Do the Word

I can recall even as a young kid in the Methodist Church being puzzled and mildly amused by the confession liturgy the congregation would drone through every week. In my eight year old sensibilities it loosely came across like this:

Whole Entire Congregation drones: “We have done a lousy job again this week, Lord.”

Lay Leader: “It’s OK. God isn’t upset about it. Try to do better next week.”

The Whole Entire Congregation didn’t really sound terribly troubled about having done a lousy job, and the Lay Leader didn’t sound altogether excited that God was willing to let the week’s bygones be bygones. So the whole ritual puzzled me and seemed rather ineffective and ineffectual.

Sadly, as I grew up and away from my liberal church upbringing and into an evangelical heritage, I saw that many evangelical Protestants having encountered the same thing, dealt with it by discarding not only the droning liturgy but the practice of confession itself.

I think we evangelical Protestants have not even the slightest clue how much that discarding would have shocked the Protestant reformers and broken their hearts. Luther, for example, who held that the whole Christian life was an embodiment of repentance, believed fervently that the Christian should participate in three types of confession:

• Confession to one’s pastor
• Private confession to God
• Confession to the church

He was passionate, of course, to make certain Christians knew that in confessing to their pastor it was not the pastor who forgave sins but God, and that the pastor’s role was one of soul care or midwife.

Already in his time, however, Christians were beginning to toss confession overboard. Fast forward half a millenium later and what remains is confession flotsam–general confession liturgies in mainline Protestant churches, and comprehensive absolution without any confession in evangelical circles.

Enter Randy Asburry’s awesome post, Comfort From Anonymous Confession? Essence: This is not hard to figure, people. Healing and comfort become real when confession (to God and regularly in the presence of others who can hold us accountable) is specific and followed by absolution (pronounced by real live people in person), which is the gospel proclamation of the forgiveness of sins. Asburry is especially troubled by the notion of Internet confession or salacious anonymous tell-alls:

I also puzzle over the misguided notion that merely confessing sins–whether online behind the anonymity of a user name and password, or writing them on a piece of paper and throwing it into the fire, etc., etc.–is enough. That seems too much like feeling sick, having the symptoms of the flu, and merely saying to myself, “I have the flu.” Merely getting to that point still hasn’t given me the true healing and restored health that I need!

Only the Absolution can do that, where sins are concerned. Absolution is the real medicine, the real “stress reliever.” Here’s how the Apology of the Augsburg Confession says it: “We also keep confession, especially because of absolution, which is the Word of God that the power of the keys proclaims to individuals by divine authority” (Apology XII:99, emphasis added).

So to summarize:

• Confession: Specific. Offered to God. In  the presence of accountability partners.
• Absolution: Gospel rooted. Glued to confession. Like day following night.

No droning, no generalities, no anonymity. That medicine has expired and should be tossed from the cabinet.

And the medicine we previously tossed from the cabinet due to personal discomfort is the one we desperately need to bring back.

Why does talking about the Work of Mercy of healing freak out non-freaky Christians so easily?

Because most of the writing that’s done about healing emphasizes healing technique, which is a misplaced emphasis because God never healed anyone due to the technique of the healer.

If, instead, we can focus not on technique but on God’s great desire to heal, well, that makes the subject a whole lot less freaky.

It is God’s nature to heal. You only have to take so much as a sidelong glance at Jesus in the Gospels to see how much time he devotes to the practice. And yet, as you’re taking the sidelong glance, do note also how little time he devotes to teaching his disciples the techniques of healing and how much time he devotes to clearing up their misconceptions about God.

Like the misconception that God would rather a sick person suffer through worship in the synagogue to demonstrate his or her devotion instead of getting healed. The Father, said Jesus, is not like that. If there’s a worship service and someone’s ill, everyone should stop and the person should be brought before God in order to be healed.

There’s nothing, you know, freaky about that. That’s just good solid insight into the nature and character of God.

We can ask all kinds of questions like “Why doesn’t God heal everyone?”, but we should never doubt that God loves healing more than he loves ceremony, and that Jesus portrayed healing as a simple matter rooted in the character of God rather than in a hard-to-master, arcane technique.

To that end, then, I want to encourage you to be faithful to follow Jesus’ lead and James’ command to pray prayers of healing for the sick every time you encounter someone who is ill. One way to do that and to avoid getting freaked out in the process is to learn a simple prayer of healing that you can grow into. As you know, I’m a big fan of growing into prayers–learning the prayers handed down to us by our theological forebears so that we don’t cower in the face of big human challenges like illness. Mrs. Foley taught me the Korean saying, “Imitation is the mother of invention.” That means that before you start inventing anything new, imitate the work of a master so that you can grow into it.

I hasten to note that in commending a sample prayer to you I am not commending a focus on technique. Instead, I want you to see how simple, straightforward, and plain a prayer of healing is. This way when you run into someone who is sick, you can catapult yourself bedside without hesitation and say, “You know, God would want me to stop and pray right now for you to be healed. What he does with my prayer is his business, but I have no doubt that that is how he would want me to pray because he is no great fan of illness. Illness doesn’t stop him from achieving his purpose in you, but that sure shouldn’t stop us from doing what Jesus did, which was to regard illness as an interloper each time he came across it.”

With that in mind, here’s a prayer from the Lutheran Service Book that you can learn this month. Write it out on a card and put it in your wallet or purse if you need to. But practice with it this month, recalling that Christ always confronts illness with healing. You should too, and leave the result in the Lord’s hands.

Almighty God, Father in heaven, watch over Your child [Name],  now afflicted with sickness. Mercifully spare the life You have given. Relieve [his/her] pain, guard [him/her] from all danger, and restore [his/her] health according to your gracious will, that [he/she] may be raised to a life of faithful service to You; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

All Christians should know how to administer basic medical care to their family members and those to whom they minister–that was the conviction of John Wesley, who insisted that in addition to the Bible, there were two books that every Christian home should have.

• The first, Thomas A Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, which Wesley considered helpful for the promotion of spiritual health.
• The second, Wesley’s Primitive Physic, he considered helpful for the promotion of physical  health.

As Randy Maddox notes,

Most Methodists today are unaware of the second volume, and scholars who come across it often dismiss it as a collection of “home remedies.” This seriously misjudges its nature and its centrality to Wesley’s ministry. He read broadly on the topic of medicine throughout his life and gathered most of the remedies in Primitive Physickfrom prominent medical authors of his time. This was as much a use of his scholarly gifts to provide aids for his people as was his collection of theological writings in theChristian Library. Moreover, in the preface to this volume (and in other publications) Wesley added advice for promoting wellness to his suggestions for treating wounds and illnesses. He was not simply offering cures but promoting physical flourishing.

We Christians contemplate far too seldom how discipleship extends to the body–what we eat, how much, whether we set aside time for exercise and proper rest. It is almost as if these things are extraneous to discipleship–and they are in most Christian concepts of discipleship, because discipleship is considered to be about spiritual matters, not physical ones.

For Wesley, however, knowing how to provide basic health care to others was an essential part of the Work of Mercy of healing and comforting, and disciplining our bodies was an essential complement to disciplining our souls.

Lessons for us all this month:

1. Separating “spiritual” discipleship from “physical” discipleship is artificial. God intends to mirror his son to the world through not only our souls and spirits but our bodies as well.
2. Praying for physical healing for ourselves and others is incomplete unless we  recognize that our bodies are not ours to begin with. We steward them as his temple. So how can we profess “healing faith” when we are sick if we are stuffing his temple with Cheetos when we are healthy?

Consider investing in some books and training on health and medical care this month as part of your commitment to the Work of Mercy of healing and comforting.