Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21
Years and years ago I was privileged to hear Alec McCowen, an internationally famous actor reading the whole of St. Mark’s Gospel - a performance he took to a London theatre with great success. He died aged 91 in 2017. And I still remember his reading St. Mark’s version of the Gospel for today. It went something like this:
'And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, “This is a desert place and the time is far spent. Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.” He answered and said unto them, “Give ye them to eat.” And they say unto him, (in some astonishment) “Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread. He saith unto them, “How many loaves have ye? (A bit of silence and then commandingly) go and see.” And when they knew, they say, (somewhat petulantly) “Five, (pause and a bit sharpish) and two fishes.”
And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass…' And you can imagine the disciples thinking, ‘What on earth is he going to do next?’ Do you believe the miracle - it is a stupendous one. Some biblical scholars believe that the miracle Jesus did was to persuade people who had brought food with them to share it with those who hadn’t. But if God can create galaxies out of nothing, surely he can create food - if the time and occasion is right. I do believe the miracle but doubt we can do the same because we don’t have the same faith and communion with God that Jesus had.
Thinking about faith, actually I want to speak about the bit that’s gone before this story, the words
“He had compassion for them and cured their sick.”
Healing was part of his work in proclaiming the Kingdom of God and he continued this by sending them out his disciples two by two. For a time, healing continued in the early church - St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that he confirmed the message with wonders and signs and the writings of the early church fathers shows that this continued for quite a time. But then the church lost its power to heal in that way perhaps because Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire with lots of people just nominal Christians. The healing ministry has surfaced from time to time in the lives of the Saints, and the church also continued it by creating hospitals with medical healing often very much accompanied by prayer.
I was very fortunate in that I was brought up at a time when the healing ministry was revived by some deep prayerful people. One of them was Agnes Sanford, the wife of a Methodist minister who very much pioneered a healing ministry in America, England and Australia. Let me just quote a passage from one of her books. - it makes you think!
“There was a small boy with a leaky heart. I had prayed for the healing of the heart with slight success. This was most unusual as the healing of a child’s heart is one of the easiest of prayer objectives and until this time I had never needed to pray for it but once.” She goes on to say that it came to her that she needed the active cooperation of the child, asked him if he believed in God and then taught him to imagine himself playing football and running faster than all the other guys and saying “Thank you God because that’s the way it’s going to be.”
The heart was healed. A story to believe in? My mother used to teach children who could not go to school and one of them, a ten year old called John, was in bed with polio. The doctor's prognosis, at that time very negative, was that he would never walk properly again. She prayed with him and taught him to imagine himself walking and running and then saying “Thank you God". That was in March. In September he went to school and among other things played rugby.
So often, churches leave it to the Parish priests to exercise a ministry of prayer but I firmly believe that a church alive in the power of the Holy Spirit should have healing groups. After all, healing is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and is not confined to the clergy. In the past we have had healing services in all our churches.
Way back in the past we had deanery healing services with a number of minor miracles. I well remember one at Chirbury when the church was almost full. We were helped by a doctor who would pray for his patients if he felt that was right and they agreed. This doesn’t mean that Christians shouldn’t go to Doctors and hospitals - the vast majority of healings comes through these and I believe most of God’s healing ministry is exercised in this way. I have prayed successfully, not so much for healing but that a man who had been ill for months be given a right diagnosis and treatment. Within a week he was. And recovered in a very short time.
But, and I must stress this, praying for healing is not an easy ministry. As all of you know, prayers are not always answered. Margaret, my wife, was admitted to hospital for open heart surgery with severe complications. While she was in intensive care at times in great danger and near to dying, prayers were answered. But she was never completely healed and there were times when I got really angry with God.
Even though I have experienced four or five what could be called miracles, one in myself - sadly there should have been more if I had been closer to God - I have now learnt that if our prayers are not answered, we must have courage to ask why. Agnes Sanford records that her very first prayer for healing met with complete failure - but she didn’t give up. Maybe our faith isn’t strong enough.
In the story after the transfiguration, Jesus' disciples failed and perhaps we need a more childlike faith. I love a little story told by a founder of Lee Abbey, Leslie Sutton, about when he was in Africa with a high fever caused by Malaria. A young African boy Juji, came in from school and, after reading the story of Lazarus said, “If Jesus could do that for Lazarus couldn’t he do it for you? Then he knelt by Leslie’s bed and prayed, “Father God, you’ve brought this man here to teach us and now he’s fallen ill. Father God, make him well and make him well now”. Juji then got up and said, “Now you can get up and I will make you a cup of tea!” Leslie did exactly that and found the fever had completely gone.
But quite often, when prayers don’t appear to be answered, we need to discover what is the right prayer for that situation. So just one more story to end with. A group of people in a church with a flourishing ministry prayed for a young wife who had cancer. She didn’t get better despite being prayed for by people very experienced in the healing ministry. The group praying for her decided to ask God what they should do and fasted to find an answer. A person outside the group got in touch and asked “Are you fasting”. The answer was “yes”. Well a verse came to me which I believe God was asking me to give to you. It is “Precious in the sight of God is the death of his Saints.” It’s a quote from Psalm 116. So, they realised God’s will was for this person to die - why and what God had in store for her is complete mystery.
To conclude. As I have said already, I am sure a vibrant church should have a very real healing ministry through prayer, anointing and laying on of hands. It is a part of its job in proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near.