Each time I have driven south down the 405 Freeway towards San Diego, I have always seen a sight in Costa Mesa that has never failed to make me look. It is a huge, sprawling complex of buildings that looks like a Southern ante-bellum mansion, complete with the white columns on the front. Beside the freeway is huge sign announcing that this is the home of TBN, The Trinity Broadcast Network. This complex is the center of the largest Christian broadcast network that now reaches over 3,000 television stations and 21 satellites throughout the world. I checked out their website this week and found out that you can arrange for a tour of the TBN facilities, but I don't think I am either brave or foolish enough to actually do it.

What I have done, I must confess, is watch some of their shows for a few minutes as I channel-surf the cable system. It's kind of like slowing down to take a look at an accident on the side of the road as you pass: you know you are not supposed to do it, but you are too fascinated to resist. One of my favorites is Benny Hinn, the most popular of the faith healers these days. Benny leads a ministry that travels around the globe, holding crusades in large arenas that attract thousands of participants and millions of television viewers. Dressed from head-to-toe in a white suit and surrounded by hundreds of singers and assorted helpers, Benny continues the tradition of television faith healing. Audience members are brought forth with a wide variety of illnesses and disabilities, reciting how modern medicine has failed to cure them. After hearing their testimony, Benny places his hand on their forehead and literally pushes them backward to the floor. After convulsing for a few moments, the audience member is helped up and cries with joy as Benny announces that they have been healed completely through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This reminds me of a joke I received about a year ago. A Baptist couple wanted a dog, but they wanted to be sure that their pet was equally as Baptist as they. They found a kennel that specialized in Baptist dogs, and the owner of the kennel showed the couple the various tricks the dog could perform. When he asked the dog to "fetch," he immediately brought them a Bible. When they asked him to find the 23rd Psalm, the dog quickly flipped through the pages with his paws and found the psalm. Obviously the couple was impressed, so they purchased the dog and took him home.

That night, the couple invited some friends over to show off their new Baptist dog. He did all of the same tricks that he did at the kennel and the friends were very impressed. Then one of the friends asked if the dog could do any of the usual tricks that dogs often perform. The couple had never thought of normal dog tricks, but was willing to try. They called the dog over and said, "Heel." Immediately, the dog jumped up on his hind legs, put his paw on the man's forehead, and bowed his head as if in prayer. It was then that the couple realized they had been deceived: the dog was a Pentecostal.

My apologies to our Baptist and Pentecostal friends for telling that joke, but it's probably okay. I am sure that somewhere at this very moment, someone is telling a joke about how many Methodists it takes to screw in a light bulb. It does amaze me how persistent and widespread the belief is that faith and prayer alone will solve all your physical ailments. Let me say right now that I do not believe that faith healers can cure our bodies like some magic spell. I think it is a money scam that funds the opulent lifestyles of these tele-evangelists, playing on the fears of innocent people in distress. I do not support these "ministries," and I advise that you do not as well.

But there is a place for prayer and healing in our Christian tradition. Our scripture today is from the Epistle of James, which was probably written late in the first century by a follower of James, the brother of Jesus (1). James was the leader of the more conservative Jewish Christians based in Jerusalem until his death in 62 CE. This epistle reflects the growth of the early Christian church into a more organized entity with prescribed practices and beliefs. One such practice is the anointing of the sick, as heard in this part of the scripture:

Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed (James 5:14-16).

It is this passage that provides the basis for the continuing practice of unction, or the process of anointing with oil for a religious purpose.(2) Unction is considered one of the seven sacraments in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions. The liturgy in these traditions calls for prayers for healing of the body, mind and spirit, the laying on of hands, and the anointing of the sick person by the priest.

You may be surprised to learn that we, too, in the United Methodist Church, have a liturgy for healing services and prayers.(3) While we do not consider anointing the sick with oil as a sacrament like our Roman Catholic and Episcopal colleagues, we do practice a ministry of spiritual healing. Now let me explain what spiritual healing does and does not mean for us:

1. Spiritual healing is from God and is not designated to a particular person. Therefore, anyone can lead prayers for healing and anoint those in need of healing with oil.
2. Spiritual healing is not magic and is not a substitute for medicine or preventive health care. Rather, spiritual healing is in addition to these resources.
3. Spiritual healing does not promise that we will be physically cured of our illness or that we will be spared suffering and pain. What it does do is provide reconciliation between a person and God. This reconciliation with God helps to restore our physical, mental and spiritual health.

There are many ways that you can both experience and help provide spiritual healing in this congregation. For example, tonight in our Vespers service at 6:00 p.m. in Gates Chapel, a healing service is being offered. If you have a physical, mental, or emotional need in your life right now, I invite you to attend this healing service tonight and experience it for yourself. In our regular pastoral care that we provide on a daily basis, we incorporate healing prayers all the time. This includes both the clergy and the laity when we visit the sick in the hospitals or at home and when we pray for them by name here in worship. Our Stephen Ministry, under the leadership of Mary Garbesi, provides training and support for volunteers who provide a listening ear and presence for those in crisis or special need. We also have our Intercessory Prayer Group that receives your prayer requests and prays for them on a regular basis.

I want to especially lift up another ministry of this church that we are blessed to have: our Health Ministry. We have been blessed with two wonderful Health Ministry nurses over the years, first Dorothy Kleingartner and now Mary Jo Dalton. Through their ministries and the efforts of the Health Ministry Council, this congregation has provided both physical and spiritual healing to literally hundreds of people. This ministry promotes healthy living through programs like the monthly blood pressure screenings, the annual flu vaccine clinic, and numerous educational programs offered throughout the year. Mary Jo provides invaluable resources to individuals who are sick or are rehabilitating from their illnesses.

So we as a congregation here at First Church have already put the scripture from James into action. But our attention to healing and wellness is not just an end in itself. Doing these things also reflects something very important in our theology and faith as Methodists. We are committed to wholeness of body, mind and spirit, and we believe that living in that way leads to holiness.

I had the opportunity to go to the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta at the beginning of this year to attend a conference celebrating the 300th birthday of our founder, John Wesley. Wesley was born on June 17, 1703, and we will have an opportunity to celebrate that event on Heritage Sunday following Easter. Many wonderful lectures were presented at that conference, but I was really taken with one in particular. Randy Maddox, Professor of Wesleyan Theology at Seattle Pacific University, made a presentation about one of John Wesley's lesser-known works, Primitive Physick.(4)

The Primitive Physick was first published in 1745 as a collection of medical remedies and ways to maintain good health. Wesley read extensively throughout his life, and that included the latest medical literature of the day. Wesley felt it was necessary to collect this advice into a small, inexpensive pamphlet because professional medical care was available only to the rich urban dwellers of London. The poor to whom Wesley preached had no doctors and no hospitals available to them. Anglican priests such as Wesley were usually the most educated people that rural folks encountered, so Wesley thought that it would be practical to publish a simple medical guide and distribute it to the people as he traveled from town to town. The Primitive Physick became so popular that it went through 22 different editions, and was one of the publications that Wesley recommended for every household.

In the 1791 edition, Wesley provides remedies to treat 289 different illnesses, ranging from sore throats to cancer. Let me just give you a sample…here's one for the cure of baldness:

Rub the part morning and evening with onions, till it is red; and rub it afterwards with honey.
Or wash it with a decoction of box-wood. Or electrify it daily.(5)

Now, a lot of you laughed, but I bet some of you were secretly taking notes out there! The electrification remedies always get a laugh, but Wesley was fascinated with this new discovery and considered these treatments (low voltage of course) to be one of God's natural cures.

Now, we all know that the practice of medicine has come a long way since Wesley's day, so why even bother with the Primitive Physick? There is a theological reason for knowing about this work. For Wesley, our salvation included both body and soul. In his preface to the Primitive Physick, Wesley describes how in the beginning, God created humans as perfect beings: there was no sin, no pain, no sickness, and no death. But soon we fell from this perfect condition when we disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. Now we were suddenly mortal, subject to sickness and bodily disorders. So for Wesley, salvation from this state of sin was not based on one decision at one moment in time; it is a life-long process in which we are trying to recover our original nature of being created in God's image. And for Wesley, this meant not just our souls but our bodies as well. In fact, one of the ways Wesley described God was as "the Great Physician" or "the Physician of souls." So when Wesley urged the early Methodists to adopt a regime of regular exercise, plenty of sleep, frequent bathing, and a diet consisting primarily of fruits and vegetables, he is prescribing that for our whole well-being, not just our physical condition.

As we walk together on our Lenten journey this year, we are called to reflect upon our lives. Are we sick, either physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually? Do we have sins that we wish to confess before God? And will God's forgiveness of our sins heal our broken souls? The answer is yes, if we confess and repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness, God will grant it. We are made whole again by God's never-ending love and grace.

Linda Jackson sang so beautifully for us this morning "There is a Balm in Gilead." Listen closely to these lyrics again:

Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain.
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.

The good news for us today, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that God is ready to heal and restore us. Through the love of Christ and work of the Holy Spirit, we can be made whole again if we repent of our sins and ask God for forgiveness. The church is a community of faith where that healing is offered to all that ask for it. Use this season of Lent to seek God's healing so that, on Easter morning, not only will Christ experience new life, but also so will we. Amen.

NOTES:

1. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 725-7 and 736-9.

2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, eds. F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), s.v. "unction."

3. The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1992), 613-29.

4. John Wesley, Primitive Physick, Library of Methodist Classics (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1992).

5. Wesley, Primitive Physick, 35-6.

6. Ibid., iii.

7. Ibid., iv.