The Church Offers Healing in Many Forms - Acts 3: 1-10

The first time I remember hearing this Bible Story was in my Kindergarten Sunday School class. The most joyous part of the song is when Peter tells the man he met “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he went walking, and leaping and praising God. Walking and leaping and praising God.” There was so much excitement around the man’s reaction that I never really paused long enough to think about what Peter and John did that fateful day.

Peter and John were on the way to the temple, the place of worship, when they encountered someone in need. The mans only source of income was begging for money and outside of the temple gate was a prime spot - people had to pass him and temple go-ers at that, people who knew that they were supposed to give to those in need. As Peter and John were going into the temple he caught their eye and asked them for some money. But Peter and John just looked at him. Not with pity. Not with disdain. But really looked at him. Saw deep inside of the man to what he really needed. Peter then said those words, I don’t have what you think you need, but I have what you really need - in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth get up and walk. 

This week in the parish missions class we talked about the difference between charity and service. Charity is when you give people what they need, for momentary relief, without really getting to the heart of the matter. Charity is good and needed, but it only offers something temporary. Peter and John could have had pity on the man and offered him whatever change they had, like countless others had done before them. But instead they took the time to meet the man’s true need and offered him radical healing. 

What would you have done if you encountered a man in a similar situation on the way to church today? When I lived in Pittsburg I attended a church right across from my dorm. Here was my dorm. Here was the church. On the other side of the dorm, up and down the street there were homeless folks who were in deep need. We were actually instructed during orientation to ignore them. But there were a group of students who just could not do that. They could not treat another human being as undignified, but they didn’t just want to offer temporary charity either. After some thought they decided to cook healthy vegetarian meals for those who were begging. A few times a week they would invite people to gather for this free meal. And they ate with their brothers and sisters who were living on the street, getting to know their stories. For those who were not physically able to make the gathering, one or two people would go to them with the meal and eat with them. After weeks of fellowship and listening, they invited them to church. Offered them something more. Not everyone came. But some did. And everyone felt as if they were affirmed instead of look down upon, or worse ignored.

The man, those people in Pittsburg, asked for one thing and received something else. They asked for money - something that is important for survival in our society and that of the early church. But for Peter and John who were part of the disciples who were now sharing everything in common, money had ceased to be as important, and they certainly knew that it was not the most important thing. And out of this changed relationship to money, changed worldview, Peter and John offered the man a new kind of life that can only come through the power and healing of the Holy Spirit. 

Healing stories like this one, often make us in Western society feel uncomfortable. The disciples didn’t even ask the man if he wanted to be healed. When the church has made similar assumptions in modern times we have been looked down upon - traveling healing services. Times when people who God had created were looked down upon or told that they were less then. We’ve become so uncomfortable with healing that we hide it from others.

Please don’t misunderstand me - this is not a call to abandon modern medicine or thing that every time we ask for healing it will look exactly like we want to. Often, like the lame man, we ask God for one thing and get something radically different, and better. Nor am I saying that we should  not attend to people’s needs. But we’ve become so comfortable in the charity model of giving, where we are in the superior position offering something someone else physically needs, that we forget what we truly have to offer. We forget that we were in the same position not so long ago, in need of grace and forgiveness and healing, which God freely offered to us. We forget that sometimes even the most desperate of situations are opportunities to let God into the broken places in our lives to work in a powerful way. 

Some of us understood this message of healing inside of the church, but others of us experienced God’s healing outside of the church, like the lame man, because someone risked telling us about God’s love for us. Risked telling us that God wants something more for us. Risked praying boldly for us. The Spirit of God wants to free people from the burdens they carry. Free them to be healed in a different way, but there are few too people praying for this type of healing to take place. I have to ask, when you pray do you expect something to happen? Can you remember how God has healed in the past so you have come to rely on that healing in your own life and the lives of others?

Do we rely in the power of the name of Jesus? Do we believe that we have something life-giving to offer others? Do we remember receiving this life-giving thing ourselves? We have something to offer people more then money, more then food, more then things that will not last. We have something to offer that makes people leap for joy and brings amazement to those who knew them. For salvation is about much more then health. 

In a few moments we are going to offer anointing with oil. Anointing with oil is traced back to the Hebrew Scriptures and is associated with many things - the coming of the power of the spirit, healing, blessing. You are invited to come up, as you feel lead, and be anointed for yourself or someone you know. Anointing with oil coupled with prayer does not force God’s hand - we cannot make God doing something. But it is a sign that we are trusting God and expect God’s spirit to move amongst us in a mighty way, bringing whatever healing we need most at this time. 

Let us pray....