1-31-18 - Retreat

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What do you do when you’ve spent an evening healing everyone in town? If you’re Jesus, you try to get out of Dodge, at least for a little while:  In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. (This week's gospel reading is here.)

I would probably want to sleep in – but there are better ways to nurture your spirit, as Jesus knew. After an intense period of spiritual output, and sometimes after hearing bad news, he would head off for a time of quiet prayer, by himself or with some or all of the Twelve. These mini-retreats were often interrupted, but that didn’t stop him from going.

I am lousy at the spiritual practice of retreat, at least in its multi-day form, though in my In younger days I went somewhat regularly on retreat to convents or monasteries. What Jesus models here is the value of taking time apart for prayer, no matter how long it is. He knows he has another busy day of ministry ahead, so he gets up while it’s still dark to grab some alone time with his heavenly Father. That’s what prayer is – a time of conversation with God, and we don’t need five days away to do that.

We might think about retreats in smaller chunks. Even four hours off the treadmill of our lives can be surprisingly refreshing. How about building an hour of retreat into your week? Choose a day when you’re not too busy, and a spot where you can be alone and quiet. Make a date with yourself and with God, and show up. Light a candle. Read some Scripture and chew on it inwardly. Read a spiritual book. Talk to God about what’s on your mind. Try to get centered and silent and hear what God might be saying back. Write in a journal about what happens as you pray, what your hopes and intentions for the next week might be. Our spirits can get some deep nurture in a time apart like that.

We can even go with smaller increments. Just as a half-hour of exercise can be valuable even in 10-minute increments, so can stepping into “God-space” for a few minutes once a day or more. Some people set alerts on their computers or phones to cue them to go into quiet for an period of time.

Yet such shorter times are no replacement for intentional, multi-day retreats. Retreat is one the most rewarding spiritual practices in our Christian tradition; there are things that we can only hear and receive when we’ve stepped out of our regular lives for several days. It takes time for our spirits to rest, get in touch with what’s going on, and become receptive to a deeper connection with the Holy Spirit. As I write this, I realize be more intentional about daily and weekly retreat times. (Happily, I’m about to move into a house on the water – every day will feel like a retreat!)

When we just give and give without taking the time to recharge our spiritual batteries, to reconnect with the One whose life we are sharing with the world, we soon find ourselves with little to offer, tiring more quickly, becoming easily irritated. When we follow Jesus into the places apart, we can be pretty sure he’ll meet us there with his peace. We will be renewed.

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1-30-18 - Jesus' "Cure Rate"

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Capernaum, where Jesus made his home, could be a tough place for him. Too many people knew about him, too many wanted a piece of him. The story about his healing the possessed man in the synagogue must have spread quickly – and maybe the tale of Peter’s mother-in-law’s instant recovery also quickly made the rounds. People knew where to find Jesus, and they weren’t shy about it:

That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

What I find interesting is not that the “whole city” was gathered around the door. It’s that only "many" were cured. By the time Matthew and Luke rework this material, it's upgraded to “all” and “everyone he met.” But Mark’s word “many” suggests that not everyone Jesus touched was cured.

The single biggest obstacle to people investing in the ministry of Christian healing, in my experience, is the fact that our prayers are not always answered in the way we desire. One big step of faith not met with “success” can be enough to stop some people from taking a second. And thus the church is deprived of one of its most powerful ways to make the transforming love of God known in the world.

People active in the healing ministry find there can be obstacles to healing, things that must be addressed before a person can take in the healing love flowing toward them. As Agnes Sanford wrote so simply and memorably in her classic, The Healing Light, if we flick a light switch and the light doesn’t come on, we don’t conclude that electricity is impossible and doesn’t work – we look for a break in the flow – in the bulb, in the wire, in the outlet, in the house itself.

Obstacles to healing can include a root cause that needs to be brought to the light, an inability to give or receive forgiveness, or an investment in infirmity. Sometimes infirmity is a system’s response to trauma that has not been dealt with in a conscious way. When praying about long-term illness, it’s worth asking when it came on and what happened 6-9 months before it did – or even earlier.

Illness or injury can also be the result of chronic shame or resentment, an inability to forgive someone else or receive forgiveness ourselves. Such a block can be brought to the light and dealt with. Sometimes healing follows forgiveness. There are also people who have become so accustomed to being sick, with the attendant diminished expectations and increased support and attention, that we can pray all we want; the person can't receive it until they're ready.

This is not to suggest that it’s the sick person's "fault” when healing isn’t discernible – only that there are factors to look for and deal with. A lack of faith within a community, or among those offering prayer, can also be a barrier, as can conflict. Healing prayer is rarely a one-shot thing – it needs to be undertaken over time, with questions and adjustment.

If even Jesus did not cure everyone, we should not feel deficient if our “healing rate” is less than 100%. I pray we will take this word “many” as encouragement to move forward in our faith, inviting God to release the healing stream in every situation where healing is needed. And give thanks in advance - God's last word to us is "yes."

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1-29-18 - They Also Serve

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We've had a lot of “call stories” of late, encounters in which Jesus invited his disciples to leave their nets and books and follow him. They likely left not only their livelihoods, but whole networks of family and community who relied upon them. We get a glimpse into the extended family of four of Jesus’ closest disciples in this week’s passage:

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

Andrew, Simon (Peter), James and John are the four fishermen whom Jesus called from their nets to follow him. These two sets of brothers lived and worked together, and Simon and Andrew lived with their extended family in the same household. And clearly Simon Peter was married. It's likely the others had wives and children as well.

So the call to follow Jesus implied sacrifice from others, not only the disciples who traveled with him. I saw a poignant reminder of this in an excellent but short-lived TV series, Nothing Sacred, about a Roman Catholic priest. In one episode, we keep coming back to a statue of a woman waving, and we don’t know what it means until the end, when we learn it is a representation of Peter’s wife, waving goodbye. (I can't recall which episode, but someone has put the series up online, if you can’t get it another way…)

We don’t know if Peter’s extended family affirmed faith in Jesus Christ – but there they were, hosting and serving his entourage. The moment Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever, she gets up and makes dinner. They were drawn in by virtue of their relationships, and thus were part of the community of faith, no matter what they believed.

I know many who have been part of a church community in which their spouse does not participate. They exist in a special tension between living out their faith with the fullness they’d like, and not taking too much time away from their families and partners. This can also have an emotional and spiritual consequence; I’ve watched people hold back on going deeper spiritually because they don’t want to get too far “out in front” of a less believing partner. If you know someone who is on their own in their faith journey, in terms of their family system, remember to pray for him or her, and find ways to “be family” for them at times.

And if you are in that situation, you might pray that the grace and strength you feel in your connection with God would come through you into your household, whether or not the others in your family name it. God’s peace is God’s peace, and it works its wondrous way even when we don't recognize it as such it. Then it doesn’t have to be a tug-of-war, but a way to blend without imposing. And maybe in that space, the partner can find room to move toward God. There are passages in the New Testament in which Jesus or one of the apostles clearly states where the priority between faith and family should be. And there are others, like this one, where we see the healing power of Jesus move into a whole household and bring transformation to a whole family.

Or maybe he was just hungry and wanted Peter’s mother-in-law to make her special meatloaf! What do you think?

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