A hemorrhaging woman touches Jesus's skirt in the crowd, believing that just such a touch will bring healing. Jesus says, "Take care, daughter, your faith has healed you." And she is healed. A scrawny college grad on a boat passes out vitamins to ill-tempered sailors with hangovers. The sailors feel better. So here's the question I'm exploring this morning: When we find ourselves living with an affliction of any sort-physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, social-when we're body-sick, heart-sick, soul-sick-what resources do we have for healing? What fire must we light in order to purify the toxins, to cleanse the negative energy, to find solace and relief from the pain? How do we heal?
There are, of course, many ways to heal. We have many resources. A broken leg needs a cast. Cancer needs surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Depression, depending on the type and your point of view, may need medication or counseling, or at this time of year, a vacation in the sun. The common cold needs chicken soup. Alcoholism needs a sobriety program. A child with a skinned knee needs a hug, a kiss, a Band-Aid, and reassurance that everything will be ok.
Yet, whenever I start contemplating the things that heal us, I find deeper questions lurking beneath the surface: "What is health?" and "What is wholeness?" I've always been struck and moved to discover people whom modern medicine defines as very sick, yet who are actually among the healthiest people we know. Health in this sense is not necessarily about getting back to normal from a condition of illness-because even if there is such a thing as normal, it may not be possible to get there, or the cost of maintaining some socially constructed condition of normalcy may be too dear. Health in this sense is not necessarily about healing from a disease or its symptoms, because sometimes that's not possible. Rather, health and wholeness come from aligning our lives with our values, with nature, with the cosmos, with the things we hold sacred. Health and wholeness come from having beliefs, longings, hopes and desires and the capacity to express them and pursue them even if we must take the tiniest, slowest steps forward because that's all our bodies can do. Health and wholeness come from knowing our truths and living our lives such that they express and fulfill those truths. Health and wholeness come from lighting the fire within, stoking the life-force, letting it burn brightly, letting it guide us even when society, culture, and modern medicine define us as ill, chronic, terminal. It is possible to have health and wholeness even in the midst of illness.
Belief plays an essential role in healing from sickness and in achieving a condition of health and wholeness. This sermon is really about the power of belief, but I want to begin with some reflections on placebos. Herbert Benson, the Harvard Medical School professor who is famous for his work bridging the gap between medicine and religion, is convinced that placebos work, often as well as or better than standard treatments. He tells a story from the 1950s about an experiment done on a group of pregnant women who were experiencing severe morning sickness. The women swallowed small balloon-tipped tubes that researchers could use to study the contractions associated with waves of nausea and vomiting. Then they were given a drug they were told would cure the problem. In fact, they were given syrup of ipecac, a substance which causes vomiting. "Remarkably," writes Benson, "the patients' nausea and vomiting ceased entirely and their stomach contractions, as measured through the balloons, returned to normal. Because they believed they received anti-nausea medicine, reversed the proven action of a powerful drug. . . . With beliefs alone, they cured themselves."
Benson has countless stories like this. The vitamins-for-the-hung-over-sailors story is another example. I am convinced I feel better when I drink tea with lemon and honey. What about the Jesus story? There was a time in the history of Unitarianism and Universalism in this country when the vitamin story, or the syrup of ipecac story, would have been used as a kind of proof that a figure like Jesus didn't need to be divine in order to perform miracles. The argument would go something like this: "See, Jesus didn't have any special power. It was all a state of mind. If the person thought they would be healed from his touch, then there was a good chance they would be healed. The vitamin story confirms it. The sailors thought the pills would help their hangovers, and thus the pills really did help. It's the same phenomenon. Mind over matter." That is, there is something about the modern, scientific spirit-which has always been part of the Unitarian Universalist world-view-which seeks to either disprove the claims of religion-like Jesus's healing miracles-or find alternative, rational explanations as to why religious therapies tend to work. That the cloak functions as a placebo is one of those alternative, rational explanations. "It's not the power of God flowing through Jesus that enables him to heal people. It's the placebo power of his cloak."
That's fine, but I want to approach Jesus' cloak differently. I want to resist the temptation to reduce alleged religious miracles to alternative, rational explanations. I want to learn about the full nature of healing and the full substance of health and wholeness. To do that, I want to allow miraculous stories a place in the conversation; I want to allow religious processes to work, even in the presence of a very viable alternative, rational explanation. Medicine and religion tend to be at odds in our larger society, with each always trying to discount the other or explain the other in its own terms. I'm convinced this relationship isn't helpful when it comes to achieving health and wholeness. Medicine and religion work much better in tandem, when they each allow the other to flourish and they're not trying to debunk each other.
Dr. Benson believes this too. The body has a natural capacity to heal. The question is, what power in a person's life excites that capacity, gets it working? What stokes the fire within? Sometimes it's medicine. Sometimes it's religion. For example, Benson's research shows that prayer aids healing. Not for everyone, but for some, the act of prayer excites the body's capacity to heal itself. One of Benson's major contributions to the healing arts is his research on what he calls the Relaxation Response. When the body becomes sick or wounded or experiences pain, it naturally moves into "fight or flight" mode. Adrenaline rushes, senses heighten, tension rises. This is a high stress response. When the body is living with stress, its natural healing capacities become stunted, even blocked. So Benson says, "Relax." And he finds that the best way to relax is by focusing on a word or series of words. Repeat the words over and over again in your mind. Match your breathing to their rhythm. It's very similar to basic Buddhist meditation. As relaxation ensues, pain starts to lessen, symptoms become more manageable, and people recover sooner than those who don't engage in this practice.
As Benson began using this technique in hospitals, he found that people from religious traditions where prayer is important, instead of coming up with new words to meditate on, used familiar prayers as the words for their relaxation response. He has amassed hundreds of stories of people who use prayer to relax-people in the end-stages of cancer, for example, who manage their pain entirely through prayer, no pain medication necessary.
So is prayer just a kind of placebo? It's a tricky question. The whole point of a placebo is that the person taking it doesn't know it's a placebo. You can't just pray thinking, "I don't really believe my prayer, but if I pray it will function as a placebo." In order for prayer to work-in order for any placebo to work-You have to believe. Belief is crucial. Belief lights that fire within; belief brings relaxation and comfort; belief helps trigger your body's natural healing capacities. This is why I'd rather not focus on debunking traditional religion. I'd rather discern what it is you, I or we actually believe in and figure out how to integrate that into the relaxation response, into healing process. When we focus on what we believe about ourselves, about the world, about the cosmos, we get closer to the truths of our lives. And if we keep focusing, we may actually start to live our lives as a fulfillment of that truth; and we may begin to achieve health and wholeness in that grander sense, even in situations where the disease is irreversible, chronic, terminal. The word "placebo" is too small to encompass what is really going on when we talk about the role of religion in healing and in achieving health and wholeness. The word is "belief."
I started reflecting on this idea when I worked with the Unitarian Universalist minister, Thomas Mikelson who, when asked about whether or not certain religious healing ceremonies really do work, says, "We don't really know, do we? But I wouldn't want to risk not believing." Thomas was my supervisor when I was a student minister at the First Parish in Cambridge. Thomas is a healer. When he lays hands on a person living with illness, something happens. Something changes. And sometimes they get well. He says he knew he had healing power from a very young age. It's a gift that he doesn't take lightly. He is very humble about it. If you ask him, "do you think it works-the laying hands?"-he might shrug and say, "I don't know if it works. I don't know why people get better sometimes. But I know that they do." What he means is that he never recommends that his laying hands be the sole therapy a person uses. Go to your doctor. Go to a second doctor. Go to a third doctor. Use chemo, radiation, drugs, surgery, herbs, meditation, prayer, yoga, exercise, acupuncture, massage. Believe in yourself. Keep a positive attitude. Eat an apple a day. Express all your feelings around the illness. Don't hold anything back. Engage in rituals of healing. Ginger tea, I've found is mighty good for an upset tummy. See as many friends and family as possible. Get rid of any God, Goddess or higher power in your life who doesn't love you. Find a God, Goddess, or higher power who does love you and worship them with all your heart, mind, and soul. Eat well. Sleep well, if you can. Speak the truth. Apologize to the people you've hurt. Find constructive ways to forgive the people who've hurt you. Celebrate your little victories. Give and receive lots of hugs (if you're the hugging type). Find as many ways as possible to reduce stress in your life. Learn what matters most to you and focus on it. And, if someone wants to come by and lay hands, invite them over!
The point is, Thomas may lay hands on a person, but that is not necessarily the reason they become well. It could be anything they're doing for treatment, and it is probably a combination of many things. We don't know that the laying of hands works; we don't know that it doesn't work. We just don't know. But we do know from experience that Thomas lays hands, and people are healed. I'm not prepared to rule out the possibility that the two things are connected. I'm not prepared to rule out the possibility that when Thomas lays hands, something sacred happens; something part and parcel of the divine flows through him and through the afflicted person. Because in the laying of hands there is a connection. This connection is not necessarily about two people believing there is a God who can heal; but it is about two people believing together that healing is possible. It is that belief that matters; that belief that the body has the capacity to get better, and even when it doesn't, that health and wholeness in a larger sense are still within reach.
I've been referring to the "fire within." For me this is a metaphor for health and wholeness or for the path to health and wholeness. The fire within can be faint. We live in a culture that is not always friendly to that fire, not always friendly to us. It is unhealthy in so many ways. It often asks us to deny our truths. It often asks us to compromise the values we hold dear. It often tells us the Cosmos is one thing when in our hearts we feel differently. In our hearts we know all is connected, interdependent, a unity, one, and yet our culture says something different: it separates and divides; it puts us in boxes and slaps labels on us. It is very good at treating our symptoms, but too often fails to ask larger questions about why the symptoms are there in the first place. We need a night like Brigit's night or Imbolc, where we light bonfires in celebration of the life-force; fires for the purpose of cleansing and purification; fires of healing; fires that remind us it is worth believing in something, believing with every fiber of our bodies and every whisp of our souls.
This is a cross-quarter time, the time halfway between solstice and equinox, a time when the ancients gathered in search of blessings, purification and healing in advance of the coming spring. My prayer for us at this cross-quarter time, in the midst of winter cold, is that the fire within each of us may burn brightly, that our truest selves may shine forth, that we may cultivate passionate belief, and as we believe, that we may approach health, that we may approach wholeness.
Amen and Blessed be.
1 Matthew 9: 20-22
2 Benson, Herbert, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief"(New York: Scribner, 1996) pp. 17-18.
3 Benson, Herbert, Timeless Healing (New York: Scribner, 1996) p. 32.
