The Healing Touch
Sermon
Sermons On The Gospel Readings
Series I, Cycle B
Recently, when I renewed my driver's license, I was presented with the opportunity to renew the accompanying organ donor card. I decided to renew, but I subsequently asked a doctor what organs were likely to be harvested. He mentioned many that I was aware of through stories of successful transplants. Then he pointed out that there is a continuing need for the largest, oldest, most sensitive, most protective organ of the body. When I asked what that was, he replied, "Your skin." I never had thought of it as an organ, but he pointed out that this is the organ that puts us most in contact with the world. Through it we get messages of heat and cold, pain and pleasure, and even love and friendship. It keeps us in touch with ourselves, with others, and with our environment. Touch plays a big part in our well-being.
The passage of scripture before us contains two instances which have something to say about touch. Jesus has just stepped off a boat after crossing the Sea of Galilee, when a man by the name of Jairus, the president of the local synagogue, approaches Jesus and asks him to come to his home, because Jairus' daughter is at the point of death. Jesus agrees to go with him, but as they make their way through the street crowded with spectators, a woman, who has been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, sneaks up behind Jesus with the hope of just touching him, for she feels that just a touch might be enough to heal her. She is considered unclean because of the hemorrhage, and is not even supposed to be out in public, but she is desperate. She succeeds in touching Jesus, and she immediately perceives that she is healed. She hopes to get away unnoticed, but Jesus, feeling that power has gone out from him, stops in his tracks, turns around to face the crowd, and asks, "Who touched my clothes?" The woman falls trembling at Jesus' feet, admitting that it was she who made the contact. Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well, that she is to go in peace, and that she is healed.
While Jesus is still speaking, one of Jairus' servants comes to inform him that his daughter has died, and that there is no need to trouble Jesus further. When Jesus hears this, he urges Jairus to have no fear, but only to believe. When they arrive at the house, Jesus takes the girl by the hand and urges her to get up. She immediately gets up, and gives evidence of being very much alive.
There are many things to be gotten from these two incidents, but what I want to focus on in both of them is the power of touch. People have long felt that touch is important in healing. Bruce Larson tells about a program at Syracuse Upstate Medical Center where they operate on the theory that well people have a reservoir of power that can be tapped to bring healing to the sick. A course is offered in the laying on of hands on the premise that healthy people have a life force called "prana" that can be transferred to persons who are ill.1 In Lloyd C. Douglas' book The Robe, the idea is carried forward that even the clothing worn by Jesus has power to heal, just as the woman in the first story believed.
In his book Caring, Feeling, Touching, Sidney B. Simon, a teacher at the University of Massachusetts, speaks of a "skin hunger" felt by all, which is a deep-seated need for the touch, the feel, the concrete reality of human contact. He points out that every human being comes into the world needing to be touched, a need that persists until death. Further, being touched in tender, caring ways can be healing and therapeutic. I have a friend who eats breakfast out most days. One morning he was sitting at the counter in a restaurant, apparently feeling sorry for himself, when a woman came in and sat next to him. They entered into conversation, and the woman told him that he looked like somebody who really needed a hug. She said everybody needed at least ten hugs a day. He acknowledged that he hadn't had a hug for a long time, whereupon she slipped from her seat and opened her arms wide. He accepted the embrace, and was so energized by it that he went about from that point on offering hugs to everybody.
Andy Rooney points out that there are a lot of hugs that really don't qualify as hugs. He speaks of the "A-frame hug," where two people come together and their heads touch -- but nothing else. He says that the effect is a massive leaning, so that the people look like a ski lodge. Another non-hug he calls the "chest-to-chest burp." Chest contact is made, but this makes people so nervous they start patting each other on the back as if they were burping a baby. He says that is our way of reducing the other person to a safe, infantile status. A real hug, Rooney says, is a full body hug that collapses the A-frame and doesn't include the burping. The people coming together take time really to look at each other. I recall being present once when a naval officer who had been at sea for a year, surprised his young son by stepping out of a closet. The boy flew across the room and embraced his father with arms and legs. That was the kind of hug that heals a lot of things. It was a therapeutic touch.
There are, however, other kinds of touching. My unabridged dictionary listed 25 uses of the word touch that go beyond the tactile experience. These include such words as affect, impress, move, inspire, contaminate, stir to pity, and so forth. Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" It is a question we also would do well to ask, and its answer will remind us that each of us has much for which to be grateful.
We have been touched by those who create beauty. In his book When Iron Gates Yield, Geoffrey Bull, an English missionary who endured the torture of Chinese communist brainwashing, tells how one day in Chunking, after his captors had taken away everything important, and he was facing death, he heard Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto" coming from a radio being played somewhere outside his prison room. The beauty of the music, he says, sustained him, and he was able to survive. We have been touched time and again by the creators of beauty.
We have been touched by those who have preserved the beauty of nature for us. In Yosemite National Park there is a bronze plaque attached to a huge boulder. The plaque features the outline of a man, and under it are the words: "Stephen Ting Mather. Born July 4, 1867. Died January 22, 1930. He laid the foundation of the National Park Service, defining and establishing the policies under which its areas shall be developed and conserved for future generations. There will never come an end to the work he has done." Here was a man whose work continues to touch us.
We have been touched by a heritage of faith. Norm Lawson shows us how that heritage is passed on. In 1858 a Sunday school teacher named Mr. Kimball led a shoe clerk to give his life to Christ. The clerk's name was Dwight L. Moody. Moody became an evangelist in England, and in 1879 he awakened the heart of Fredrick Meyer, at that time pastor of a small church. Pastor Meyer came to America and, while preaching on a college campus, won J. Wilbur Chapman to Christ. Wilbur Chapman became a YMCA worker and picked up a former baseball player to do evangelistic work. That player was named Billy Sunday. At a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina, Sunday so excited a group of local men that they engaged Mordecai Hamm to come to their town. In a revival with Mordecai Hamm, a young man heard the gospel and yielded his life to Christ. His name was Billy Graham. How many lives have been touched by that man? All of us are what we are because our lives have been touched by others.
The scripture passages we are considering remind us that touching people creatively can cost us something. In the encounter with the woman who touched him, Jesus was aware that power had gone out of him. At Jairus' house Jesus was laughed at when he said that the young girl was not dead. Those who reach out to touch others will find that there is a price to pay. For example, the writer who hopes to leave something for posterity is aware that one doesn't just sit down and write whatever comes to mind. Writing is ten percent inspiration, but ninety percent perspiration. Hemingway was lucky to write three pages a day. I have seen the pages of poets as they write, rewrite, cross out and write again, looking for the right word, the right cadence. It does not come easily.
Helen Hayes, America's first lady of theater, participated in a television commercial some years ago in which she reminded us that good acting involves cost to the actor. Remember, she said, that when we speak of acting, we say that the actor gave a fine performance. Those who truly touch us, whether as actors, writers, or preachers give of themselves.
This is also true of those who serve. I am reminded of Father Damien, who gave himself unselfishly to serve the unfortunate lepers on Molokai. One day when he stood to speak to his flock, he began his remarks by addressing them as "We lepers." He had touched them so intimately as he bound their wounds, that he himself contracted the dreaded disease. If we seek to touch the hurting places of the world, we need to be prepared for the fact that there are costs involved.
And yet, this is the way the power that was in Christ continues to get out to a hurting world. All through our lives others have touched us through their gifts, and those gifts are to be passed on as we touch others. God has chosen to use the human network to tie the generations together. We don't have to preach or pressure anyone. All over this hurting world there is need for a healing touch that is uniquely ours to give.
We are often doubtful that anything we can do can make a difference in the lives of others. I am reminded of that movie It's A Wonderful Life, which continues to get replayed every Christmas. A man who is about to lose his business and the savings of a lot of other people as well, wants to take his life, but his guardian angel won't let him. Instead, he is granted his wish that he had never been born. When he revisits his hometown he discovers that nobody knows him, because he had never been born. He finds many things left undone because he had not been there to do them. His brother had died because he wasn't there to save him in an accident. Many bad things had happened because he wasn't there to prevent them. He saw how many lives had been touched by his, and it gave him a new appreciation for how much poorer the community would have been without him.
It would be the same in our community without the touch that each of us can bring. To borrow a phrase, "Reach out and touch somebody," as only you can.
____________
1. Bruce Larson, The Communicator's Commentary: Luke (Waco: Word Books, Publisher, 1983), p. 157.
The passage of scripture before us contains two instances which have something to say about touch. Jesus has just stepped off a boat after crossing the Sea of Galilee, when a man by the name of Jairus, the president of the local synagogue, approaches Jesus and asks him to come to his home, because Jairus' daughter is at the point of death. Jesus agrees to go with him, but as they make their way through the street crowded with spectators, a woman, who has been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, sneaks up behind Jesus with the hope of just touching him, for she feels that just a touch might be enough to heal her. She is considered unclean because of the hemorrhage, and is not even supposed to be out in public, but she is desperate. She succeeds in touching Jesus, and she immediately perceives that she is healed. She hopes to get away unnoticed, but Jesus, feeling that power has gone out from him, stops in his tracks, turns around to face the crowd, and asks, "Who touched my clothes?" The woman falls trembling at Jesus' feet, admitting that it was she who made the contact. Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well, that she is to go in peace, and that she is healed.
While Jesus is still speaking, one of Jairus' servants comes to inform him that his daughter has died, and that there is no need to trouble Jesus further. When Jesus hears this, he urges Jairus to have no fear, but only to believe. When they arrive at the house, Jesus takes the girl by the hand and urges her to get up. She immediately gets up, and gives evidence of being very much alive.
There are many things to be gotten from these two incidents, but what I want to focus on in both of them is the power of touch. People have long felt that touch is important in healing. Bruce Larson tells about a program at Syracuse Upstate Medical Center where they operate on the theory that well people have a reservoir of power that can be tapped to bring healing to the sick. A course is offered in the laying on of hands on the premise that healthy people have a life force called "prana" that can be transferred to persons who are ill.1 In Lloyd C. Douglas' book The Robe, the idea is carried forward that even the clothing worn by Jesus has power to heal, just as the woman in the first story believed.
In his book Caring, Feeling, Touching, Sidney B. Simon, a teacher at the University of Massachusetts, speaks of a "skin hunger" felt by all, which is a deep-seated need for the touch, the feel, the concrete reality of human contact. He points out that every human being comes into the world needing to be touched, a need that persists until death. Further, being touched in tender, caring ways can be healing and therapeutic. I have a friend who eats breakfast out most days. One morning he was sitting at the counter in a restaurant, apparently feeling sorry for himself, when a woman came in and sat next to him. They entered into conversation, and the woman told him that he looked like somebody who really needed a hug. She said everybody needed at least ten hugs a day. He acknowledged that he hadn't had a hug for a long time, whereupon she slipped from her seat and opened her arms wide. He accepted the embrace, and was so energized by it that he went about from that point on offering hugs to everybody.
Andy Rooney points out that there are a lot of hugs that really don't qualify as hugs. He speaks of the "A-frame hug," where two people come together and their heads touch -- but nothing else. He says that the effect is a massive leaning, so that the people look like a ski lodge. Another non-hug he calls the "chest-to-chest burp." Chest contact is made, but this makes people so nervous they start patting each other on the back as if they were burping a baby. He says that is our way of reducing the other person to a safe, infantile status. A real hug, Rooney says, is a full body hug that collapses the A-frame and doesn't include the burping. The people coming together take time really to look at each other. I recall being present once when a naval officer who had been at sea for a year, surprised his young son by stepping out of a closet. The boy flew across the room and embraced his father with arms and legs. That was the kind of hug that heals a lot of things. It was a therapeutic touch.
There are, however, other kinds of touching. My unabridged dictionary listed 25 uses of the word touch that go beyond the tactile experience. These include such words as affect, impress, move, inspire, contaminate, stir to pity, and so forth. Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" It is a question we also would do well to ask, and its answer will remind us that each of us has much for which to be grateful.
We have been touched by those who create beauty. In his book When Iron Gates Yield, Geoffrey Bull, an English missionary who endured the torture of Chinese communist brainwashing, tells how one day in Chunking, after his captors had taken away everything important, and he was facing death, he heard Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto" coming from a radio being played somewhere outside his prison room. The beauty of the music, he says, sustained him, and he was able to survive. We have been touched time and again by the creators of beauty.
We have been touched by those who have preserved the beauty of nature for us. In Yosemite National Park there is a bronze plaque attached to a huge boulder. The plaque features the outline of a man, and under it are the words: "Stephen Ting Mather. Born July 4, 1867. Died January 22, 1930. He laid the foundation of the National Park Service, defining and establishing the policies under which its areas shall be developed and conserved for future generations. There will never come an end to the work he has done." Here was a man whose work continues to touch us.
We have been touched by a heritage of faith. Norm Lawson shows us how that heritage is passed on. In 1858 a Sunday school teacher named Mr. Kimball led a shoe clerk to give his life to Christ. The clerk's name was Dwight L. Moody. Moody became an evangelist in England, and in 1879 he awakened the heart of Fredrick Meyer, at that time pastor of a small church. Pastor Meyer came to America and, while preaching on a college campus, won J. Wilbur Chapman to Christ. Wilbur Chapman became a YMCA worker and picked up a former baseball player to do evangelistic work. That player was named Billy Sunday. At a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina, Sunday so excited a group of local men that they engaged Mordecai Hamm to come to their town. In a revival with Mordecai Hamm, a young man heard the gospel and yielded his life to Christ. His name was Billy Graham. How many lives have been touched by that man? All of us are what we are because our lives have been touched by others.
The scripture passages we are considering remind us that touching people creatively can cost us something. In the encounter with the woman who touched him, Jesus was aware that power had gone out of him. At Jairus' house Jesus was laughed at when he said that the young girl was not dead. Those who reach out to touch others will find that there is a price to pay. For example, the writer who hopes to leave something for posterity is aware that one doesn't just sit down and write whatever comes to mind. Writing is ten percent inspiration, but ninety percent perspiration. Hemingway was lucky to write three pages a day. I have seen the pages of poets as they write, rewrite, cross out and write again, looking for the right word, the right cadence. It does not come easily.
Helen Hayes, America's first lady of theater, participated in a television commercial some years ago in which she reminded us that good acting involves cost to the actor. Remember, she said, that when we speak of acting, we say that the actor gave a fine performance. Those who truly touch us, whether as actors, writers, or preachers give of themselves.
This is also true of those who serve. I am reminded of Father Damien, who gave himself unselfishly to serve the unfortunate lepers on Molokai. One day when he stood to speak to his flock, he began his remarks by addressing them as "We lepers." He had touched them so intimately as he bound their wounds, that he himself contracted the dreaded disease. If we seek to touch the hurting places of the world, we need to be prepared for the fact that there are costs involved.
And yet, this is the way the power that was in Christ continues to get out to a hurting world. All through our lives others have touched us through their gifts, and those gifts are to be passed on as we touch others. God has chosen to use the human network to tie the generations together. We don't have to preach or pressure anyone. All over this hurting world there is need for a healing touch that is uniquely ours to give.
We are often doubtful that anything we can do can make a difference in the lives of others. I am reminded of that movie It's A Wonderful Life, which continues to get replayed every Christmas. A man who is about to lose his business and the savings of a lot of other people as well, wants to take his life, but his guardian angel won't let him. Instead, he is granted his wish that he had never been born. When he revisits his hometown he discovers that nobody knows him, because he had never been born. He finds many things left undone because he had not been there to do them. His brother had died because he wasn't there to save him in an accident. Many bad things had happened because he wasn't there to prevent them. He saw how many lives had been touched by his, and it gave him a new appreciation for how much poorer the community would have been without him.
It would be the same in our community without the touch that each of us can bring. To borrow a phrase, "Reach out and touch somebody," as only you can.
____________
1. Bruce Larson, The Communicator's Commentary: Luke (Waco: Word Books, Publisher, 1983), p. 157.
