Tag Archives: healing

June 14, 2021 · 9:47 pm

Time to heal

“Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord, and I will heal them. (Isaiah 57:19)

As I write this, I am preparing to go to the hospital tomorrow morning bright and early for surgery. In the grand scheme of things, it should prove a minor surgery, but it has been on my mind, nonetheless. When I was younger, I perhaps did not give as much thought and care to my health and wellness as it deserved, but it seems a growing issue as I age. There’s an ache here or a pain there. Stress can be more present than in the days of my youth. Sleep can be a challenge – not enough time for sleep or at times (perhaps much worse or at least more frustrating) disrupted sleep. Then whether for annual visits, precaution, or due to illness, it seems like I am visiting with doctors more and more. It is a good thing that I like them!

I’ve learned from my chaplaincy work in hospitals, hospice, and among law enforcement, our health and wellness are never to be taken for granted. Instead, self-care is a complicated thing deserving our prayerful discernment, effort, and trust. Yes, you read that correctly. I wrote “prayerful discernment, effort, and trust,” for our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs are all intertwined with one another and our need for God’s grace.

Did you ever notice that when Jesus forgave sins, it often resulted in other manifestations of healing? People were restored to relationship or could once again walk. Scripture commands (in James 5:14-15), “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.” God desires that we look heavenward for help, guidance, and hope. Martin Luther even alluded to our sacraments as a kind of healing medicine at times. Yet Jesus never taught, and scripture never claimed, that the healing to be gifted would only be physical or provided in the way we would want or expect it. Instead, we are asked to trust that the loving God who created us cares for us still. Indeed, God’s loving grace desires to enfold us in a kind of eternal hug from cradle to grave and beyond.  

No matter our situation or prospects in this world, Jesus offers us a peace that is not of this world and beyond our understanding. It is a gift that can help us enter with boldness into new challenges, the doctor’s office, surgery, or even hospice care. This does not mean there will never be tears or fear or other human emotions, but even when these human emotions rise (trying to help us process our situation) or amidst our limited wisdom seeking to find our way forward, we can try to remind ourselves of and trust in Jesus’ promise that we will never be alone. Indeed, it is Jesus who sends us family, friends, and trained professionals to help us on the way. How do I know? Well, all good things come from God, and near or far, God’s healing will always find us. Indeed, Jesus has declared that one day sickness and death will be no more, and we will be with him when that day comes.

Image: Picture by DarkoStjanovic on Pixaby. Used by permission.

Originally published in the July 2021 newsletter of Christ Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg, VA.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations for this article are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation.

© 2021 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author.

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March 1, 2020 · 6:30 pm

Of Arks and Ashes

The following is my Ash Wednesday sermon (2020) reflecting upon the findings of the investigation of Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, in relationship to our Lenten and life’s journey. It was preached at Christ Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg.

As last week ended, I learned of some horrifying, disappointing, maddening news. A man, Jean Vanier, who had earned enormous, international respect for starting a non-profit centered around those with intellectual disabilities…who was deemed a living saint by many and inspired a worldwide movement…whose books were often assigned reading in seminaries and among social workers…who was known to be friends with Mother Teresa, Br. Roger of Taizé, Popes and Archbishops of Canterbury as well as international political figures…was discovered after his death to have misused his place of authority to abuse at least six female coworkers or volunteers who had come to him for spiritual care. He had used his position of trust not only to do good over many years – and there was and still remains much good being done in those communities called L’Arche – but ultimately, he also greatly harmed others who were extremely vulnerable. His actions still negatively impact those victims’ lives and likely will for years to come. The sin perpetrated, as sin always does, had a ripple effect. Many of those who looked up to him or were inspired by him suddenly felt violated themselves. Their volunteering or vocation, perhaps even their personhood, felt threatened. Their faith itself often came under assault. If this supposedly great man couldn’t be trusted, then who can be? People are rightly grieving openly at their sense of betrayal, disappointment, anger, and loss.

I didn’t personally know Jean Vanier, but I have known throughout my later adult years many who served in L’Arche…who are L’Arche. I worked very closely with those who formed L’Arche Metro-Richmond as they sought to successfully create a community where people with and without intellectual disabilities can be found living, working, praying, and playing together. That’s a good thing, the work of many loving people and not just one person. Ultimately, I believe the love and joy found there is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work. The Ark (L’Arche means “ark” in French) might be badly scorched, but it hasn’t been consumed. It is a work that must remain ongoing no matter who might sin and fail among us or in whatever new form the future might bring. God intends to make good come from even the ash heaps of our lives.

I remain glad that my faith is in Jesus and not in humanity. I learned as a police officer long ago that people can always let you down, sometimes in shocking ways, as they struggle with their own darkness….or perhaps start perpetuating wounds they themselves have received. Knowing this doesn’t make it easier when we are hurt by sin, but it might help us accept that bad things can happen to good people in a fallen world. In time, it might even help us forgive or move forward.

The failures of others to love need not stop us from looking to Jesus who asked us to serve as light among the darkness. This is a real darkness at work in the world often through ordinary people. Yet over those years, I also came to recognize that sin and death were also always at work in me. That’s why I came back to the Church. I needed more than just comfort or correction, some plan for doing better. I needed grace, forgiveness and salvation. I needed it not just once, but time after time each day. The darkness that we face or struggle with as Church should never keep us from striving toward the Light which is Jesus. You see, God desires to help us. Its why Jesus came to us.

That human condition reflects a bit about why we gather here tonight. No matter who we are, we as Lutheran-Christians understand that we are at our best sinner-saints. We tend to be bent inward on ourselves, Luther argued, always struggling with sin and never proving quite enough on our own to be the people we hope we can be…the people God desires us to become. Whether large sins or small sins, they come with a cost. We separate ourselves from God and neighbor. We hurt others, sometimes unintentionally, but its real hurt none the less. We experience the heavy reality of sin through bullies in school and negative, condemning self-talk in our heads, in addiction, misuse of what God has given us (even friendships and family relationships meant to be a gift from God are abused) and so much more.

This is largely unavoidable as humans, but it isn’t because we are a total mess or unredeemable…it is because we are human. Still as much as we humbly accept this fallen reality, we are asked by God to accept even more. We are fallen yet loved humans. Each year as we enter Lent, we are asked to contemplate how Jesus suffered and died for us (“for our sin” some say) in order to free us from the power of sin, death and the Devil. We are invited, not forced, to practice the disciplines of Lent: to cooperate with the grace offered us through prayer (justice towards God); fasting (justice towards self); and almsgiving (justice towards neighbors). We are called to repentance, to serve others, to offer ourselves up before God and ask God to transform our lives and community. God does so through his Spirit; making us holy.

In the early days of Christianity, the ancient practices of mourning in sackcloth and ashes became a new symbol of this season called Lent. It is a word meaning springtime, and it is meant for renewed life through loving God and neighbor as ourselves. Its not that we are asked to literally sit in ashes and dress in sackcloth like the prophets of old, but we are invited to receive a small cross made of oil and ash on our foreheads. Much like those who had been excommunicated in the early church for grave sin, we wear ashes as a sign of our modern regrets and hope for restoration. We remember the promises of our baptism where, yes, we made promises to God…promises we often fail in…but also where God made lasting, perfect promises to us. The Holy Spirit has claimed us. We have become by God’s power and proclamation beloved children of God, and God will never let us go.

I will never condemn anyone for crying over sin in the world or in ourselves. We have much to regret, and life often hurts. There’s much evil to contemplate, fear and cope with. Still, all is not lost. Jesus suffered and rose for our sake. The cross he bore…the life we live with all its problems and our fears…leads us to one certain end… Resurrection Day with a new and eternal life shared with Jesus.

As Paul so powerfully argues, we are as the dying, and see, we are alive. We might seem to have nothing, and yet we have everything. Yes, we have the love of Jesus, our Savior, our Redeemer, our God. We can open wide our hearts to God and neighbor with courage, even as we might grieve sin and death. For with God, all things are possible including new starts and our salvation as gift. No matter what we see, feel, or fear, we can trust that God is making all things new. We can trust in Jesus even when we cannot trust ourselves. Amen.

© 2020 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author.

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June 25, 2019 · 7:12 pm

What have you to do with me, Jesus?

  • Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year C
  • Texts: Isaiah 65:1-9; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
  • Pastor Lou Florio – June 23, 2019

Evil…There is something about evil in the world that frightens us. And yet, it can simultaneously have the power to entice us…to draw us in. Slowly but surely, if we don’t reject and repent from the evil of the world around us, it can seem to become part of us…It can in a way consume us. In just about every culture of our world, faith traditions try to warn us. “Stay back from evil! Turn away! Repent! Focus on the goodness and promise of this life, or else we risk becoming possessed by the evil we fear.” Our lives can indeed become consumed by the tempting evil around us and the sin at work within us. Life itself can become a kind of nightmare.

Now certainly, we might not always recognize many of our struggles as demonic spirits at work like our ancient forbearers tended to do. Yet after so much time spent as a missionary among Native Americans who see the world in grand, interactive spiritual terms, I can’t say there isn’t a spiritual element to many of our problems. It is indeed the same worldview of the Gospels, and I’ve seen and experienced too much. The many twelve step groups that deal with varied addictions (and have been used by God to help so many) assert this as well. Much of our foibles and sin at some level grow out of an unanswered spiritual hunger or emptiness within us. Yet rather than turning to God, we tend to seek our own way, and that’s when we risk getting lost.

And so, as we approach today’s Gospel story, I would implore us to keep an open mind. We moderns like our demons in movies, not in life. Yet, I would argue we all have demons we deal with at some level. And there certainly seems to be powerful, explicit evil force at work in the world if not our lives as we struggle with sin, death and the Devil each day.

Therefore, however it happened, I feel deep compassion for this man calling himself Legion. I wonder how he got to live naked and alone among the tombs of Gerasene. Did he give in to temptation one too many times? Or perhaps beaten up by the world, did he withdraw from reality and loose himself on the way? Or, he could have even dabbled in magic or other black arts while trying to control the world around him…evil making itself slowly at home in his mind and his heart over time?

We don’t know the answers to how he got to be seemingly consumed by evil. We don’t have his history, but we do know that the path of sin leaves wreckage in our wake: broken relationships, isolation, a loss of our identity as beloved children of God. Sin, our sin and the sin and evil we encounter systemically in the world, has the power to destroy us and all we hold dear. This, to me, is perhaps the scariest part of the story: I fear the deep pain growing in his heart as he began to hate the world around him, our shared life, and most likely even himself.

Yes, this demon possessed man might have forgotten who he was intended to be, but Jesus didn’t. As part of the Triune God and the promised Messiah, Jesus’s actions will embody the Good News as well as fulfill the words of the prophets of old. Jesus will get into a boat to cross the sea of Galilee. It almost seems like a whimsical decision. “Let us go across to the other side of the lake,” Jesus says. And so, they put out. And on that trip, they face death in a storm that Jesus will calm – as only a god could do.

Then, he next arrives in a land occupied by outsiders to their faith, the gentile Gerasenes. Here, he will show his power over the spiritual realm. Right away, he is met by a man who lives among the dead; who claims the name Legion. (This term, recall, is a military unit of 6,000 Roman soldiers and thus perhaps an indication of the many demons hidden but at work inside him). The man cries out at the top of his voice (in Greek the words indicate a deep, guttural, almost painful cry), “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (“What business do we have in common?” is another translation.) Why do you care for or bother to come to me?

Jesus lives his answer. He has come to defeat sin, death and the Devil…to trample it underfoot as one of our communion prayers reads. He has come to call the lost, save the sinner, offer mercy and abundant, eternal life to all those that suffer in mind, body or spirit. He will even die for all, so that we might live forever with him. Jesus embodies the promise of Isaiah, the very attributes of God, as he reveals himself to those who did not ask for him and will be found by those who did not look for him (see Isa. 65:1).

Jesus will save this man with amazing grace. He will send that man – now healed and whole – back to his home to share the good news of what God has done for him…to share his faith in Jesus. Jesus loved this man, and he has crossed the waters to save him. Nothing else is reported from this trip, only this one story. It seems as if Jesus has come only for him…loved him as if he were the only one because that man needed Jesus.

Certainly, this is an ancient story with an ancient worldview, but it remains a story that plays out in our modern lives. Jesus comes for us who are broken hearted, who hate how we behave, who are lonely, who struggle valuing ourselves and the life that we have been given…a sometimes very difficult life. Think of whatever the deepest most hidden sin you struggle with, or consider your greatest fear, and then ask Jesus, “What business do you have with me? Why should you even care?” The answer remains the same, “I wish to share everything I have with you, because I love you.”

So here he is, Immanuel (God with us)…Jesus…reaching out to us, but too often, we are afraid to believe…afraid to trust him. We doubt the power of his cross to make a difference in our lives. “It is too good to be true,” we might say. “My sin is too big to be forgiven.” “I am unlovable and worthless.” To be honest, as a human in need of saving, I’ve heard these phrases in different forms whispered in my own mind at times. Also time and again, as a missionary, chaplain and pastor, I have heard these fears shared by others using varied words. It seems part of our shared, earthly experience – our corrupted spiritual DNA perhaps. These lies (and that’s what they are) tend to haunt us.

In response, always remember that Jesus speaks to us too: in our life among God’s faithful people; in hearing the Word and sharing the Lord’s Supper; in our proclaiming the Good News of Christ through word and deed; as we serve all people following the example of Jesus and strive for God’s justice and peace…Yes, in faithfully living our promises of baptism, we, too, are blessed and healed while evil is sent running away.

Jesus uses these lived promises to perform miracles. He draws us away from the powers of this fallen world and closer to himself. I know it can remain scary to leave what we know (even sometimes the pain of sin itself) in order to embrace this new life in Christ, but Jesus has come far to lead us home. Believe in him, hold on to his promises, and do not be afraid, for we are about to witness miracles beyond our wildest dreams. Amen.

Photo credit: sl3p3r on pixabay.com

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations for this article are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation.

© 2019 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author.

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