Healing vs. Curing: Reflections for Pastoral Caregivers

Based on Mark 10:46-52

The Rev. Bebe Baldwin
Vice-Moderator, Presbyterians for Disability Concerns (PDC)

My friend Barbara shared this story during a recent sermon. The incident she described took place in a Presbyterian-related care center.

One Thursday morning when I went to visit my mother in her nursing home, I was waiting, cane in hand, on a bench by the front door for my sister-in-law to arrive. Suddenly a woman (who I learned later was a volunteer leader of a Bible study) rushed up to me and said, “May I pray for you?” Too startled to think of a good answer, I replied, “If you want to.” She prayed, “Gracious God, please heal her and lift the heavy burden of her blindness from her.” Ungracious wretch that I am, I would have preferred her not to have made so many incorrect assumptions about my condition.

No doubt the volunteer meant well but she made the immediate assumption that Barbara needed to be “fixed.” She saw only Barbara’s disability; she saw only her blindness.

What a difference there was in Jesus’ encounter with Bartimaeus! In contrast with most of the healing narratives, we know the name of the man Jesus healed. Names are important but the volunteer never asked Barbara’s name. In the Bible, a name expresses the essence or the reality of a person. Bartimaeus means “son of the unclean.”

In Jesus’ culture, sin was believed to cause disability. To be unclean, however, did not mean sinfulness. A person was “unclean” if she or he failed to fulfill the demands of the ritual law. For example, Jesus’ disciples were criticized because they did not wash their hands in the prescribed way before eating. They were eating with “unclean” hands. (Mark 7:1-4) We cannot know why Bartimaeus was given his name, but it appears that he was alienated both because of disability and because of some family disgrace.

Was it because of the man’s status as “son of the unclean” that the crowd “sternly ordered” him to be silent as Jesus approached? Did they judge the man to be unworthy of healing or even approaching Jesus? Were they shaming him for sins they suspected or imagined that had caused his disability?

Jesus defied the demands of the crowd and called Bartimaeus to come to him. In doing so, he called into question the values of his culture. He turned shame into mercy.

But what Jesus said next was truly amazing. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus was affirming the man’s right to be his own advocate. Jesus trusted a man who had been marginalized by his blindness and his family status to know and say what he needed. Jesus showed respect as well as mercy for the “son of the unclean.” Jesus listened! He said nothing about sin or repentance or diligence in following the ritual laws. (In another story about a man who was blind, Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned …” John 9:2-3)

Jesus’ words, “Your faith has made you well,” have often been used to “prove” that if we have enough faith, we’ll be “fixed by reversing our disability condition.” We usually understand faith as meaning “to believe” or “to trust.” In the Gospels, believing also implies obedience. It is difficult, however, to know exactly what faith meant in the healing stories. Nor do we know exactly what took place in Bartimaeus’ life or what form his healing took. I believe that the Greek word translated as “made well” is helpful here.

In the Gospels, healing was never limited to a physical cure. The Greek word means “to be made whole.” Healing involved the whole person. The meaning is similar to shalom in the Hebrew Scriptures. According to Kathy Black, the people in Jesus’ culture understood health as “one’s sense of being in the community.” * In the healing stories, restoration into the community is usually part of the healing. We are told that Bartimaeus “followed him on the way.” Bartimaeus found a new community.

Perhaps if the woman in Barbara’s story had understood the difference between “healing” and “curing,” the encounter would have been very different. She would have recognized Barbara as a person created in the Image of God. If she had taken time to know Barbara, she would have discovered her to be a member of the Body of Christ with valuable gifts to share. (I Cor. 12:4-6)

In our “enlightened” century, we confuse healing and curing. Healing may or may not include curing of the body. Healing, in contrast with a physical cure, includes the whole person. It means being at peace with our selves and our bodies. It includes our relationships with others and with God. Not all of us will be cured, but we are all called to be healed. When I was newly disabled and struggling to learn to live with my vision loss, a wise friend told me, “You are more than a pair of eyes.” Healing can begin when we know that we are more than our disabilities!

In fact, most of us who live with disabilities don’t feel a need to be “fixed” by a physical cure. Whether we were born with a disability or developed one later, our disabilities are part of who we are, part of our identities. Our disabilities have shaped our perspectives in profound ways.

What we do not want is pity. A popular and highly respected religious leader spoke recently of his “compassion” for blind people who cannot see a beautiful sunset. I was reminded immediately of a comment Barbara made to me, “Being able to see is not what I long for.” What we do want is to be accepted as we are and to have opportunity for inclusion and participation in our churches and communities.

Healing, therefore, goes beyond the individual. It involves the attitudes of the whole community. As long as people with disabilities are silenced, the community is in need of healing. As long as people with disabilities are relegated to the fringes of a congregation, the community is broken. Writing of the Body of Christ, Paul said, “If one member suffers, all members suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (I Cor. 12:26)

Are there modern stories of healing? Let me give you some examples.

• A man with cerebral palsy discovered new meaning in his life when he joined an advocacy group that was working for a more inclusive church for people with disabilities. Members of his congregation recognized his gifts and elected him to the Session.
• A child with Down Syndrome was invited to a birthday party for a member of his church school class. The children discovered that they could play games and have fun together.
• A woman with a developmental disability was elected to the Board of Deacons. People in the congregation who had questioned her ability to serve were surprised when she discovered her own unique ways of being faithful.

Let us pray for more “miracles” of healing!

* Kathy Black, A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1996) pg. 46.