Faith, Healing, and Hanging On | A Sermon for the Faithful and the Faithless Alike
A Sermon by the Reverend Mother Crystal J. Hardin on the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost (B), October 24, 2021.
Mark 10:46-52
How much faith is enough? How much faith do you need to be a bona fide Christian? What makes a believer? What makes an unbeliever? Which am I? Which are you?
I don’t know much for sure, but I can tell you this: just because we all happen to be here, it doesn’t necessarily mean that each of us, or any of us, are people of great faith. In the words of Fleming Rutledge, “A lot of people are hanging on by the thinnest of threads.” [1]
She also notes that one of the most common things said to people of collar is, “I wish I had as much faith as you do.” Some say this with genuine longing. Others with a bit of judgment. Sort of an “easy for you to say, preacher, being who you are.” Finally, there are those who speak these words hopelessly, suspecting that they will never have the faith they need or, worse yet, are supposed to have.
I’ve approached faith in all these ways from time to time, as I’m sure many of you have. And I often wonder why? Why the fixation on the amount of faith and the question of how much is enough?
In Mark’s Gospel, we find Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus.
Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” [And Bartimaeus, who happens to be blind] said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
Many find comfort here, and read this as confirmation that, if we have enough faith, Jesus will heal us. And yet, this read has a shadow side: if we have enough faith Jesus will heal us.
The three important words there being if, enough, heal.
Healing then, or the lack thereof, can quickly become transactional, or a kind of litmus test for how adequate our faith is. But (and you’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll no doubt hear me say it again) it’s not about us. It’s about God.
Flannery O’Connor, in a letter to a friend, once wrote:
I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe . . . . What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. [2]
We hold fast to the stories of Jesus healing those who are sick because we are often sick ourselves and long for healing. And so, it is understandable that we seek to hold fast to the one who makes all things new.
We long to hear, Go; your faith has made you well.
And yet, because we are human beings, so often it becomes about fixing rather than healing. (Those are two different things.) And our question then so often becomes, okay, how much faith is enough? And how can I get that? And why isn’t it working?
I think it’s important to first note that, while Scripture recounts many episodes of healing that involve faith, like in today’s Gospel, it also recounts episodes of healing that say nothing about faith. Furthermore, it recounts a multitude of ills that befall even those who show much faith.
Behold, God’s servant Job. Exhibit A.
Faith, as it turns out, is not a requirement for healing, just as healing is not a product of, nor evidence of, our faith or of God’s favor.
Frustrating, I know. Because, it really takes it out of our hands.
It would be far simpler if our broken bodies, broken minds, broken hearts, could be mended through our own striving after this thing called faith. If we then could bring about our own healing.
But what is healing anyway? That’s something worth wondering about. Is it the return of our bodies to “normal” functioning – however we define that (or however it is defined for us by society)? Is it the return of our minds to the same? Is it miraculous? Is it gradual? Is it an end? Or a beginning?
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives sight to a blind man. And yet, it’s important to understand the historical context of this healing miracle. Jesus was operating at a time when being differently abled meant being poor, unemployed, and excluded from mainstream society. It meant sitting by the side of the road with no place to go. It meant being told to pipe down when important people walked by. It meant being unseen and going unheard.
Healing then in this Gospel is less about regaining sight and more about Jesus reaching into a place of exclusion and restoring Bartimaeus to social dignity. And in that, step by faithful step, restoring dignity to the communal. Healing us all as the Body of Christ, in which no one is outcast, no one is other.
Healing then is never an end unto itself, particularly when it comes to our faith. Healing is, instead, a means of grace that can lead us in the direction of something far more important, reconciliation.
In “Be Not Afraid,” [3] Samuel Wells recounts a conversation with a dear friend who worked at a boarding school where a 14-year-old boy was dying of cancer. This was testing the faith of many in the school, including this teacher, who was growing quite frustrated in his lack of faith. One day:
Sam asked [him], “Does the boy have any friends?”
“Oh yes,” said his friend, “he has found who his true friends are and made some of the deepest friendships between teenage boys I have ever seen.”
Sam continued, “How are the boy’s parents?”
The friend responded, “It is wonderful how the whole community has embraced them like an extended family, and they often turn up during the week unannounced and stay over.”
“Does the boy have faith?”
“You know, he wasn’t one of the especially religious ones, but I have often been with him and given him the sacrament and kept silence and held his hand and there is an incredible feeling in that room.”
“I guess this must have been your worst semester in teaching.”
“Well, you know, in a way, it has been my best, because there has been a meaning and purpose about the whole school I have never known before. It almost feels like transfiguration.”
At this point of the conversation, Sam Wells said, “What you are describing doesn’t sound like hell. It doesn’t sound like unfaithfulness. It sounds like the kingdom of God. This boy . . . sure is bringing salvation.”
There was a long silence. His friend was in tears. By the end of the walk, his anger and bewilderment were transforming to thankfulness and an extraordinary kind of joy.
Of course, not all stories are this beautifully told or this redemptive in quality. And yet, that says more about us than it does about God.
Salvation is the purpose of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the perfector of our faith. Where there is healing as we want or expect it – wonderful. And yet, where there is not, there is still Jesus.
Jesus who promises that a deeper, more glorious healing is already and always underway – a healing that will, in the fullness of time, perfect all wounds, individual and communal.
And what of faith? Bartimaeus’s faith, we are told, made him well, and yet it was his cry, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me, that gained the attention of our Lord.
Have mercy on me.
This is, perhaps, the most eloquent and full expression of faith that any of us could hope to muster. It echoes a cry just one chapter back in Mark: I believe, help my unbelief! - which has been called “the foundation prayer of faith.” [4]
Have mercy on me. I believe, help my unbelief!
Both are pleas that trust not in our own faith, but in God’s faithfulness towards us, which is not a matter of human stiving, nor is it a product of human will. It is a gift, a grace, freely given to the faithful and the faithless alike.
So, take heart; get up, he is calling you.
In the words of Fleming Rutledge:
It is out of my hands. [It is out of your hands.] It is in his hands. He is not waiting for you to figure it all out. He is not lying back observing to see if you have enough faith. . . . He has come forward to meet you, in word and sacrament. The only person with perfect faith is Jesus Christ. When he says, “All things are possible to him who believes,” there is a sense in which he speaks first of himself. It is by his faith, his faithfulness, that we receive our own faith. There is no foundation more certain than that. [5]
Thanks be to God.
*Etching is titled, “Christ cures blind Bartimaeus near a temple.” Licensed under Creative Commons from Wellcome Images: https://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1181772
[1] Fleming Rutledge, “Help My Unbelief,” in Help My Unbelief (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), 3.
[2] Robert Ellsberg, editor, “Flannery O’Connor: Spiritual Writings” (New York: Orbis Books, 2003), 152-53.
[3] Samuel Wells, Be Not Afraid: Facing Fear with Faith (Brazos Press, 2011), 11-12.
[4] Rutledge, Help My Unbelief, xiii.
[5] Rutledge, Help My Unbelief, 8-9.
