I was at the main branch of the Albany public library recently. It was as rather busy day there, people studying at tables, using computers and browsing the stacks. But still, super quiet, super peaceful just like a library should be. A man came in with a group of young adults, folks in their twenties and thirties who had some developmental disabilities and he was teaching them. He was explaining to them in a hushed, whispering voice how you have to be quiet in the library. He showed them where the check-out counter was and where various items of interest for them were kept and they all started browsing too.
So we were all obeying the rules and silently choosing our reading materials with a nice peaceful feeling when one of the young women from the group made a loud crashing noise. At least that was what it seemed like a first. She sort of crashed into a shelf loudly. People looked alarmed at the noise and went back to what they were doing. But she hadn't just crashed into the shelf, she was falling to the ground, kind of slowly like she was trying to stop herself.
Next thing we all knew she was lying on the floor convulsing, having a seizure. As I looked around some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the library you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people uncomfortable and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group was just around the corner and somehow he figured out that something was amiss. So he walked swiftly up to her with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he knelt beside her and gently moved her afflicted body out, away from the shelf and out of harm's way and put his jacket down to protect her head, gently arranged her hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable way and started whispering and murmuring softly to her.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, you're perfectly safe, everything will be okay".
Without my noticing how it had happened the rest of their group had gathered around them, out of the way but near and were looking on calmly and with a certain peace. They knew she was safe and in good hands and they were calmed by the love and authority of their teacher. For them, because he was there, even terrifying illness had no power.
In our gospel lesson today Jesus is teaching at the synagogue. Everyone is there scrubbed up and dressed well for worship in the Lord's house. Everyone is duly silent and respectful because if there is anything we've been taught through the ages it is to be silent in libraries and churches. Everything is normal and safe, people are listening to this enthralling teacher with a nice peaceful feeling, when all of sudden someone made a crashing sound.
Someone who was sick. Started to thrash around and yell, in the middle of the assembly. Some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the synagogue you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people
uncomfortable, there were rules about sick people not being in the synagogue because they might make others unclean, sick too, and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group, teaching up front, Jesus, was just a few feet away so he walked swiftly up to the man with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he spoke to the man and gently healed his afflicted body. The text says he rebuked the demon, the sickness, that the man had and the sick man was calmed and made silent but his body convulsed. I imagine Jesus moving him then, out of harm's way and gently arranging his hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable manner and whispering and
murmuring softly to him.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, everything will be okay".
And slowly, while this was happening, the group gathered around and they felt safe and oddly at peace because they knew that the sick man was in the hands of their great teacher. His love and his authority took away even the terrifying power of illness.
The sickness in this story is an interruption. It is an interruption. No one planned it. No one was prepared for it. Everyone was troubled by it and put off by it. It was a major problem, to the ministry happening, to the lives around it, to the man who was afflicted, and even to Jesus who was teaching and who loved the ones he taught.
Everyone was affected and infected by this illness because under Jewish law, an
unclean person in the synagogue made the others unclean if they touched him, but even more than that, this wasn't a big town folks, this wasn't a mega-synagogue. Everyone knew everyone. One of their own was sick. One that they knew and loved had a terrible illness.
So they were afraid and sad and worried and all eyes were on Jesus. What would he do? How would he respond? They didn't really know him yet, he was a new rabbi, a new teacher and they didn't know what to expect. He could have thrown the sick man out. He could have encouraged everyone to leave because doubt had been cast on them now too. Instead he threw the sickness out and kept the congregation, each and every one one of them, worthy or not.
One man was healed and so everyone was made clean by Jesus, there was no reason for them to be afraid of illness anymore.
But what is funny is that he healed the man and after he did they said he taught with authority. Not that he healed with authority but that he taught that way.
Yes, someone was healed but that wasn't the point. And we know that it isn't the point because we are not Jesus and we do not live at the appointed time when all the world is made peaceful and whole, that Paul is longing for in our Epistle lesson, and so we know that people are sick. We know that they are sick and not everyone always gets well. And even when they do we know that more sickness comes afterward to others. That it never stops completely, that someone, somewhere that we love is always afflicted in some way. And that was a given for the people that Jesus was teaching even more than it is for us. So the teaching was the point.
Jesus taught, by healing, that our God, the God of love, has authority. Not just authority but THE authority. Even in the midst of sickness and death, that our God pauses even in His most important teaching for the sake of someone who isn't okay. In order to be with them, in order to be God to them, in order to be a human with them. In order to bring them peace.
Do we have illness among us? Do we have illness in us brothers and sisters? Yes. We do, we always do. In one form or another, in one way or another we are always touched by brokenness. So what does Jesus' teaching do for us in that illness? Why do we care that he taught with authority more than we care about being healed?
Because the ultimate thing that he taught is that we are not alone, never alone, least alone when we live in brokenness and least alone when we minister to the broken.
Did Jesus heal everyone who was sick? No, he didn't get to everyone, but what he did do was teach that even illness doesn't have the final word, it barely even has a word at all. Rather the word that we hear in all types of trouble and fear is be calm, be still, because we are not alone.
And we are even empowered then, instead of walking away or turning our eyes from the uncomfortable scene of illness, illness of all types: mental, physical, emotional, relational, environmental, economic, marital, familial, career, spiritual, personal, cooperate, incurable and curable, all illness, our own and that of strangers, in the midst of all of it, we are empowered to gather around like that group of young people in the library and like that group in the synagogue and share our comfort with one another that we have a new teacher, who teaches with new authority and who brings us new life. Everyday! Amen
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