05/11/2025 ~ Fourth Sunday of Easter ~ * Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30 ~ YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjhrfvI1qdo
VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701/video/1084966922

Miracle Workers

“Peter said to this one who had been paralyzed, ‘Aeneas, Jesus, the Christ, heals you. Get up and make your bed!’ Aeneas got up at once. And all the inhabitants of Lydda and Sharon, upon seeing this, were converted.” — Acts 9:34-35.

Many of you know I was a congregant, a member the laity, at an Episcopal Church. That New York City church over time developed a significant ministry in what is commonly called healing prayer.

I want to take some time to explain healing prayer because many people do not understand what prayer for healing, praying about healing is. It’s often confused with what is commonly referred to as faith healing. No, it is not that.

To be clear, I think can explain the process of healing prayer not because I am now an ordained pastor. It’s because I was involved in the practice as a member of the laity. I was on what was called a “healing prayer team.” (Slight pause.)

Now, the first thing to be said about healing prayer would seem like a paradox to some. A person who offers healing prayer should never, while praying, make a claim about intervention on the part of God.

Intervention, healing in some form, any form, is the work of God, not the person praying. So don’t try to be like God. No one is up to the task. For sure it’s above your pay grade.

Second— one person should not pray one on one with another person, alone. This kind of prayer ministry needs to form teams, groups of people. Team members pray with someone asking for prayer.

So two or even three people should pray with someone seeking prayer. This is also important: members of a healing prayer team do not learn or offer a series of rote prayers. Indeed, any prayers voiced are not the important part of pray for healing. Rather, the important piece of healing prayer is listening.

In fact, healing prayer encompasses at least four kinds of listening. First, listen to the person making a prayer request. If that person is asking for prayer it’s likely the needs may be and most of the time are great.

Also, someone who seeks healing prayer may not be able to articulate their specific needs well. What they know is they need prayer. Hence, acute, deep listening, is necessary.

Once the person seeking prayer is fully heard, often what happens next is all the people present, the prayer team, the two or three people, join hands with the person seeking prayer. Joining hands should happen only if and when it’s appropriate.

Then yet another way of listening happens. Each member of the prayer team needs to listen to how the other members of that team responds, how each member able to prayerfully vocalize, speak in a prayerful way, reflect aspects of what was heard. It’s likely each member of the team will hear different facets of the request in different ways.

Another level of listening is the need to listen to and for the Spirit of God. Is the Spirit being heard, felt, recognized in that circle of people who pray?

The last level of listening happens over the course of time, sometimes days, something weeks, sometimes months, sometimes much longer. This is continued listening for the voice of God, the will of God. So prayer needs to continue as listening continues.

Why so much time? The voice of God, the will of God is rarely immediate. Most often the voice of God and will of God is heard and felt over a very, very long period of time. (Slight pause.)

Now that I’ve covered the process, I need to tell a story. At the Church where we did this, we usually prayed for people during a regular service on a Sunday morning.

After one service at the coffee hour, someone approached me who had never been to that church before, a person I had never seen before and said, “So, tell me about your healers.”

I said, “Healers? We don’t have healers here.”

She said, “Then what were you people doing when you prayed?”

I said, “We were praying. God does the healing. Not us.” (Slight pause.)

We find these words in the work known as Luke/Acts in the section commonly called Acts: “Peter said to this one who had been paralyzed, ‘Aeneas, Jesus, the Christ, heals you. Get up and make your bed!’ Aeneas got up at once. And all the inhabitants of Lydda and Sharon, upon seeing this, were converted.” (Slight pause.)

When this reading was introduced you heard this passage purposefully references the Aeneid. It was written in the decades before the birth of the Christ and contains stories about divine intervention.

Back then a common feature in the secular literature was stories of divine intervention. Hence, if there were no stories with divine intervention in the New Testament, it’s unlikely people would have paid attention to the New Testament.

But we do need to understand this: both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament have a different take on divine intervention than the secular writings of the time. And secular understandings would have singled Peter out as a miracle worker.

But the passage says many were converted and later says because of a healing many came to believe Jesus is the Christ. So in Scripture what we often refer to as miracles are not about healing as in this story or even about miraculous phenomena— like changing water into wine.

If these stories were simply or only about miraculous phenomena, this would not be Scripture. This would be just like the secular literature of the time. Indeed, to say this was only about miraculous phenomena would be to reduce the Bible to secular literature.

In Scripture stories about healing and miraculous occurrences tell us one thing and one thing only. They tell us about the presence of God. They tell us God is acting in the process. They tell us God walks with humanity. (Slight pause.)

So, does this mean miracles don’t happen? No. Miracles do happen. I’ll name one: open heart surgery. Now, that’s a miracle.

But, if that’s a miracle does that mean I am saying prayer is meaningless? No. Prayer is full of meaning and we need to pray constantly.

But we need to understand the nature of prayer. Contrary to populist belief, prayer is neither transactional nor about results. Prayer is about listening for and to God, being in dialogue with God and our willingness to rely on the will of God.

So at the last, prayer is about belief and trust. Prayer is about a belief that we trust in God and rely on God as God walks with us in the process we commonly call life, just life. Amen.

05/11/2025
Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Congregational Response and Benediction. This is a précis of what was said: “In my comments I mentioned someone who was visiting that Episcopal Church I attended asked about the healers. I suspect eventually she came to a very clear understanding of what prayer for healing is about. Why do I say that? Today she is an Episcopal Priest.”

BENEDICTION: Let us go out from this place in the sure knowledge that God is at the center of our lives. Let us go out from this place in the sure knowledge that God’s love abounds. Let us go out from this place and strive to have our deeds bear witness to God’s love. And may the steadfast love of God and the peace of Christ, which surpasses understanding, keep our minds and hearts in the companionship and will of the Holy Spirit, this day and forever more. Amen.