“Salvation Through Healing” 21st Sunday After Pentecost—October 13, 2013 Rev. Scott Shaffer—Blairsville First United Methodist Church If you are a movie lover, like I am, then you may find that it’s hard to explain why a particular movie is one of your favorites. One of my favorite movies is O Brother Where Art Thou? It may be one of my favorites because it was written and directed by the Coen Brothers, and I like just about all of their movies. It could be that the movie is an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, and having been an English Major that kind of thing excites me. Or it may be the awesome soundtrack, which I actually had a copy of and enjoyed for several years before I ever saw the movie. But as a pastor, I think that O Brother Where Art Thou is one of my favorite movies because of the way that it playfully discusses religion, good and evil, and what it means to be saved. The main characters in the movie Everett, Delmar, and Pete escape from a prison chain gang at the beginning, and the movie follows them on an epic journey on the run from the law. But there is one scene in particular that I am thinking of this morning. And it’s the scene where they come across a group of Christians dressed in white robes, walking toward the river, singing “As I went down in the river to pray.” Seeing the line of men and women wading into the river, and being immersed in baptism, the simple minded Delmar spontaneously jumps into the river, hops in line, and gets baptized by the preacher. Pete remarks, “Well I’ll be…Delmar’s been saved.” And Delmar comes up out of the water proclaiming, “Well that’s it boys, I’ve been redeemed. The preacher done washed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting is my reward.” Delmar may be simple minded, but he’s not shallow. While the leader of the group, Everett, stands on the banks of the river maintaining his pride and dignity, Delmar has the faith to jump in and get saved. I share this scene with you this morning because today we are beginning a new 7-week Sermon Series on Salvation. Each week, we will be looking at the Lectionary reading from the Gospel of Luke and how that reading gives us a different perspective on Salvation. And in this scene from O Brother Where Art Thou? Delmar represents what is for most of us the most prominent image of what it means to be saved. He says, “The preacher done washed away all my sins…and heaven everlasting is my reward.” As American Christians, no matter what our personal experience of salvation may have been, somewhere in the back of our mind we imagine that getting saved is about making a decision to follow Jesus so that you can go to heaven. And the one point that I would like to make over the course of the next seven weeks is this: Salvation about more than going to heaven when you die. As you may know, the New Testament portion of our Bible was originally written in Greek. And the word for Salvation in Greek is one of my favorite Greek words to say, it’s the word “sozo.” Can you say that with me, “sozo.” This word is one of the most important words in the Bible, so important that forms of the word “sozo” are used 188 times in the New Testament. When the Bible uses the word “Savior” as a title for God or Jesus Christ, that’s the word “sozo.” When the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10:9, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” that word “saved” is the Greek word “sozo.” So this is a pretty important word. But the point I want to make at the beginning of this 7 week Sermon Series on Salvation is that the Greek word “sozo” has more than one English translation. Sometimes in our English translations of the Bible, the word “sozo” is translated as “saved.” And in some Scripture passages, the word “sozo” is used to describe being saved from eternal damnation and welcomed into heaven. But the word “sozo” can also be translated as “to heal,” “to make well,” “to keep from harm,” “to rescue,” or “to liberate.” And what these multiple translations point to is the fact that the word “sozo” is a versatile word, and that the Biblical understanding of Salvation is not narrow and specific, but broad and varied. When the Bible says that “Jesus saves,” it has multiple meanings and applications in our lives. So as we look at Salvation from 7 different perspectives over the next 7 weeks, I want to reinforce this one point: Getting saved is about more than going to heaven when you die. Now that I’ve told you where we are going over the next 7 weeks, let me tell you where we are going in today’s sermon, the first of seven Biblical perspectives on salvation. The one point that I would like to explore in today’s sermon is this: that healing is a form of salvation. Healing is a form of salvation. I have to admit that I had a most unusual experience as I prepared for this sermon. I came up with this sermon topic over a month ago, and at that time it seemed pretty obvious and straightforward to say that healing was a form of salvation. But then a number of things happened over the past few weeks. Two weekends ago, I spent the weekend in the hospital, welcoming our child Theo into the world, praying for a safe delivery, and caring for Shannon and Theo as they recovered. There was a lot of pain involved in labor, but also a lot of healing, and I must say that I did feel God’s saving work that weekend. But then as I sat in the hospital, I read on Facebook about two of my friends whose loved ones died on the same day that Theo was born. Does that mean that God’s salvation was not at work in their lives because those people were not healed? Then over the past few weeks, I learned about congregation members being diagnosed with illnesses, I visited folks in the hospital who were not healing as quickly as they expected, and I came across another conversation on Facebook where people were being downright cruel to a person who struggled with a mental illness. Where was God’s healing and salvation for these people? And to top it all off, the night before writing this sermon, our 3 year old daughter Lily came down with a stomach bug. She was running a fever of 103.5, but the doctor said there was nothing she could do except take Motrin and wait. After watching my little girl throw up multiple times, cleaning up the mess multiple times, sleeping on an air mattress in her bedroom and waking up with her multiple times that night, I have to say that my perspective on healing and salvation had changed a little bit. And I know that many people have it far worse than me. Take for example the Ten Lepers in today’s Gospel lesson. Having spent some time at a Leper Colony on a mission trip to India, I know firsthand how painful this skin disease can be. Of all people, someone with Leprosy would have the right to ask why God had not used his saving power to heal their disease. But in this Bible story, as Jesus entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It’s important to notice that these lepers are following the Old Testament law, which required them to live on the outskirts of town, and to cry out “unclean” from a distance when anyone approached. But also, scholars point out that this phrase, “have mercy on us” was most commonly used as a request for alms, or financial assistance. This was the cardboard sign saying “will work for food” of the ancient world. Which means that the ten lepers were not necessarily asking to be healed. For all we know, they didn’t believe in healing. They had given up hope for healing. The most they could expect was a little spare change, and this is all they asked for. Like many of us, they put limits on what they were willing to ask from God. But Jesus tells the Ten Lepers to go to the priest, and when they went they were made clean. Just imagine the overwhelming joy and relief you would feel if you were healed of a terrible illness like leprosy. It would be better than winning the lottery. Better than falling in love. To have asked for some spare change, and instead to have been healed by God—how amazing would that be? But here’s where the story takes a twist. One of the lepers, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and praised God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” Then he said to the one, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” The word Jesus uses that is translated “made you well.” Guess what the greek word is: “Sozo.” So Jesus says to the man, “your faith has saved you.” Healing is a form of salvation. But what’s most striking about this passage is the other nine who are healed, but don’t take the time to praise God and thank Jesus. They may have been healed physically, but because they do not acknowledge God’s work, they are not healed spiritually. As I think about this story, I believe that we live in a Nine Leper kind of world. It is easy to point out all the times when we feel that God is not healing us, or healing us fast enough. But we live a culture where most people don’t even think to ask for God’s healing, or believe that God can heal. And of those who do, very few take the time to acknowledge God and give him the praise that he is due. We live at a time when medical technology is able to prevent, correct, and cure more illnesses and injuries than any other point in history. And those of us living in America have access to the best of the best of modern medicine. In addition to working through doctors and nurses, God has created our bodies to heal themselves. When Theo was born, he went from receiving oxygen and nutrients through an umbilical cord in his belly, and the moment after he was born his lungs filled up with air and his digestive system began processing milk. How amazing is that? When Lily got sick this weekend, she sat around and rested and her body fought off the illness. When I get a cut, it heals itself, whether I ask for God’s healing and whether I give him the glory or not. And not only do we fail to ask for God’s healing, and fail to give him the glory when he does, but we fail to recognize how God is calling us to be a part of his healing work. If you happen to work in the medical community, then your role may be obvious. But the fact is that people who are sick and dying need more than just medical care. They have emotional and spiritual needs, and that’s where we as a church can step up to the plate. Studies have shown that people with strong spiritual support have a greater chance of going into remission from cancer, and just knowing that someone was praying for them led to a higher recovery rate from heart bypass surgery. As Christians we also have to acknowledge that sometimes death is a form of healing, and caring for someone as they die is a deeply Christian thing to do. I would challenge our church to think of new and creative ways that we can minister to the sick and the dying, and in so doing be a part of God’s healing work. Some churches have Stephen Minister programs that make sure no one slips through the cracks, and everyone is visited, loved, and cared for in their time of need. This may go without saying, but it is not just pastors, but all Christians who are called to visit the sick, the dying, and show those who are suffering that they are valued and loved. I would like to close this morning by showing you a video of an interview with a man who is very near and dear to my heart. Dr. Dwight Peterson was my New Testament professor in college, and his wife Margaret was my theology professor for 4 classes. I shared with you before in a sermon that Dwight has been paraplegic since he was 18, got an infection in his hips from sitting in a wheelchair all these years, and that last year he was put on hospice care. This video has stretched my imagination to see what God’s healing, saving work looks like in the life of a man who knows that he is soon going to die, and I hope that it will stretch your imagination too. (Video: theworkofthepeople/visit-the-sick) (Prayer)
Posted on: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:13:35 +0000
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