Sermon from the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany + Pr. Craig Mueller + February 4, 2024
Artwork: “Mind Body Spirit” by Todd Monaghan
If you are a church with “trinity” in its name, you should like things in threes! Today’s gospel makes me wonder about the triad of mind, body, and spirit. I would be curious your reaction to this language, depending on your lens or your specialty or your training. How would a doctor, or psychologist or scientist think about mind, body, and spirit?
Of course, we are one being, one person. It’s not so easy to separate mind and body like we often do. Sometimes we talk as if we have a body, rather than we are a body, to use one example. Or we know how our bodily illnesses are mysteriously connected to our mental and emotional states in some way.
Let’s turn to Jesus. I believe that he treated the whole person: mind, body, and soul. In today’s gospel, Jesus’ compassion moves him to heal the body of Simon’s mother-in-law who is suffering with a fever. That creates a stir. After this, the disciples bring a whole slew of people with various kinds of illnesses. The entire city is gathered outside the door. And Jesus heals people of their physical ailments. And he casts out demons.
Demons!? How would we define demons today? Mental illness? Addictions? Personal struggles that take over our lives and leave us feeling helpless? Psychosomatic symptoms that mystify us? Some would say we all have personal demons—the obsessions and fears and anxieties that bring us down.
Whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, one thing we can say is this. There are a lot of people with a lot of needs. Both in biblical times and now.
Call them ailments, diseases, addictions. Hurts, grief, fears, worries. We all are carrying some kind of brokenness, it seems. That is what it means to be human. Whether by genetics. Or choice. Or chance. Whether chronic or lifelong. Or something that seems to come and go.
But what about the miraculous healings in the scriptures? Wouldn’t you like one from time to time? Our gospel says that Jesus cures people. Was this only for biblical times? Is there a difference between curing and healing? Wouldn’t you like a cure-all, a remedy to cure whatever your ailment?
There are certainly faith healers today. But what about all the times you pray to be cured, whether by a doctor or by God, and you never get better. Is it because you don’t have enough faith? I doubt it.
For a lot of people, their disability, or their addiction, or their illness does not simply go away with a pill or a prayer. In addition to the stories of Jesus curing people, I wonder if he sometimes just sat with people in their grief—even if he couldn’t take it away. Even if he didn’t say a word. I wonder whether his presence itself was healing—balm for the soul. Or whether he listened so closely to people share their pain, that he gave them hope. And they were made whole in a spiritual way. And it made all the difference in the world.
Those living with addiction often have to hit bottom. Those living with illness or grief or depression sometimes have to let go, trust a higher power, turn to God in prayer, or learn to live with what is, with the things they cannot change. And hope beyond hope, that there will be healing there.
Then the powerful words of our Isaiah reading begin to live in their bodies, minds, and souls. “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
For many of us, in these moments of letting go, God is closer than ever. And there is healing. As we heard in today’s psalm: “The Lord heals the brokenhearted.”
It was only a couple of years ago that we were in pandemic lockdown. One woman, who lives alone, said that it was nearly a year before she hugged someone, received a kiss, or was held by another person. She lives with a disability and other underlying health conditions. So she was extra cautious. She didn’t realize how deprived she was not having proximity to other bodies until one day she left the back door to her house open. A neighbor’s cat walked in. For a few seconds she was able to stroke its neck. She almost cried at the proximity of another creature.1
We know the importance of our bodies. Yet we often to not listen to them. Or take care of them. Or give them reverence. Though unwanted touch can be a violation and sometimes a source of deep wounds, we also know the power of human, bodily touch.
In most of the healing stories of Jesus, he doesn’t merely speak a word to the other person: “be healed”! He touches them. And so we continue that ministry of healing in the church as we anoint people with oil. Or lay hands on them. Our liturgy is full of bodily gestures to show that we are not merely souls, not merely minds. But we are embodied beings.
In one of our Lenten studies this year we will be reading the powerful book, Honoring the Body. All of us are on the lifelong journey of being at home in our bodies. The western mind-body dualism hasn’t helped. And for many of us, our church experience, hasn’t been very body-positive. I encourage you to consider joining us in these conversations on the body. It may well be balm for your soul, and helpful to your body as well!
Finally, the final takeaway from the gospel for me is that Jesus takes time away for solitude. For prayer. To recharge his batteries, as some of us might say. For us that means gathering for worship in community. Unplugging from devices once in a while. Going for a walk. Meditating or engaging in other spiritual practices. As your pastor, I urge you to seek out the times and places that will renew you—mind, body, or spirit.
We are community of healing. As we engage in the work of reparations, repairing injustices in society. As we sit with the brokenhearted. As we soothe the bodies of those wracked in pain and illness. As we support those living with addiction or depression.
Christ, the Great Physician, comes among us this day. Offering us words of healing, words of hope. Feeding us with the healing gift of life at this table. And surrounding us with a community. All these things may not be the cure-all, but they may very well be healing for our broken hearts and broken bodies.
1 Rachel Mann, “Holy attachments,” in The Christian Century, February 2024.