Health, Community, and the Body of Christ

Acts 3:1-10

            Well, if this isn’t a fine kettle of fish to preach from this morning. Peter and John, disciples of Jesus, meet a crippled man on the road asking for money. He’s asking for that stimulus check. And what do they give him? Not money but health. One of those things that money can’t buy.

            Today, I’m going to resist the urge to use this scripture as commentary on what’s happening in our country regarding lockdown protests and whatnot. While I think there may well be something to be said there, I don’t want to distract from the astounding good news here. This is, after all, a story about health. Jesus and the disciples were healers of a very particular sort, which is much needed in our Covid-19 era.

            One of the formative quotes for me regarding health is a passage from Wendell Berry’s speech-turned-essay entitled Health is Membership. He said, “I believe that the community—in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures—is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.”

            I find that quote so meaningful, because we, as church, are the body of Christ. Many members; one body. When one hurts, all hurt. Our society treats health as an individual enterprise. In fact, you could say there is little difference between going to the doctor or the mechanic; we treat our bodies like we treat our machines. A little fix here,; a little preventative maintenance there. But our bodies are much more integrated with the world than a typical machine. We are not just tools to impact the world, we are part of the world, and Covid-19 is revealing our interconnectedness in many ways both good and bad. Disease is spread within a community, whether by touch or through the air, or in the case of other diseases through an infected water supply, or poorly cooked meat. We are connected to one another and to the natural world in ways we continually undervalue.

            But God doesn’t.

God tells us time and again to care for one another and the natural world. When sin entered the world, it didn’t just make our lives painful and hard, it irreparably damaged the fabric of creation—the whole world, humans and animals and plants… everything was tainted. East of Eden, we are one body who lives together, who heals together, who suffers together, and who dies together.

Jesus came into the world as the great physician. First, he was going to heal the individuals in need who crossed his path, but ultimately, he was going to heal all of creation. Jesus was such a healer that, on occasion, he did it without intention, like when the woman touched the hem of his garment and his power made her well. Jesus healed people, but if we take a step back, these healings are coupled with a response within a community.

In today’s scripture, the crippled man returns to the gate not to gloat but to stir up a sense of amazement in the crowds. The community is touched by healing. If we are only ever adding up people healed and people not healed—if all we are ever doing is tallying individual statistics—then health will always be inequitable, unfair, and, frankly, depressing. The poor will have worse health; the vulnerable will stay vulnerable. If the smallest measure of health is the individual, life is brutally unfair. But God promises something better. We are not in this alone. We do not suffer apart from community—even when it seems like it, even when we feel helpless. And nobody is beyond healing or redemption.

Take Saul, for example. When Saul is blinded on the road to Damascus, coming face to face with God, it is a strange story of health. After all, of everybody, Saul deserved death. That would be fair. Instead, God uses even terrible people to widen the tent and contribute to the health of the community. Many who die deserve life; some who live deserve death. The measure of health, however, remains the community and not what a person deserves. In this way, the tent is widened, the body of Christ is strengthened, and even death is put in its place, because what is my death if the body is held firm in faith?

            A mentor of mine, Bob Baker, loves to use that image of the tent widening. I tend to think it’s one of the more powerful metaphors in the New Testament, because where the tent of believers once was small and isolated, now it is a community, a body. True health is openness in the face of adversity; it’s caring for the most vulnerable; it’s putting my needs aside for the sake of others, who will repay it in kind. A healthy church is just like a healthy ecosystem; it is diverse and it balanced and it is afire with possibility. It is an ecosystem built on the foundation of the cross, sacrificing its immediate needs for the sake of others. Of all the things this virus is doing, let it be a reminder that we are part of a wide tent full of vulnerable folks whose needs are more important than our own.

            In another place in his essay, Wendell Berry talks about the stupidity of the word, “environment” as it is commonly used, because it implies something out there. Yet, we live within it and are an essential part of it. Smoke we breathe affects our lungs; food we eat fills out bellies. We are part of the world, and in that most essential verse in scripture, John 3:16, we are reminded that “God so loved the world.” Not just human beings; not just the small tent of believers. God loves the whole, stinking thing, which is quite a thing to say, because so much of the world is obviously problematic.

            The world is diseased; the world is at war; the world is impoverished and dying of hunger in spite of the fact that there is plenty of food for everyone. Closer to home, the systems that have been put in place to keep the world running have led to dairies pouring out milk and farmers killing off chickens, while grocery stores are desperate for milk and eggs. The world is not working right at the moment. Nevertheless, God loves it.  

            The crippled man in our story today is just a man. If you have some overwhelming injury or disease, it is a huge stumbling block to being an active part of community. So, it takes him being healed to be able to praise God. This doesn’t always happen. Not everybody is healed, and it has less to do with the strength of our faith than with the nature of the body. The body of Christ continues to groan. We are a people crucified with Christ, and we are reminded of it daily in our fear, in our pain, and in our lack of health. Even if you are healthy individually, you aren’t healthy if your neighbor is suffering. And it’s not just about a virus you can catch, it’s about understanding not only that it could be you but that it is you. To be the body of Christ is to suffer together.

            We are one body. We are connected to the earth, which is our home, and we are subject to the aches and pains that come alongside it. This is part of living east of Eden.

            Still, we have a God who heals. That healing is always temporary, but it is also persistent. Jesus healed; the disciples healed. They didn’t simply say: “Oh, one day you will die and everything will be rosy in heaven, chilling with God.” They healed now, because this moment matters—because life matters. They did it for the man, and they did it for the wider body of believers. They did it not just to show off some magic but to show compassion. When the crippled man leapt, the community rejoiced.

            We are presented with challenges to this body today. Thousands of people in our country are dying today from Covid-19. The body is hurting, and we are suffering alongside, whether anybody we know is infected or not. The Christian witness has no time for us-versus-them. The tent must be widened. The ecosystem is made more diverse. For some of us, we will see the day when this passes, and for others, it will be beyond this life. That’s hard to take because we are a community. At the same time, it is the promise of a better day for our children and grandchildren that drives the community forward.

            Through Jesus Christ, we have a promise of eternal life won on the cross and demonstrated with an empty tomb. Nevertheless, life here matters. This world we live in is loved completely, and we are called to widen our tents for the sake of the body of Christ. God heals. Jesus is raised. Both/And.