Conditional Healing? What Would Jesus Say?

In the Diocesan Update email of October 17 (“a compendium of miscellany regarding things going on in the Diocese of Albany”) an announcement appears of the upcoming healing service at the diocesan Spiritual Life Center on Tuesday, October 22.  Pastor Jim French, the rector of St. Luke’s Church, Cambridge, will be the guest preacher.  According to the announcement, Pastor Jim will preach on “The Conditions for Healing: What is it that God Requires of Us to be Healed?”

I was immediately put in mind of the Gospel on Sunday, the story of the lepers who were healed in Luke, chapter 7, vs. 11 to 19.  Only one of them stayed to give thanks to Jesus, which is the usual focus of the preaching on this passage.  But another striking feature of the Gospel is that all ten were healed.  No strings attached.  Their only plea was “Jesus, have mercy on us.”  One of the ten healed lepers returned to give praise to God, and received Jesus’ assurance that “your faith has made you well,” in the words of the RSV.  But the only requirement for all ten to be healed was that they called upon Jesus, the Master, and asked for His mercy.  Reading between the lines, this simple request revealed their faith.  And their faith, expressed in those simplest terms, was all that God required.

I know nothing more about Pastor Jim than the assurance that he “has a deep passion to release the healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ into a hurting world.”  But I do hope he also has the humility and compassion to acknowledge that Jesus himself, in his earthly ministry, placed no conditions on His healing.

Placing conditions on healing, let alone discipleship, was not Jesus’ way.  It should not be the job of diocese, either.

Comments

[Mike+ Waverly-Shank]

Let me try one more time. I think Jesus told this story because He saw a difference. Perhaps the difference is best stated in the KJV Bible where Jesus says to the grateful former leper -(how's that for a different way to say this?) Your faith has made you WHOLE. And the other 9 never hear this. THAT is the difference.

[John White]

In our modern understanding, there is indeed a distinction between curing and healing. Curing is what medical science attempts to do through external intervention, while healing involves spiritual wellness. But Biblical Greek largely looses that distinction: there is no curing without healing. Then there is the internal chronology of the passage. The Bible states that the one leper, "when he saw that he was healed...." This was before his return to Jesus. At this point he was just like the other nine. If he was healed, then the others, who did not return, were also healed. Ergo, the healing applied to all, and the healing was not conditional on their return. Therefore The Rev. Shank's careful
distinction fails to convince. (One thing that I will confess is that, in my original post, I should have cited Luke 17 instead of 7. A typo, my mistake).

[Mike+ Waverly-Shank]

No - I did not say all ten were healed. I said all ten were cured - by an Old Testament Ritual from Leviticus. One was healed by our Lord after he came back to thank Him. In some ways this is the beginning of the Eucharistic patern that produced the Holy Eucharist that we celebrate each Sunday.

[John White]

Thank you Mike+, for restating what I had already said, that all ten were healed. No conditions imposed. One of the ten showed gratitude and was assured that it was faith that healed them all. So where are the conditions in that?

[Mike+ Waverly-Shank]

Please notice that in the story of healing from Luke 17 there are conditions. All ten are cured of their leprosy, but only one and he a foreigner hears the wondrous of Jesus - Go your way your faith has made you whole.