Big Bang Faith – The Faith and Medicine Algorithm
Sycamore Creek Church
May 6, 2012
Tom Arthur
Luke 4:14-20

Bazinga, Friends!

I am naturally a skeptic. When it comes to the supernatural and miraculous, I tend to have a lot of questions. I’ve never seen a miraculous healing, even though I hear claims about them all the time. When I was in elementary school, I had a bad skateboarding accident and seriously cut up my knee. When I walked the mile to get home with blood streaming down my leg, I found an empty house. My mom was gone. I got into bed and prayed that if God stopped the bleeding, I’d read the Bible from front to back. I picked up the Bible and began reading Genesis. Well, the bleeding did eventually stop, but it didn’t appear to be anything more than natural processes at work. I did eventually read my entire Bible, but not for several years.

While reading for this sermon, I was at a café and put my book on the counter to pay. One of the employees picked it up and asked what I was reading. It was a book titled Miracles. I told her it was a book about miracles and then asked her if she had ever experienced any miracles. She thought for a moment and then went on to tell me how every day life is a miracle. She is a gardener and finds the beauty of flowers to be a miracle. I agree, but that’s not really what I mean when I talk about a miracle. I’m talking about something that doesn’t happen every day. Something unexpected.

While researching for this message, I came across a show called Miracles for Sale by a famous British illusionist named Darren Brown. The U.K.’s version of David Copperfield. Brown studied the “tricks” that faith healers use, a mixture of illusion and psychological suggestion, then secretly auditioned actors to play the part of a faith healer and taught that person how to use illusions and psychological suggestion to “heal” people. They traveled to Texas and put on a faith healing service, and “healed” people. Their attack was not against faith or the church, but against manipulative, fraudulent faith healers who sell miracles. I found the whole show very compelling, but while certain faith healers who closely tie together money and healing may be charlatans, I’m not sure that healings are always just illusions.

The closest I’ve come to something miraculous are two stories my mom tells about encountering angels. One happened while I was in elementary school and riding in the car with her. She had left her wallet on the top of the car when she filled the gas tank up. She was a single mom at the time, and when she realized what she had done, she became very anxious. She had a car full of kids and was on a busy road, so she prayed for God to send her someone to help her find her wallet. She locked the doors, told us to stay put, and went looking for her wallet. At some point she looked up and a man was walking toward her. He had her wallet. She was extremely grateful and thanked him profusely. When she turned around to walk back to the car, she decided she ought to give him some cash from her wallet as a gift for helping her. She turned back around to give him some money, and he was gone! Vanished! Nowhere to be seen. She believes God sent her an angel.

I think that many of us have this one basic question when it comes to faith and healing: do miraculous healings happen?

Miracles?

David Hume, one key Enlightenment era philosopher, had this to say about miracles:

There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.

I think that a lot of us have that same sentiment. Hume’s statement also has a subtle prejudice in it that comes out more strongly elsewhere when he says:

It forms a strong presumption against all spiritual and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous people.

Basically, Hume is saying that if you’re not a white educated western man, your thoughts on this topic aren’t very reliable. And if we’re honest, I think most of us hold at least some version of this same prejudice. Those cultures in “third world” countries are naturally more superstitious and too easily believe in the supernatural.

In his book The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis tells the story of an elder demon mentoring a younger demon. In the preface to this book, Lewis says,

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

Perhaps those of us in the west are too prone to disbelieve in the supernatural and those in the majority of the world are too prone to believe in the supernatural. While it may be inappropriate to fall in the extremes when it comes to faith and healing, there is no doubt that healing is part of the story of Jesus as told by the Bible.

Jesus Heals

At the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and teaching, he stands up in a synagogue and reads from the book of Isaiah. Here is what he reads and says:

Luke 4:14-21 NLT

Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Soon he became well known throughout the surrounding country. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone in the synagogue stared at him intently. Then he said, “This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!”

Jesus claims that in him the prophesy of Isaiah that justice will come and people will be healed has come true. And then as you read the first four books of the New Testament, you see this coming true. Jesus heals the blind, lame, deaf, paraplegic, demon possessed, epileptic, and more. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, Bible scholars at the University of Heidelberg, say that “nowhere else are so many miracles reported of a single person as they are in the Gospels of Jesus.” Another scholar points out that “31 percent of the verses in Mark’s Gospel involve miracles in some way, or some 40 percent of his narrative!” (Keener, pg 66).

But aren’t these healing stories just an example of the big fish story? It was so big that by the time it got away and the story has been told over and over, it was the size of a whale! Aren’t these miracle stories just legendary mythical additions to the text over time? Craig Keener points out that “contrary to assumptions that miracle stories would always grow in time, other Gospels’ use of Mark shows that abbreviation was as common as development” (Keener, pg 31). John Meier, a New Testament scholar at Notre Dame adds that “the early dating of the literary testimony to Jesus’ miracles, the closeness of the dates of the written ‘docs’ to the alleged miracles of Jesus’ life, is almost unparalleled for the period” (Keener, pg 71).

It turns out that these miracle stories, while they can’t be proved, are not so spurious as some have thought. But assuming that Jesus did really heal people back in the day, will Jesus heal me?

Pray for Healing and Make Healthy Choices

Sometimes I think that we treat God like a genie in a bottle. Got a problem? Rub the bottle and out pops God to give us three wishes. But God is even more generous than the genie, because every time we have a problem and rub the bottle, we get three more wishes!

My own observation, which I think is pretty obvious, is that while God can and does heal, God does not always heal when and how you want. God’s usual way of working in the world is to allow actions to have natural consequences. Do you expect God to overturn the natural consequences of poor choices? Do you not study for a test and then pray to pass? Do you sit on your duff all day long without ever exercising and pray for your heart blockage to be healed? Do you smoke a pack a day and then pray for God to heal your lung cancer? God’s usual way of working in the world is to work through natural means. So seek out doctors, physical therapists, trainers, coaches, dieticians, and the like. God is less like a genie and more like a surgeon. He is less likely to give you your three wishes and more likely to cut the cancer out of your bad habits.

Now there is a perception out there that being a Christian is somehow a kind of an unhealthy mental illness. If you’re a believer, you must be unhealthy. You can see this in one of the new atheists, Richard Dawkins’ book titled: The God Delusion. The implication is clear: Faith = mental illness.

Research actually shows the opposite. The Duke University Center for the Study of Religion and Spirituality has been studying the effects of faith and faith practices on health for many years now. The truth is that if you participate in faith practices, you are likely to be more healthy. Here is a list of some of their findings:

• People who regularly attend church, pray individually, and read the Bible have significantly lower diastolic blood pressure than the less religious. Those with the lowest blood pressure both attend church and pray or study the Bible often.
• People who attend church regularly are hospitalized much less often than people who never or rarely participate in religious services.
• People with strong religious faith are less likely to suffer depression from stressful life events, and if they do, they are more likely to recover from depression than those who are less religious.
• People with strong faith who suffer from physical illness have significantly better health outcomes than less religious people.
• People who attend religious services regularly have stronger immune systems than their less religious counterparts.
• Religious people live longer.

(Taken from The Healing Power of Faith by Harold Koenig, M.D.)

So pray for healing and expect to be healed, but don’t forget to make healthy choices too. And one of those healthy choices is choosing to pray!

The Purpose of Healing

So is disease always about the poor choices you made? Are you sick because you sinned? Jesus is asked a question like this:

“Teacher,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him.”
John 9:2-4 NLT

Jesus points out that this blindness has nothing to do with personal sin. No one sinned in such a way that the man was born blind. Since the man was born blind, I guess the people asking Jesus this question thought that someone could sin before birth! Jesus points out that they’re asking the wrong question. The ultimate purpose of healing is to bring God glory.

Imagine with me for a moment what kind of glory we would bring God if SCC became known as oasis of health and healing amidst a broken and diseased culture. What if we became known as a hospital for the sick? We should attract the sick, but if we are faithfully teaching how to practice the faith, they should experience healing here too.

Actually, I already see it happening. There’s a small group of women who, concerned about their health, are meeting to run and/or walk in preparation for an upcoming 5K. They call it a Run for God small group. Exercising in a group is always easier than exercising alone. There’s an accountability in the process of being active with friends.

I see people in our church losing weight. I myself have lost some weight lately. All the men in my family are overweight and suffering from some kind of diabetes. I have a covenant with my pants that I will never leave them nor forsake them. Back in November my pants were getting a little tight as I was hitting the upper end of my healthy weight limit. Instead of waiting until I was overweight, I decided to lose some weight. I bought into Weight Watchers online and have lost fifteen pounds since November, and now I’m in the middle of my healthy weight range. But I also know some among us who have lost thirty or forty pounds and have regained significant health in the process.

I have seen people in our church quit smoking or give up drugs or alcohol. They’ve done so after being convicted by God’s Spirit at work in their heart or mind. Some who are struggling with emotional or relational issues have found support and help for coping in our support group that meets twice a month. I see people rebuilding broken relationships, forgiving past harm, and renewing their marriages. God is at work healing in our church. So does God heal, and can God heal you? Yes, but not always how or when we want. God is God, not your personal genie.