certain people to help bring out healing in all of us. Some of these people are doctors, who are truly called to their work. The greatest physicians are those who have a sense of vocation, or "calling." Nursing is also a vacation. Many nurses who serve and comfort people do so in the realization that God is working through them. Susan Cook has done that, here in America, and in Haiti. The late Bishop Herbert Spaugh once wrote a newspaper article entitled "The Hands of a Nurse Are the Hands of a Healer." In it he spoke of the importance of the human touch in the lives of those who are ill, some of whom believe themselves to be "untouchable." Of course, we can all, visit the sick, or tend to those who naturally fall under our care. When we do, there are three simple rules to follow. The first rules for one that wants to assist the Master is, "Do no harm." The suffering of sickness without bad theology on the lips of pious friends making it worse. I once had a friend who was the business manager in a large charismatic church. At the age of 38 she was diagnosed with cancer. One day I found her in tears. She told me that half of her congregation really encouraged her when they visited her. The other half always pulled out vials of oil and told her she would be healed if only her faith was stronger. The first rule for one that wants to assist the master is , "Do no harm." Do some good. John Wesley’s rule for the Methodist went like this: Do all the good you can, One of the truly good things we can do is to visit the sick. Most of them don’t expect Miracles. They just want someone to be there with them. When you are there visiting the sick, many of them will sense the presence of God. Part of the joy in serving this congregation is visiting in the home of one who is ill to find that others among you have already been there. Carol Hunter visits so often, she may be the next miracle drug. Expect some good. It is impossible to out give God. That is as true of our time as it is of our money. I cannot tell you the thousands of times over a thirty-year ministry that I have gone into a sick room to comfort some suffering person, only to be comforted by them. Pope John XXIII said that the sick and the dying are a sacrament among us. We who are well for now are Christ’s hands reaching out to them. They are to us Christ body, broken for us, allowing us to feed upon their faith and their strength even as they feed upon His. Some will say that I am grasping at straws. Some will call me delusional, even insane. If that is the case, I would venture only that my present insanity has done me more good than all my former sanity. Finis Worth Green, Th.M., D.Min. |