A Meditation on the Metaphor of Healing
Romans 6:18-23; St. Matthew 8:5-13
We think about things using metaphor – they frame the way we interact with ideas and define our experience and interaction with them [example]. This is especially true when it comes to our relationship with God and our participation in Him through His Holy Orthodox Church. This is wonderful because it allows us to use concepts we have already developed in order to understand something that is mysterious, powerful, and incredibly important [example]. The problem is that no metaphor can capture all the potential aspects of any given reality [example], much less the reality of our relationship with the ineffable, omnipotent, and all-loving God of All.
The problem is compounded when concepts that used be strong enough to point towards this reality have lost their traditional meanings. So, to use a couple of examples we have discussed over the last few weeks, calling God “Father” used to be a way to point to his power, love, and utter reliability. But in today’s society, many fathers are so emasculated, selfish, and completely unreliable that putting God into the same category with them creates some really wicked misunderstandings! Of course, the real solution should for males to “man-up” and start living up to their calling; but in the meantime, we’ve got some “splainin’ to do!” Similarly, marriage used to be a great example to teach people about the love, intimacy, fellowship, unity and commitment that is found when people join themselves to the Church, but the reality of marriage – and thus its suitability for metaphorical use – has similarly fallen on hard times.
Today’s metaphor (from the Gospel reading) is Christ as the Great and Powerful Physician who heals all those who put their lives in his care. Today I would like to offer a couple of observations on this idea:
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It is a wonderful concept, and the metaphor points to many things that are true [examples] and is much better than some others that are used [examples]
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But – as with “Fatherhood” and “Marriage” – there are problems, and some of these are caused by our society’s messed up health-care system. [no, this is not going to turn into a commentary about health care mandates, etc.]. We rarely have the kind of trusting relationships with our doctor that we should have with Christ, nor does she provide the kind of holistic guidance and care that Christ provides. Let me flesh this out a bit:
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Ala carte/ smorgasborg/ buffet model of being healthy. Primary care. Specialists. What hurts? Find the right person. We don’t expect our doctor to help us with our diet, or our stress, or guidance on how to live a complete life, not just free of disease, but radiant. We just want them to help us with things that have broken or gone wrong. This automatically carries over to our faith when we think of Christ as a physician and his Church as the place to find healing.
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Burdened with guilt? Go to confession.
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Want immortal life? Go to communion.
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Having problems with stress? Try Christian meditation and prayer.
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Need someone to talk to or advice with a problem? Find a spiritual father or mother.
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Having a problem dealing with temptations (or weight), try fasting.
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The list goes on, but you see the point: we are compartmentalizing our health into issues – treating health care as a consumer – rather than living a truly healthy life by putting our life in God’s care.
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Another metaphor that the earliest Christians used was to call their faith “The Way”. What a powerful term. The Great physician is available to help you address your particular concerns, but most of all, he is offering you a way of life that leads to perfect health forever as part of his perfect body.
And that is a metaphor worth living.
