Not Cured … But Healed

Readings:
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

I don’t know if anybody here today will be cured, but, as the sign out front says, … somebody today will be healed. Because, as the story of the thankful leper tells us, there is a critical difference between being cured and being healed. They figured ou thte first part of healing is … gratitude!

Our relationship with God is often ‘quid pro quo’: God, give me this or that … and I will believe in you.

So what do Eric Clapton and Syrian Genral Naumann have in common? The general is arrogant. He’s used to winning. He doesn’t much like the type of help he’s getting from God. But then, he humbles himself, and gives up control or the façade of control) … and … he ‘gets it’. And he ‘get’s it’ not because he is cured, but because he gave up the control that was God’s and he let God be God, let God be in charge and not himself.

Throughout England were once plastered graffiti on walls claiming:

“Clapton is God”

Like Naumann, for all his fortune and fame, he had a torrid affair, his son Connor died tragically, he was addicted to heroin and alcohol. He managed to shake the heroin but not the booze … which had become his good friend. Too good a friend.

After MANY attempts … NOT one … out of fear and humility, Clapton hit his knees and screamed “God, PLEASE take this away from me!” He learned from that moment … and every morning thereafter. He prays EVERY morning that he will not take a drink. Like Naumann, Clapton is not cured, but he has been healed.

Clapton realizes that when he woke up today, JUST woke up … THAT was a bonus. To expect anything more is a ruse. We aren’t owed that, but we have been given that great gift … of another day. As James Taylor soulfully sings the song Another Day:

Another day … another chance that we may finally find our way .. another day.

So no matter how threatening my illness or diagnosis is, it can threaten my body, but not my soul. I am on my way to being healed.

The single leper gets it … it’s NOT about the leprosy. It’s about the gratitude he shows. And Jesus says to that one leper – you are HEALED – which is a whole lot different than being cured.

Helen Keller put it very well:

Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.

We ALL have stuff that needs to be swept away, that needs healing! That much is real. Pastor Johnson reminded us, “I don’t know if you’ll be cured – I’ll pray you will – but I know you can be healed. You are not defined by your disease or your leprosy, your blindness or deafness. I know this. This IS the truth. And in that truth is the power to HEAL you!