Sermon by Pastor Mike Buttonnn

Faith and Healing
Text:  Mark 10: 46-52

NRS Mark 10
⁴⁶They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" ⁴⁸Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" ⁴⁹Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." ⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again."⁵¹Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

May the blessing of the Lord rest and remain upon you always, for the sake of Jesus, the Messiah.  Amen. 

I was a cute kid, or so I’m told.  By all accounts, I was very energetic, very curious, and except for some childhood ear infections, I was very healthy.  But even as a little kid, I remember often feeling very anxious.  My mother just said I was “high-strung,” not unlike her father, and she expected me to outgrow it.  I did, but then I didn’t.  Like other kids, I was often happy and playful, but at other times I would get very worried and wound up over all sorts of things.  When I started kindergarten, I would sleep with my book bag, because I was terrified that someone would come in during the night, steal it, and I wouldn’t be allowed to go on to first grade.  In first grade I saw a television re-creation of what would happen if we were ever hit with an atomic bomb.  I stopped worrying about my book bag and started worrying about the fireball that would incinerate me and my family. 

But then, you know kids, they worry about all kinds of crazy things.  I would outgrow it.  I did, but then I didn’t.  I took to school very quickly, and I was soon amassing gold stars, and getting high marks, and scoring well on standardized tests.  At the same time, though, I was haunted by terrible feelings of failure and impending doom.  No matter how well I did, I was sure that on the next test, or the next report card, I would be shown up to be the abject failure I knew I was.  My parents started to worry that I wouldn’t outgrow my “worrying,” and they sent me to a doctor.  We had some great conversations, and in 1964, I’m pretty sure that I was the only kid in my seventh –grade class with a prescription for Librium. 

I really excelled in high school.  I was well liked by my peers, and frequently chosen to positions of leadership and responsibility.  I became a pretty fair athlete, first team in both football and track.  But for all the pats on my head and slaps on my back, inside I felt like I was all tied up in knots.   Not that I was anything but high functioning; I was just unhappy.  Maybe things would be better in college, and it was, but then it wasn’t.  I grew like I had never grown in my whole life, but every semester I just knew that I would fall flat on my face.  My picture would run in the paper under the caption, “Star Student Total Loser.”  When Carolyn and I started dating, I soon realized that I’d found a partner with whom I could share the rest of my life.  My heart grew two sizes overnight, and my mother was positive that this little girl from south Baton Rouge with the German-Irish ancestry would be the one to keep her little boy from going off the deep end.  She did, but then, not really. 

Well, I guess you’re beginning to discern a pattern here.  God was giving me a great life – a great family, great gifts, great success, a great wife, and on top of that a great vocation, great kids, great friends – but I couldn’t ever really enjoy any of it.  I mean, I had times when life was good, very good, and I could be the life of the party, but then, it was like something would overwhelm me.  Have you ever seen a dog grab hold of a play toy in its mouth and then shake it back and forth?  I felt like that play toy.  I would be doing great, and then some crazy idea, thought, worry would pop into my head and I couldn’t turn it off.  Every tax season was like torture for me.  I would hire the best accountants to make sure that I filed my taxes in the most conservative way possible, but I just knew the federal government would come back on me and say I owed $10 million and me and Carolyn and the kids would be thrown out on the street, destitute and a shame to our church and family and friends.  I would go on like that for months.  I was positive that any day U.S. Marshals would show up at our house, take me away in handcuffs, and there on TV, I’d be doing the perp walk for the whole world to see.   Mind you, every day I was out being a good pastor, preaching and teaching the Word, encouraging the fainthearted, visiting the sick and comforting the sorrowing, but then I’d go home at night and lie in bed with these terrible, self-destructive thoughts running through my head. 

At various times I sought out various counselors and therapists, and with one exception, they all helped.  I learned a great deal about myself, and in learning about having compassion on myself, my compassion for other people grew as well.  I picked up some very handy tools for tracking and holding my anxiety in check.  But then, still, that old dog would sneak up on me, grab hold of me, and shake me like a rag doll.  I managed a big smile on the outside, but on the inside I was becoming more and more depressed.  I felt like I was running a race with bricks for shoes.  I was getting one foot in front of the other but it was exhausting.  I thought that maybe this was just my fate.  Maybe this was just the hand that God hand had dealt me and I would just have to do my best, depressing as that was.  But something kept saying, “No.  No.  You weren’t made for this.” 

And that’s how I found myself in my mid-forties in another doctor’s office telling her pretty much the same story I’ve been telling you.  She listened and then said to me, “Well, you know, there are some new treatments that have become available in the last couple of years.  Do you want to give them a try?”  So we tried this.  Then we tried that, and then something else.  Then something strange happened to me.  I was lying in bed and I couldn’t sleep.  There was nothing unusual about that, except that this time it wasn’t worry or anxiety keeping me awake.  I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to do the next day, you know, people I wanted to see, and projects I wanted to get underway.  That kind of thing kept happening for a while, and one morning I pinched myself just to make sure it was me.  I didn’t know what was going on, when it dawned on me that I was – for the first time in a really long time – just glad to be alive.  Tax season rolled around, and for the first time in my adult life, I didn’t get into a panic.  I remember signing my tax form and thinking to myself, “Well, if they want to come get me, come on.  I have love in my life.”  Boing!  I thought I was having a stroke. 

And that’s how I came to know something about the healing that God can and does work in a human life.  I didn’t have cancer, my eyes and ears worked fine, and my limbs were sound, but there was a source of misery in my life that I could not, for the life of me, expel.  I recall once standing in front of a herd of dairy cattle and thinking to myself, “If only I could be like these cows and just live in the moment, from one feeding to the next, oblivious to everything but peeing and pooping and making calves.”  Thankfully, God didn’t grant me that prayer, but I have no doubt that God gave me the faith to keep both my heart and my mind alive and open to the possibility of a better life.  For me at least, that’s how I understand faith healing.  You know, I know, we all know those times and place when our backs are up against the wall and we can’t see any way forward.  It’s all darkness and you can’t think of one good reason why you should hang around to see another day, but you do anyway.  Some might call that blind optimism, others the simple will to survive, but I call it faith, the belief that whatever old dog is chewing on you and shaking you to pieces, your life is held by a greater power for a greater purpose.  And the face I put to that greater power for that greater purpose is Jesus. 

In my case healing didn’t come in a blinding flash, or in any one great dramatic rush.  As I look back I see God was at work in all sorts of different ways, in, with, and through my family and friends, doctors and therapists, brothers and sisters in Christ who fed the faith that wouldn’t let me give up or give in.  And of course, I can’t say that I’m all well and whole and never is heard a discouraging word in my life.  There are dark clouds in every life.  As a good friend and teacher once shared with me, “If you’re alive, there are times when you’re going to get depressed.”  Amen, brother.  But we walk as yet by faith, and faith leads to healing, through Jesus. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.