^{“Those who are well do not need a physician. But we do need to be in relationship with those who sick, or friendless, or in need… they become, in a sense, the doctors that remind us of our own brokenness; the physicians that heal us from our own ignorance and isolation. We need to be reminded that we, too, are human.  And we need to be reminded that our individual human lives are connected to the health and wellbeing of everything else in creation.”}

Sermon Preached: Sunday, June 11, 2023 at Trinity on the Green

Pentecost 2, Year A (Track 2): Hosea 5:15-6:6 | Psalm 50:7-15 | Romans 4:13-25 | Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

May I speak in the name of God who is to us Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning, I invite you to reflect on just how much punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence. Let’s eat (comma), Grandma! Is a much different sentence than it would be without the comma: Let’s eat Grandma! Similarly, the sentence, We are going to learn how to cut and paste kids sounds a lot less threatening with the punctuation mark: We are going to learn, how to cut and paste (comma), kids! Finally, there is the magazine cover from 2012 featuring cooking star Rachel Ray with the infamous headline: Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog. Now that is a sentence that could benefit from a few commas.

I’ve been thinking about punctuation, and how it changes our interpretation of what we read, because of one verse in our Gospel reading today: “Those who are well have no need of a physician (comma), but those who are sick.” It’s a strange grammatical construction, even with the comma– though it’s worth noting that there is no modern punctuation in the original Greek, a fact that should make us think twice before reading too much into any single verse when translated into English. The translation that we use today, the New Revised Standard Version, is a descendant of the Revised Standard Version completed in the 1950s by leading biblical scholars of the day, just up the hill at Yale Divinity School. This is the translation that is used most widely across the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations, and I appreciate the ways that it doesn’t try to overly tidy up the original text. For example that same verse, in the New Living Translation, reads: “Healthy people don’t need a doctor (em dash)– sick people do.” In some ways this translation is so much clearer to our English-listening ears. But this translation is itself an interpretation, like all translations are. And in this case, the translation glosses over some of the complexity in the original language. 

Let’s return to that verse again, Jesus’ words to those critics who surround him after he accepts an offer of hospitality from a tax collector. To these critics, Jesus says:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

There are two interpretations of these words that make sense to me. The first interpretation is perhaps the more obvious one– the one made clear by the New Living translation: “Healthy people don’t need a doctor– sick people do.” This makes sense, as a sentence. It even makes sense, as a metaphor for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus has not come into the world to help those who are doing perfectly fine without him. Instead, Jesus came to minister to people afflicted by that sickness, that brokenness that we call sin. And in that ministry, Jesus was especially attentive to those on the margins of society–  those who were literally sick, and poor, and ostracized, like the tax collector in today’s Gospel reading.

That first interpretation resonates with me. But there is also a second interpretation of these words that makes sense, and gets far less attention than the first. This is the interpretation I would like to focus on today (recognizing that both translations can, simultaneously, be true). 

How would we read this verse differently if we took out the comma, and read it with no pause? How would we understand this verse if we read it like this:

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

I know it’s a subtle difference, almost impossible to hear. But it changes the meaning of these words to something like this: Healthy people don’t need a doctor, except those who are sick. Or perhaps: Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but they do need those who are sick. Do you catch the difference?

You might be a little confused; punctuation can be confusing! And the idea behind this interpretation is also confusing. What good is a sick person to someone who is healthy?– you might ask. How does this make any sense?

And yet it does make some sense when we think of Jesus’ ministry as a whole. Jesus continually reminds people about how we are connected to each other. In the farewell discourses in the Gospel of John, which we read just two Sundays ago, Jesus prays that his followers “might be one,” just as he and the father are one (John 17:21). Jesus reminds us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And Jesus continually calls our attention to those on the margins of society– not only because these are places that need healing, but also (I believe) because encounters with these people restore a kind of unity that we lose sight of. In our care for those who are sick and vulnerable, we too are healed– we are healed from the power that wounds us, and the selfishness that isolates us, and the lie that we are islands unto ourselves and can do it all on our own.

Those who are well do not need a physician. But we do need to be in relationship with those who sick, or friendless, or in need–  because they become, in a sense, the doctors that remind us of our own brokenness; the physicians that heal us from our own ignorance and isolation. We need to be reminded that we, too, are human. And we need to be reminded that our individual human lives are connected to the health and wellbeing of everything else in creation.

We have felt this interconnectedness in a painful way this week, as smoke from the wildfires in Canada has blown south and made its home above and around us here in the Northeast. For days the sun burned orange through a haze of smoke. The air has smelled like campfires. For a moment there it was hard to remember what blue skies look like– and we have had to ask ourselves: is this what the future will be like? Is this the future that we are passing on to our children, if we don’t do something to lessen or even reverse the effects of climate change?

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick, Jesus said.

This week, the sickness of wildfires in Canada has been our teacher, our physician– correcting our shortsightedness about climate issues and revealing the impact that climate change will have on our own community. We need to pay attention to those places in the world that are sick, broken, and in need of healing. If we were constantly looking out for the sick to help them, and to learn from them, we might be able to make a lasting change before the sickness lands on our own doorstep– as it has in the form of smoke from catastrophic wildfires this week.

It is at times like this that I am so grateful that God came down into this world to live among us, to understand the complicated brokenness of our lives. And thank goodness that God came into this world in the form of a healer, in the form of Jesus. This healer added a balm to the wounds of society by eating with those who were looked down upon, like tax collectors. This healer responded to the request of a man whose daughter was sick, and when they thought she was dead Jesus raised her to new life. This healer took a moment, on his way to that miracle I just mentioned, to heal another woman who reached out to him in distress. Jesus’ capacity for healing was immense– and his attention to one person’s sickness or brokenness did not take away from his ability to heal in other times, and other places.

Jesus is still able to heal today, if we are ready to change our lives significantly and follow him. Jesus is still able to heal today, if we are willing to be God’s healing hands in the world. Our world desperately needs healing– social, environmental, and physical healing. And I pray that God will give us the strength and humility to be a part of that healing work.

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

There is a kind of healing that can only come by connecting with others who are sick and broken, just as we are. This is true not only in the world at large, with the problems we face as a global community; but it is also true in our one-on-one relationships, and the support we offer one another as members of this church community. The Roman Catholic Priest Henri Nouwen wrote a book called The Wounded Healer that speaks to this very thing: how we, in our woundedness, can become a source of life for others. Our willingness to share this woundedness, to be vulnerable with one another, is the best kind of medicine. This is the reason that God became human: to share our woundedness and to transform it into new life.

I’d like to share an excerpt from The Wounded Healer, and invite you to reflect on how you can be a part of this healing work. Nouwen writes:

“Ministers are not doctors whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, they deepen the pain to a level where it can be shared. When people come with their loneliness to ministers, they can only expect that their loneliness will be understood and felt, so that they no longer have to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of the basic human condition. When a woman suffers the loss of her child, ministers are not called upon to comfort her by telling her that she still has two beautiful healthy children at home; they are challenged to help her realize that the death of her child reveals her own mortal condition, the same human condition that the minister and others share with her. Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons. Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives. That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt. But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition.”

These words of Henri Nouwen are applicable not only to ordained ministers, but to all of us. We can’t fix all of the brokenness in the world. But we can walk alongside each other in the midst of our brokenness. Together, we can find strength and comfort; and together we can look for those places where we can make a difference–  where we can bring healing and hope. Jesus asks us to dream big dreams about the kind of difference we can make in this world.

Each year during Holy Week, when we reflect on Jesus’ life of mercy and sacrifice, we read these words from the prophet Isaiah: “surely he was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities; by his stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:5). Jesus’ wounds were the source of our healing. So too, may our wounds be a source of healing for others. May the wounds of the earth be a call to healing for all of creation. And may we, like Jesus, be healers in our own time. Amen.

Works Cited:

Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society. New York: Image Doubleday, 1972.