Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 329

Lake Mount Saint Francis
from the dam
with  a thin sheet of ice

They scurried about the surrounding country
and began to bring in the sick on mats
to wherever they heard he was.
Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.

I am neither an outdoorsman nor a hunter and I know little about the animals that live out there. But my general impression is, when they get sick they either recover or die. They cannot survive many years with a chronic illness or disability. The lame will fall to predatory animals; the sick will fall to predatory parasites and microbes.

But human beings are different. We care for one another; and that’s good because every one of us get sick from time to time; and the longer we live the more likely we are to suffer chronic illnesses. Very few, if any, babies pass through their first years without sickness; and our elderly often suffer multiple chronic illnesses for years at a time; and we continue to support them. We cannot do otherwise. I am convinced there would be no human beings on this planet if we lived as the wild animals do. Nor would we demonstrate our astonishing creativity, generosity and courage if we did not instinctively care for one another.

So when I read stories about the crowds who brought their sick to Jesus, I am moved. We are not a healthy species and yet we thrive because we care for one another. We build homes to shelter us and hospitals to heal us. We develop farms because we need food and theaters because we need entertainment. We’re in this together.

A hidden cove at the
distant end of the lake

Because Jesus is one of us he acts as we do, he also cares for the sick. He cannot do otherwise. Sometimes, in our hospitalized, institutionalized and technologically sophisticated systems of health care, we forget how helpless we are and how we need God’s help. And we forget that Jesus came to heal us. His ministry is not just “spiritual” (whatever that is.) He cares for us entirely, our bodies and souls, our finances and our friendships; our politics and policies. We’re all in this together, and Jesus is here with us.