The way that things are evolving in the United States these days, I find myself asking, “Why do you spend so much time and effort trying to encourage people to take up healing ministry when there are much more urgent issues to be addressed?” It’s a valid question. The country is sliding into authoritarianism. Democracy is seriously threatened. The least among us are in very real peril. And here you sit in your (so far) comfortable middle-class retirement, talking about healing the sick?
To be fair, I’ve turned out for the demonstrations. I made (really cool) signs with my daughter’s Cricut in support of my immigrant neighbors, against “kings”, and I walked the streets of Fort Collins with them. So I’m not ignoring the other kinds of action, but I’m still putting a lot more time into healing than anything else, even my “Divergence on the Lectionary” weekly Bible studies.
And this is the best way that I can explain it, even to myself. Healing ministry has always been a kind of warfare for me, warfare against the depredations of the evil one. It is about setting free those oppressed by sickness and injury. It is about spreading hope where the enemy would have us fall into despair. And that’s the key. Healing says, “Yes, there’s a God who cares, and who has empowered Their children to do something about the hurt and the harm that you are experiencing.” Healing doesn’t always work. In fact, in my experience, it works less than half the time, but even when I fail, the person I prayed for knows that I believe (even if they don’t) that they’re worth healing, worth saving, worth making a fool of myself.
And friends, Hope is the best antidote I know to the violence and abuse of power that I see around me all the time. Hope gets me back on the protest line when I begin to doubt that anything can change. Hope helps me say “No!” when someone tries to tell me I have no worth. Hope stands joyfully in the face of an ICE agent and says, “I’m not mad at you, dude.”
So, yes, I’ll do my part in the protests, but in between, my job is to equip more and more people with hope, to arm them with joy, the shield them with the love that heals.
Healing is resistance.
As with the Divergences, here’s an easier-to-print PDF.
