Keynote Address

“Thy Kingdom Come”: The Church’s Healing Ministry

Keynote Address, OSL North American Conference

Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, June, 2003

Rev. Canon David A.P. Smith

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Your Kingdom come; your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

So our Lord taught his disciples to pray, and he teaches us to pray also. First, He shows us how to view our Heavenly Father from an appropriate perspective of humility (“Hallowed be your name”) and then we are to pray for the fulfillment of his Kingdom, that it may come, that his will may done. His kingdom is fully established in Heaven, and it is there that his will his done. We are taught to pray that his Kingdom will be fully established in this world; that his will may be done here as well.

A week or so ago, it was my privilege to lead a little healing mission in a parish in North Bay, in what we Canadians call “Northern Ontario” (although there is an awful lot of Ontario north of that!) and I was saying a few words about the Kingdom of God. Afterwards a woman, whom I regarded as being an intelligent sort and I knew she had been a long-time Christian thoroughly involved in her parish, said to me, “You know, we talk all the time about the Kingdom of God, but I don’t think that I’ve really understood it before!” Others have told me the same thing. So it is on that basis that I have the temerity to pursue the subject here.

What is the Kingdom of God? When I ask that question of a group I tend to get a lot of blank stares. Certainly our Lord had a lot to say about the Kingdom – that it was like a mustard seed, or a pearl of great price, or a lost coin, or like seed sown in the ground. He tells us that the Kingdom is of ultimate value, and that it is a growing thing. But what exactly is it? Well, it is clearly so obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to say it. But let me say it anyway. It is of course where God is King; where God rules, where he is in charge, where he is obeyed. It is in fact where his will is done. Now I believe that Jesus’ listeners understood this completely. That is why he never had to explain it.

So whether the Kingdom is within you (as some translate the passage), or amongst you, it is immaterial. The Kingdom is wherever God is allowed to be King and to rule. If I allow God into my heart, then his Kingdom dwells within me. If he is in charge in our group, where two or three are gathered in his name, then in that group we are experiencing the Kingdom. If he is in charge in my parish or congregation, then in that community we are part of his Kingdom.

So we can say, Where God rules, there his will is done.

Where God’s will is done, there we experience his love, for God is love.

Where God’s will is done, there is healing, for God wants us to be whole.

The Jews of Jesus’ time, of course, were looking for God’s Kingdom. They were anticipating an earthly kingdom, and a Messiah, a Son of David to bring it about, and they knew that in that Kingdom God would bestow upon his people the good life – peace, justice, prosperity and healing. It would be a society where all his people under his rule would be happy and whole.

So blind Bartimaeus, by the roadside at the gate of Jericho, when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth who was passing by, called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. He addresses Jesus as “Son of David” because he believes he is the Messiah come to usher in his Kingdom. And he is right. Therefore Jesus calls him, for here is a man who would be part of the Kingdom, a man who acknowledges God’s rule, who is open to the healing power of God. Now Jesus can say to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”, and Bartimaeus is healed. Is this not why St Luke tells the story in this way?

I could be quite wrong but it seems to me that most of the prayers we say are what I would call “desperation prayers”, as for instance in a battle. I like to call them “foxhole prayers”. When the shells are raining down and the air is filled with shrapnel, the air is also filled with prayers. You know, “Lord, for Christ’s sake, get me through all this!” Now this is not wrong. In fact it’s perfectly natural. God wants us to turn to him in our difficulties.

And Jesus prayed that way too. I think his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was a desperation prayer, a foxhole prayer if you like: “Father, take this cup away from me”, or “Get me out of this”, but he qualifies his prayer and adds, “Yet not what I want, but what you want – your will be done”.

Do we have the humility to pray like that? Jesus reminded us that “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 5: 3). It is in the spirit of humility that we come into the Kingdom, for it is in humility that we allow God to be God and to rule in our hearts and lives.

Mark in his Gospel introduces Jesus’ ministry with these words: “Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news, the Gospel, of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Repent and believe: these are the fundamental requirements of those who would come into the Kingdom.

To repent means to change direction; to turn away from the false idols of this life, from selfish power, selfish attempts at manipulation, selfish indulgences, and turn to God and make HIM your Lord, and obey him. (Is this not our third Baptismal vow?).

And to believe: to put your faith, that is, put your trust, in God. Give him your confidence. Allow him to fulfill his will in you. (And is not this our second Baptismal vow?)

“Strive first for the Kingdom of God”, says Jesus, “and all these things will be given to you as well” – food, drink, clothing – for when we are part of his Kingdom, God is “freed up”(as it were) to pour out his blessings upon us. (Matt. 6: 33)

The essence of Jesus’ ministry is his proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Thus Matthew introduces Jesus’ ministry in his Gospel (Matt. 4: 23). He gives us a kind of a title or heading to what follows when he writes: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness among the people”.

He came preaching the good news of the Kingdom, the good news that God reigns and that where his will is done he is able to pour out his blessings.

He taught them how to live in the Kingdom.

He cured the people of their diseases and sicknesses; that is, he demonstrated the goodness and power of God in his Kingdom.

Then Matthew, having made this statement, goes on to elaborate the subject.

He details Jesus’ teaching in chapters 5, 6 and 7, that section that we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount. This is how we are to live in the Kingdom under the rule of God.

Then in chapters 8 and 9 he illustrates what it is like to live in the Kingdom where God is in charge: a leper is cured, a centurion’s servant is healed, Peter’s mother-in-law is restored to health, a raging lunatic is made well even over in Gentile territory, then a paralytic gets up and walks as his sins are forgiven. Even the raging storm is stilled and there is peace. Now, having listed his various illustrations Matthew sums up the section by repeating the heading with which he began back in chapter 4 (4: 23): “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness” (Matt. 9: 35).

So Matthew describes Jesus’ ministry. He teaches the people, proclaims the Kingdom, and demonstrates by his healings what the Kingdom of God is like – when God is in charge.

But “”the harvest is plentiful and the labourers are few”. So he must train his disciples to extend his mission and minister in his name.

He empowers and sends out the twelve. He tells them to “go, proclaim the good news, ‘The Kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10: 7 & 8). He authorizes them to extend his own ministry. They too are to proclaim the Kingdom and to demonstrate it.

And that is how Luke tells it, except that Luke goes on to describe how Jesus also sends out the 70. He commissions not only the apostles, those especially chosen and trained to be leaders (that is, the clergy) but also all those countless others who, as his disciples, follow in the discipline of our Lord. Luke says, “”He appointed seventy others and sent them”, and said to them, “cure the sick … and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Lk 10: 1 & 9). And then when the 70 returned to Jesus to report in they said, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us”. They were amazed to discover that in bringing the Kingdom into the lives of others that God indeed was in command and the demons were overcome. And this Jesus confirms when he says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Lk 10: 17 & 18).

And this is Jesus’ intention for the Church. Our model for the Church, of course, is in the Book of the Acts. There we read that the early disciples “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (which was, of course, Jesus’ teaching on how to live in the Kingdom) and fellowship (which was a fellowship of love in the Spirit of God), to the Breaking of Bread (which in my understanding refers to what we today call the Eucharist), and the prayers (and I think we can assume that these were “thy will be done” kind of prayers) (Acts 2: 42).

And what happened? “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles” (v. 43). And if you didn’t get it the first time, Luke says it all over again a chapter later, “Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles” (Acts 5: 12). Luke calls them “signs”, as John in the Fourth Gospel calls them “signs”. These signs or wonders occurred to signify that God’s Kingdom was present. They were statements which declared to all who would pay attention that God rules, that in his Kingdom he works out his works of love.

We get a more intimate look into the early life of the Church in the Epistles, those first hand, personal accounts of what was happening in those days. Let us look at what St Paul has to say.

We are told in the Book of Acts that Paul spent only three weeks in Thessalonica, but that in that short time he was able to lay the foundations of a vibrant and faithful Church. So he is able to write back to them, as we read in I Thessalonians 1: 5: “our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power, and the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction”. The people of Thessalonica had experienced the power of God.

Then after having had to leave Thessalonica in a bit of hurry, he went on to Berea (and now I can say that I am no stranger to Berea!) and then on to Athens that centre of philosophy and intellectual sophistication. Here, Paul, who tells us that he always tried to be “all things to all men”, attempted to addressed them in their own terms. He himself was no intellectual slouch and so he makes the intellectual approach. He met with their scholars in the Areopagus and preached to them about the “unknown God”, and declared to them the Resurrection. And they were politely interested. They said, “Let’s talk again about these things”, but not much else happened. We are told that “some of them became believers”, and two of them even are named (Dionysius and Damaris) but that was all. I believe Paul left Athens in disgust. All they wanted to do there was talk, and we never hear in the New Testament of a Church in Athens. So Paul came on to Corinth, a very different kind of city. And Paul came this time with a very different kind of approach, and there, this time, things happened.

So when Paul writes back to the Church in Corinth, a church with many problems, but a church nevertheless, and he says, in what we call I Corinthians (2: 1), “When I came to you, brothers and sisters (I’m quoting from the NRSV!), I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom (and then he might have said, “As I did in Athens”). For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (Perhaps at this point we should recall the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”.) “And”, St Paul goes on, “I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God..”

When Paul let God do things his way, when God’s will is done, then the Kingdom becomes evident in the outpouring of God’s grace and power. Later, when Paul was in Ephesus, God did “extraordinary miracles through Paul”. I infer from this that other Christians were able to do only ordinary miracles. But Paul’s miracles were “extraordinary”, “so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19: 11 & 12).

Miraculous healings in the Church appear to have been commonplace in those days. Now, in preparing these remarks I was wanting to review what happened later on in the life of the Church, to take us down through 2000 years of history, but it would appear that I don’t have the time, and I really doubt that you have the patience. But Morton Kelsey, in his remarkable book, Healing and Christianity, tells us the fascinating story of the healing Church down through the centuries. He cites the Fathers of the Church who give their witness to the marvelous healings of their day: he quotes Justin Martyr, who lived about AD 150, about the time when the last of the New Testament was written; Irenaeus, about thirty years later; Tertullian, about forty years after that; Athansius, the one after whom the Athanasian Creed is named, he wrote about the year 300; the great St

Augustine, about the year 400. Each one tells us how in the Church miracles of healing take place. Christians of their time were experiencing the Kingdom.

St Augustine is interesting. He writes that when he first became a Christian he assumed (like so many of us today) that the wonders and miracles we read about in Scripture, were simply records of what happened back in those days, and that that sort of thing didn’t happen any more. But, he says, after he became Bishop of Hippo (in what is now Algeria) and they began to keep records of these things, in a matter of just two years, there had been seventy attested miraculous healings in his diocese. Then he goes on to tell us about them in some detail. It’s all there in his book, The City of God, a copy of which, I am proud to say, sits upon my bookshelf (even though there tends to be a lot of dust on it) but when you get into that section, it makes for fascinating reading (Bk XXII; 8).

But about that time two things happened.

First, Christianity became legal and official in the Roman Empire (that date was AD 311). It was not longer a persecuted religion, and it was now fashionable and an easy thing to be a Christian. People could call themselves Christian even though there might not be much penitence in their life and little, if any, faith. The Kingdom of God was often not evident.

Second, the Roman Empire was overthrown and Europe entered upon the dark ages. Pagan invaders made life in that part of the world desperately hard: there was violence, pillage, rape and murder – destruction all around. Christians began to ask, “Why does God allow this to happen? What is God doing to us?” And they came to the conclusion that what God must be doing is that he was moving his people to repent of their sins. They no longer felt that they were a part of the Kingdom. In fact the felt very far removed from it.

Morton Kelsey quotes St Gregory who was the Bishop of Rome about the year AD 600,

“The sick are to be admonished in that the scourge of discipline chastises them”. Kelsey goes on to say that they began to believe that “sickness [is an instrument of God in that it] brings a man to himself so that he can ponder his sins and repent” (Healing and Christianity, pp. 196/197).

The clergy still anointed the sick with oil, but it was no longer considered a sacrament for restoration to health. It was now referred to as Extreme Unction, and was administered with the intention that the sick person, in repentance and faith, might die a peaceful death and find comfort and new life beyond the grave. This idea is not entirely wrong, of course, but it does not do much to promote believe in the essential goodness or power of the Kingdom in this world. This mediaeval concept is still around. I have been called, as I am sure many of the clergy here have been called, to come to the death bed of “a loved one” to “give the last rites”.

Kelsey tells about one Roman priest friend of his who was called to do just that, and much to his surprise, after he had administered the anointing, on two separate occasions, the person turned around and got better!

Now unless, as an Anglican, I should adopt a critical attitude toward what I might consider the benighted believes of the Roman Catholic Church in the past, it is good that I should be reminded that this also used to be the general belief of Anglicans until very recently. I quote from the Canadian Anglican Prayer Book that was in use until 1962, just 40 years ago. This is from “The Visitation of the Sick” (p.353) where the priest is directed to say to the person on his sick bed, “Take therefore in good part the chastisement of the Lord … (And then quoting the Epistle to the Hebrews) … whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”. And then, “Take your sickness, which is thus profitable for you, patiently”. There, having heard that, I am sure that he must have felt much better! On a further page is this prayer, “Restore him/her to health, if it be they gracious will”. Apparently the Prayer Book was not too sure whether God wants us to be well or not. I wonder how the patient felt about it.

But all that was before 1968. About that time Vatican II happened. Great changes took place in the Roman Catholic Church, but only because great changes were taking place in the Church generally. Our “renewed” Canadian Prayer Book of 1962, and later our Book of Alternative Services of 1985, reflect those changes. The BAS speaks of “the healing power and presence of God” (p.555). The rite for the anointing with oil includes these words: “Of [God’s] great mercy, forgive you your sins, release you from suffering, and restore you to wholeness and strength. May he deliver you from all evil (p.555).” I suggest to you that that reflects a little more clearly the expectations and hopes of those who dwell in the Kingdom.

We Christians, you and I, who genuinely try to live in the Kingdom of God, who regularly turn back in penitence to Jesus, the Living Lord, and who faithfully and regularly renew our trust in him, praying “Your will be done”, we know the spiritual warfare that goes on in our hearts and in the world in which we live. And we know that where God is allowed to Rule and be our King, he wins for us the Victory.

Let me give you three examples of victories won that I can relate out of my own experience: 1) Gloria; 2) The Haunted House; 3) Fr. Bill Stadnyk and Fr. Roy Locke.