Desperation, Faith and Love
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 2, 2023
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
2 Kings 4: 8-37; Ps. 89; Romans 8: 35-39; Matt 9: 18-26
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where desperation ends and faith starts. I’ve seen this with many patients over the years. They sense all is not well with their health, but they ignore the problem and hope it will go away. Until they can’t ignore it any more. The pain, or the involuntary weight loss, or the intrusive, self-destructive thoughts are so alarming they can no longer ignore them. And they come in asking for help. They realize the situation is out of their control. They are desperate for a solution. At that moment they are often willing to accept changes or solutions they wouldn’t have found acceptable before. They are willing to take the medicine or undergo the surgery in order to heal. It’s as if they have found faith in themselves and the medical system to heal them, if they are willing to change.
Let’s consider the desperation of the woman healed by Jesus in today’s gospel. She had uncontrollable bleeding for at least a decade. She must have been so anemic, so tired, so weak. It must have been hard for her to do even the simplest tasks without getting out of breath. She decided to go to one more healer, Jesus. She saw God’s love reflected in Jesus, and she believed he could effect God’s healing. She was so desperate and believed so much in Jesus, she thought if she even touched his garment she would be well. Even the tassel at the edge of his garment. Even one thread of the tassel. And Jesus said her faith healed her.
It seems to me that sometimes when our ego is defeated and all our defenses break down, it is easier for faith to break in. When we are forced to relinquish control, we finally are willing to ask for any help available. In today’s gospel the Temple official’s influence and political power could not keep his daughter alive. He knelt down before Jesus asking for help in his desperation. The Shunamite woman dropped everything to travel up a mountain to find Elisha to ask him to restore her son’s life.
In desperate situations like this we understand that truly, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Paul told us in our second reading—not hardsip or distress, persecution or famine, nakedness, peril, or famine, not death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present not things to come, powers nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation—can keep God from loving us, nor us from loving God, if we choose to. Not infertility, as the Shunamite woman and her husband suffered. Not the death of a child. Not illness for 10 years, and separation from family and community, because of ritual purity laws.
For our God understands loss. God made every being on earth, and must feel pain whenever any part of creation is hurt or lost. God lost his own son to execution. God is close to those who mourn. Those who know the grief of a child’s death can identify with God’s grief at Jesus’ death. Imagine the grief God must feel when poisonous chemicals are released into the waters, air, and soil of the Creation gifted to us out of love.
I think the healings Jesus performs in the gospels are emblematic of the healing God wills for each of us. God loves us and wishes no one to suffer. God doesn’t cause suffering. God creates, brings to birth, challenges us to grow, waters, feeds, blesses, loves. God worked through Jesus and Elisha and others, and today works through us. God calls us to heal one another and sometimes, ourselves. To ask one another for help. To look out for one another and offer help when we recognize suffering. To work to end the unjust and destructive systems that cause suffering for people and for the earth. God continues the healing of the world now through us, when we are willing to cooperate.
Sick people are desperate for help. We must be desperate to heal. We must have urgency to bring our faith in God’s love to remedy the pain we see around us. We may not be able to raise people from the dead. But we can fight for gun control so not so many get killed. We may not be able to promise someone a healthy baby one year from now, but we can work for better prenatal care for everyone. We may not be able to make the blind see, but we can sometimes love people to the point where they are willing to open their own eyes.
Let us not separate ourselves from the love of God. Let us open ourselves, lower our defenses, allow ourselves to feel some of the pain in the world, and do all we can to bring God’s love to those who need it.
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 2, 2023
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
2 Kings 4: 8-37; Ps. 89; Romans 8: 35-39; Matt 9: 18-26
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where desperation ends and faith starts. I’ve seen this with many patients over the years. They sense all is not well with their health, but they ignore the problem and hope it will go away. Until they can’t ignore it any more. The pain, or the involuntary weight loss, or the intrusive, self-destructive thoughts are so alarming they can no longer ignore them. And they come in asking for help. They realize the situation is out of their control. They are desperate for a solution. At that moment they are often willing to accept changes or solutions they wouldn’t have found acceptable before. They are willing to take the medicine or undergo the surgery in order to heal. It’s as if they have found faith in themselves and the medical system to heal them, if they are willing to change.
Let’s consider the desperation of the woman healed by Jesus in today’s gospel. She had uncontrollable bleeding for at least a decade. She must have been so anemic, so tired, so weak. It must have been hard for her to do even the simplest tasks without getting out of breath. She decided to go to one more healer, Jesus. She saw God’s love reflected in Jesus, and she believed he could effect God’s healing. She was so desperate and believed so much in Jesus, she thought if she even touched his garment she would be well. Even the tassel at the edge of his garment. Even one thread of the tassel. And Jesus said her faith healed her.
It seems to me that sometimes when our ego is defeated and all our defenses break down, it is easier for faith to break in. When we are forced to relinquish control, we finally are willing to ask for any help available. In today’s gospel the Temple official’s influence and political power could not keep his daughter alive. He knelt down before Jesus asking for help in his desperation. The Shunamite woman dropped everything to travel up a mountain to find Elisha to ask him to restore her son’s life.
In desperate situations like this we understand that truly, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Paul told us in our second reading—not hardsip or distress, persecution or famine, nakedness, peril, or famine, not death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present not things to come, powers nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation—can keep God from loving us, nor us from loving God, if we choose to. Not infertility, as the Shunamite woman and her husband suffered. Not the death of a child. Not illness for 10 years, and separation from family and community, because of ritual purity laws.
For our God understands loss. God made every being on earth, and must feel pain whenever any part of creation is hurt or lost. God lost his own son to execution. God is close to those who mourn. Those who know the grief of a child’s death can identify with God’s grief at Jesus’ death. Imagine the grief God must feel when poisonous chemicals are released into the waters, air, and soil of the Creation gifted to us out of love.
I think the healings Jesus performs in the gospels are emblematic of the healing God wills for each of us. God loves us and wishes no one to suffer. God doesn’t cause suffering. God creates, brings to birth, challenges us to grow, waters, feeds, blesses, loves. God worked through Jesus and Elisha and others, and today works through us. God calls us to heal one another and sometimes, ourselves. To ask one another for help. To look out for one another and offer help when we recognize suffering. To work to end the unjust and destructive systems that cause suffering for people and for the earth. God continues the healing of the world now through us, when we are willing to cooperate.
Sick people are desperate for help. We must be desperate to heal. We must have urgency to bring our faith in God’s love to remedy the pain we see around us. We may not be able to raise people from the dead. But we can fight for gun control so not so many get killed. We may not be able to promise someone a healthy baby one year from now, but we can work for better prenatal care for everyone. We may not be able to make the blind see, but we can sometimes love people to the point where they are willing to open their own eyes.
Let us not separate ourselves from the love of God. Let us open ourselves, lower our defenses, allow ourselves to feel some of the pain in the world, and do all we can to bring God’s love to those who need it.
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