Back in May, I woke up one morning with a very sore throat. Normally, I would have had some hot tea and gone on with my day. But, because of Covid, I went to the doctor. She helped me understand how I could know it wasn’t Covid, BUT she also said, “Mary, you haven’t had a physical for more than a year. Make an appointment.”
And so I did.
Physicals at my doctor’s include preliminary blood tests. When the results of my test came back this year, my blood sugar was elevated too close for comfort to diabetes. What started as a sore throat (that was completely gone by the next day!) has become a serious study of what I eat and, now, what I don’t eat.
I am thankful for that sore throat. Through it I was “allured” to recognize something that needed to change. The doctor assures me that if I change, my trajectory toward diabetes will diminish and maybe be healed.
Three Examples of Healing
Today’s readings give us three examples of God healing. In the Gospel, Jesus is asked by a synagogue official to heal his daughter. She is seriously ill. The unnamed official asked Jesus to come touch her. Jesus starts to go, but he is delayed by the crowds around him and by a woman who has had an ailment that “has made her unclean” for twelve years. She isn’t even supposed to be in that crowd of people. She isn’t supposed to touch anyone. But she is in need, just like the synagogue official. She doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her. She just touches his clothes. Both she and Jesus know she has been healed. Asked specifically by Jesus, “Who touched me?” she confesses what she did and why.
Meanwhile the official’s daughter has died. God waited too long! But, no, he didn’t. He was delayed by another person’s need, but it is not too late. He comes, touches the little girl as he had been asked to do, and she gets up. In one of the other Gospel accounts of this story, Jesus even says, “Give her something to eat.” She is fully ready to go on with life. She, too, is healed.
The first reading comes from Hosea. Hosea was a prophet of the Northern Kingdom twenty or so years before the Assyrian conquest in 722 BCE. His own wife was unfaithful to him. He used his own story as a metaphor to preach to his people about their unfaithfulness to God. The Hebrew people had intermarried with the Caananites throughout the centuries and adopted their gods, especially Baal, the god of nature and fertility. The theme of Hosea’s prophecy is that God’s relationship with his people is a bond—a bond like the bond of marriage: foundational, at the core of life. Even though the Hebrews are fickle with God—faithful and humble in times of trouble, ignoring him when times are good—God calls them back. He is faithful, just like a husband or wife.
Hesed and Today’s Reading
Hosea uses the word hesed. Hesed means a mutual, constant fidelity that is rooted in love. Sometimes hesed is translated as “mercy,” but the mercy meant is a propensity to forgive wrongs because the bond of love is so strong. The mercy of hesed is shared, mutual. It is not a one-way action from greater to lesser as we often think of mercy. In God’s life within us, hesed is grace—God’s active loving presence leading and guiding us, loving us and enabling us to love both God and others in return, yet also recognizing our tendencies to selfishness, pride, and pleasure.
Hosea is beautifully written. Today’s text is an example:
Thus says the LORD:
I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart….
I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.
Calls for Fidelity and Healing
Hosea’s wife–and the Hebrew people she symbolized–needed healing. The official’s daughter needed healing. The woman who touched the hem of Jesus garment needed healing.
As I listen to others and to myself, there is a great yearning for healing–for myself, my nation, the Church, and the many, many people across the world who are hurting. Covid, politics, racial conflicts in our streets, arguments about wearing masks, dilemmas as school systems plan for the fall—it’s all a topsy-turvy, sore throat kind of world.
But my prayer from these scriptures this past week helps me see I need to look deeper than the sore throat–for real wounds and hidden symptoms.
So now I ask, how can I let myself be led into the desert where God can speak to my heart and heal me? These symptoms in our culture are so intense–like a bad sore throat. They lead me toward polarities and a desire to point out what is wrong with others. But what is hidden in the bloodwork? Where’s the imbalance, the unintended disease-producing habits?
When I faced a need to change what I eat, I got low-carb cookbooks from the library and went to work. A month into it, I see the goodness of the change. I accept the healing I am having; I yearn for more.
Is there even a parallel? What is the spiritual diet I need? We all need?
There are many, many people who physically starve. Many of our readers live among them–perhaps are among them. There are also many, many people who are spiritually starving. I live among many of them. Is consideration of this the parallel God would draw for me today?
Still, honestly, today the draw is where do I need spiritual healing at the bloodstream level?
And You?
Where is God calling you to healing today? Are you Hosea’s wife…or the official’s daughter…or the woman who touched Jesus’ robe?
How is God calling us all?
Prayer:
Gregory Norbet’s song “Hosea” is a good prayer for today. Sing it as God’s prayer for you, for those who see things very differently, for the leaders, the children dependent on their parents seeking what is good for them, those too afraid to ask for the help they need, those who have run away from God…
“Come back to me with all your heart. Don’t let fear keep us apart. Trees do bend, though straight and tall; so must we to others call.
Long have I waited for your coming home to Me and living deeply our new life.
The wilderness will lead you to your heart where I will speak. Integrity and justice with tenderness you shall know.
Long have I waited for your coming home to Me and living deeply our new life.”
(“Hosea” copyright 1972, Benedictine Foundation of the State of Vermont)
