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One of the things about this Gospel is we do not know if the man who was healed in this story had faith of his own. The writer doesn’t tell us.
Rather, it is the faith of his four friends that is rewarded. It is their persistence and creativity and their faith in the healer that is commended. They care for their friend, and were willing to do whatever it took to get him to Jesus.
I invite you to look around you this morning. How did most of us get here? I don’t mean what did you drive, but how did most of us come to be a part of this community? A few of us many have wandered in on our own someday. But the rest of us got here because someone cared enough about us to bring us. For some of us, it may have been our parents. For others it was a friend, or four friends as in or story this morning, who brought us to meet the healer named Jesus. Often, it is our parents, grandparents, or our friends who have faith for us until we find our own. Once an autistic child was asked what parents were for? “They hope for you”, she replied. Our parents and friends hoped for us and acted on our behalf. Even though we must all come to the place were we have faith on our own, we most often find faith and celebrate it in the context of community, through the faith of a few good friends and relatives. Let us be grateful for and celebrate with those who helped bring us to faith, and the community that has resulted from all of our participation in it.
Now, I invite you to look around this place again. Who is missing today? Who should be here but isn’t? Who do you know that is paralyzed by circumstances in his/her own life and who needs the healing touch of Christ? Who do you know that is paralyzed—paralyzed with fear of entering the strange world of church? Paralyzed with fear of being rejected because of who they are? Paralyzed with fear of asking for help or paralyzed with guilt for what they have done? Who is missing from this community? And what role might God be asking us to play in their healing? Who is God asking you to help shoulder and bring to the healing presence of Christ this morning? Will we be faithful enough, persistent enough, and creative enough to help bring our friends and loved ones to Jesus? Are we willing to break open the roof, in order to witness the miracle of God’s healing and expand our community? Can we look past our traditions and rules to see and participate in God’s ongoing work of love and mercy that is going on all around us? Can we have the faith of a few good friends? Who is missing today? Who should be here but isn’t?

I remember some years ago Bishop Fulton had a prime time TV show opposite Milton Berle every Wednesday night. One night he told about his visit to an African leper colony. He had brought along a supply of little silver crucifixes so he would have something special to give to each of the 500 lepers in the camp. The first leper he met had only the stumps of his left arm. And his right arm and hand were covered with ugly, open sores. Sheen took one of the little crucifixes, held it a few inches above the leper’s hand, and then let it drop into his palm.
In a flash, he was struck by what he’d done. “All at once”, he said, “I realized there were 501 lepers in the camp, and the most leprous of them all was myself. I had given a crucifix—the symbol of God’s absolute love for all of us—but then I had pulled back and closed my eyes to what the symbol implied for me. So I looked again very hard at that little crucifix, and I knew what I had to do. I pressed by hand to the leper’s hand with the symbol of love between us, and then I proceeded to do that for all of the remaining 499 lepers”!
None of us, thank God, are lepers. But there’s not one of us, if we are honest, whose heart hasn’t been wounded or even broken many times, not one of us who doesn’t need healing. So it is to all of us that Jesus is speaking by his actions in Sunday’s gospel. In stretching out his hand, touching that leper and healing him, Jesus is telling us—once again—that God does love us all no matter how damaged or broken we are. He’s telling us that no matter how bad we have been, our God will always be there for us, always be waiting for us to open our hearts so God can heal us.
That’s the first half of Jesus’ message, but there’s more. In addition to what God wants to do for us, there’s the matter of what God wants us to do for one another. And it turns out to be exactly the same thing; we are to become healers too, healers of one another. That sounds wonderful, but how do ordinary, wounded people like us become healers? Very simply by remembering how our own wounds feel and remembering what we need when we are broken. What we would like, of course, is a quick fix for our wounds, but what we need is a friend who will reach out just as Jesus did, take us by the hand, when our hand isn’t looking so good, and walk through the darkness with us and not let go of us halfway!
If that is what we need as we try to walk through our hurts and losses, it is also exactly what our brothers and sisters need. And it is something each of us can give.
Here is a real life example of what I am talking about.
Some years ago, an old man collapsed on a busy street corner in downtown Brooklyn. Within minutes an ambulance rushed him to Kings County Hospital. There he kept calling his son.
A nurse found a dog-eared letter in the man’s wallet. From it she learned that his son was a marine stationed in North Carolina.
That night an anxious marine showed up at the hospital. Immediately, the nurse took him to the old man’s bedside.
The man was heavily sedated. And so the nurse had to tell him several times, “Your son is here! Your son is here!”
Finally, the old man opened his eyes. He could barely make out his son, but he recognized his marine uniform. At that point, the son took his father’s hand and held it lovingly.
For the rest of that night, the marine sat at the man’s bedside. Occasionally, he patted the man’s hand and spoke to him tenderly.
Several times the nurse urged the marine to take a break and get something to eat or drink. But he refused.
Toward dawn, the old man died.
When the nurse extended her sympathy to the young man, the marine said, “Who was that man?”
“Wasn’t he your father?” the nurse asked.
“No, he wasn’t”, said the marine. “I never saw him before in my life”.
“Why didn’t you say something?” said the nurse.
“I would have”, said the marine, “but I could see that he was too sick to realize I wasn’t his son. I could also see that he was slipping fast and needed a son. So, I decided to become that son”.
Ordinary—wounded people can do things like this marine did for the old man. Extend a hand of friendship and help someone walk through the darkness to a new day.
Jesus did it—this marine did—we are asked to do the same.
Lord Help Us!

Many years ago, there were three friends who wanted to devote themselves to the work of God.
The first devoted himself to the work of making peace among those who were in conflict, helping to reconcile the estranged and alienated.
The second opened a small house to care for the sick and dying.
The third went off to live a life of prayer in the desert. The first friend worked tirelessly to help warring factions settle their differences, but could not resolve them all. Tired and frustrated over the wars he could not prevent, he went to visit his friend who was caring for the sick, but found that he, too, was exhausted and discouraged in the holy work he had taken on. So the two friends decided to go spend time with their friend in the desert.
They told their friend the monk of their difficulties and frustrations and asked if he had dealt with the same discouragement. The monk was silent for a time; then he poured water into a bowl. “Look at the water,” he said. The water was turbulent and moving. A few minutes later he asked them to look at it again. The water had settled down – and they saw their own reflections in the still water as if they were looking in a mirror.
“In the constant motion of our own lives lived among others, we do not see our own journey very well; but if we embrace the tranquility found in the stillness of prayer, we begin to picture where we are and where we are going.”
Throughout his Gospel, Mark portrays Jesus as being uncomfortable with his growing renown as a miracle worker and healer. Despite the many demands made of him and his dedication to his work of preaching and healing, Jesus makes time to let the waters still, to retreat to a quiet place to let his own spirit settle, to find within himself God’s grace and blessing to continue his work. In our own over-scheduled, stress-filled lives, we can drown unless we let the waters still and stop to see ourselves clearly in those waters. To seek out a “desert” place of our own demands a special humility that recognizes God in our midst and understands that we are called to be the means of his compassion in our world wherever we find ourselves.
I pray with you today that we have the courage to let the waters of our lives go still!