“Well-Being” Vance L. Toivonen
READING Mark 10:46-52
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man 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.
READING Paul Tournier, The Healing of Persons
The biblical message of acceptance is the only possible answer to the great problem of suffering. From the miracles that are wrought through acceptance, it can be seen that spiritual strength is the greatest strength in the world. It can transform both peoples and individuals. It alone can ensure victory over the negative forces of selfishness, hate, fear, and disorder, which destroy peoples and undermine the health of individuals. It alone gives them the joy, energy, and zeal needed in the daily battle for life and for the defense of health…Health is not the mere absence of disease. It is a quality of life, a physical, psychical, and spiritual unfolding, an exaltation of personal dynamism.
SERMON
I am in dire need of healing right now, as is this community. I am hurting and aching. There are others among us who are also hurting and aching. I have been seeking comfort from others, but even the strongest words of encouragement seem to be a temporary reprieve from an ongoing dis-ease. We have been running around scheming and planning, hoping against hope to find a fix, some kind of elixir for this dis-ease in our community. Our entire leadership team has been meeting excessively in an effort to stop the bleeding, to find some therapy, some treatment for what ails us.
Some have reasoned that this treatment is an adjustment of the pastor, and those who reason thus are not too far off the mark. This pastor has been painfully lost in the wilderness of his own ego and doubt. I have been wandering in the wilderness of faithlessness. There is indeed a need of adjustment in this fragile and sometimes misguided soul who stands before you this morning, but it is more than a mere adjustment in functioning and busy-ness. I have been sitting by the road-side, crying out for mercy. And Jesus has replied, “What do you want me to do for you?”
This is where healing starts. Healing starts with a cry for mercy. Healing starts with a willingness to seek a power greater than ourselves. Healing begins when we realize that someone else holds the key to our renovation. This someone else will come to us, will walk by us at some opportune moment, and we will need to let that someone know that we need them. This someone will be energized by a power greater than either party. This is how God works, in the mystery of our relationships, and in the surprise of our unknowing. We will be astonished when healing comes, because it will come in ways we did not anticipate. But our healing still begins with an acknowledgement of our dis-ease, a crying out, if you will, to a power greater than ourselves.
The man who cried out to Jesus was blind. When Jesus asked what he wanted, the man said simply, “My Teacher, let me see again.” I too have been blind. While I have been praying for every possible solution to the suffering of this present time, my suffering and the suffering of others, I have been unwilling to pray such a simple prayer. I have wondered to whom it is I am praying, and probably just listening to the sound of my own voice. What beauty I find in this succinct turn of phrase, “Jesus, let me see again.” For I realize now that my own blindness is the key to my malady, and to the suffering I have brought upon you as individuals and as a congregation. For this I am truly sorry, and ask your forgiveness.
As I stand here this morning I am beginning to heal. My healing comes from a place I did not expect. In the jogging and weaving from one program to another, from one philosophy to another, from one structure to another, I have wearied myself, and others. There was another occasion when Jesus’ words offered healing. He said, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Why do I seem to choose so often the most difficult path when Jesus is standing there all along inviting my burdens?
Come to Jesus? Come to Jesus with my burdens? Come to Jesus with this huge mess I’ve made?! It never crossed my mind to do that. And lest you think you’ve stumbled in to some sort of revival meeting this morning, let me remind you that I am very serious about this. For it is only in that moment when I accepted the fact that I cannot fix or cure this dis-ease, this illness that haunts me, that haunts us because of me, that I began to experience the warmth and joy of renewed hope, a peace that passes all understanding. I cannot fix this mess by myself. I cannot fix this mess even with an army of capable church leaders. I must turn to a higher power and let it all go. Which is exactly what I am in the process of doing.
You see, it never occurred to me that my faith could make me well. This is what Jesus told the blind man as he walked away; seeing, by the way. It was somehow that last thing on my list of things to do, to let my faith make me well. The myriad reminders of all of the ways I have failed this community, all of the lists and lists of commentary from upset Hope-ites, somehow fade now, not in their truth or validity, for there is certainly that, but in their intensity to do harm to my spirit. I turn again to the unconditional love of the unconditional Lover, God who in Christ reaches out to me with loving arms and declares me loveable, acceptable, and worth renovating; who reaches out now to the Hope community with this same unconditional love and declares us as a renewable religious community that will in the days ahead live out her title with more ferocity and passion than ever before.
It is this biblical message of unconditional love and acceptance that Paul Tournier reminds us is “the only possible answer to the great problem of suffering.” I have been looking to you for this love and acceptance, and it is not that you have not given it to me. You have, in various doses; sometimes less, sometimes more, but never enough for me to be able to give it back to you on a consistent basis. I am in need of a greater source, a source that somehow got lost when I walked in the door of Hope Church, and, when I really think about it, had been lost to me for much of my ministry. Could it be that I had to come to Hope to find this source again? Who would have thought this could be possible, to find Jesus here at Hope Church? Could it be that the turmoil of this present time is the catalyst for renewing this powerful source of unconditional love? Then again, the Spirit of God creates out of chaos, as she did in the beginning, so why should I be surprised by this turn of events in my life?
It is my faith that will make me well. It is your faith that will make you well, your faith in a power greater than yourself, however you characterize that power. No matter what you call that higher power, it can never be you, and it can never be me. This power is a universe power that calls us beyond ourselves into the stratosphere of a love we only occasionally brush up against in this life. This divine love is mediated through a direct connection with a higher source, which, for lack of a better word, most of humanity calls God. And so will I, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death…no, not even death will disconnect this relationship. This higher power is so strong it even defies death itself.
I know, I know. It sounds like I’m preaching. And I apologize to all who find my words an insufferable cacophony this morning. But I have always tried to share openly and honestly my spiritual journey with you here in this pulpit, and this morning is no exception. I hope to be able to celebrate again with you a resurrection, of sorts; a new day for this community. Very soon my behavior, my very life here will be characterized by some dramatic changes. My relationship with you will be characterized by some significant changes. We will walk these new roads together. I ask for your prayers as we move forward on this path.
I will close with one last analogy; a guess, I suppose, for why God might have put us through all this, and why I have gone through what I have gone through these past months. I understand that orthopedic doctors must occasionally break existing bones in order for them to heal properly. When they heal, they heal straighter and stronger. This may very well be nothing more than the Divine Physician breaking me, perhaps even attempting to break us, in order that we might heal stronger, stand straighter, and let the whole community know that we have a doctor of the soul on staff here at Hope Church – not Vance Toivonen, but God, a Higher Power of your choosing, and mine. Unless of course your experience is similar to mine; for I believe it is at least as much that God has chosen me as that I have chosen God. Perhaps its best when we somehow choose each other.