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The Healing of the Waters
Luke 11: 1 – 13 |
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Summary
The Healing of the Waters Imagine living in the dry Middle East some 2,800 years ago, when people had no comprehension of microbes or of how to make water safe for consumption. And now picture yourself living in a town with only one spring, the water from which is bad. That, so one Old Testament account tells us, was the situation in Jericho when the prophet Elisha came there. According to 2 Kings 2, the water from the main spring was unsafe. People considered its waters responsible for several deaths and miscarriages. Thus, when the residents told Elisha of their problem, he requested some salt, which he threw into the spring. That literally “healed” the waters, making them “wholesome to this day.” Most of us, of course, take safe water for granted, but there is a spiritual lesson in this old story. There is a sense in which each of us has “springs” flowing within us — springs of kindness, trust, hope, love and more. Sometimes, however, life deals us painful blows that can so poison those inner springs that they flow with bitterness, resentment, hatred, anger or some other troublesome emotion. And sometimes, it seems beyond our power to change the properties of those bad waters. Jane’s story Here is a true story that author Lewis Smedes tells. Jane and Ralph had finally raised their three children, and Jane was just beginning to enjoy a life without mothering duties. But then Ralph’s brother was killed in a car crash, leaving three children, ages 8, 10 and 12. Ralph felt duty bound to take them in, and, although Jane really didn’t want to, she was too compassionate to turn the kids away. However, since Ralph’s job kept him on the road a lot, Jane ended up doing most of the parenting. Nine years later, having raised this second crop, Jane finally felt free to pursue some interests of her own. It was then, however, that Ralph announced that he had fallen in love with his secretary. Ralph left Jane and married this new woman, but felt that he could not be completely happy while Jane continued to resent what he had done. So he telephoned Jane to ask her to forgive him and be glad for his newfound happiness. He said, “I want you to bless me.” She said, “I want to you to go to —” well, you can guess what she said. Can any of us really blame her for how she felt? She had been dealt a rotten blow. Could any of us go through such an experience without finding our inner springs of trust and love poisoned by bitterness and hatred? But the problem with the bad waters within is that they sap the soul of the person in which they flow. Jane’s hatred of Ralph hurt Ralph some, but it hurt her even more. And hate, bitterness, resentment or whatever can leave us too weak to create a better life beyond the pain. One pastor tells of seeing this very thing carried to an extreme. The pastor knew a man, “Frank.” who, because of some unusual circumstances, was acquainted with someone involved in organized crime. Frank once became so angry at someone else that he contacted this mobster and put a contract out on the other person’s life. Later, when Frank cooled off, he realized what a terrible thing he had done and canceled the hit. Nonetheless, Frank was in agony over what had happened inside him. His springs of anger had poisoned his soul and disrupted his life. Thank God most of us do not have the means at our disposal to carry out our every angry wish. But the inner damage is bad whether we actually harm others or only wish harm on them. Our resentments can pile up until what flows within us is toxic. Resentment can cause us to waste energy that could be put to more constructive use. Upsetting emotions that are left unresolved are in a sense buried alive, and thereby they become parasites eating away at us. The way of healing Forgiving others is one of the ways we heal the inner waters of bitterness and resentment, but forgiving is easier said than done. Yet, consider the alternative when we refuse to forgive. For one thing, we begin to live on the basis of bad memories. The person who has been disappointed in love or betrayed in marriage may look at every new relationship in terms of what happened before and wonder, “Will this person also hurt me?” Such negative memories can interfere with a person’s new friendships. We all have some painful memories, but unless we allow them to be healed, they may continue to have a powerful but negative directing force in our lives. How sad to have a bad experience, but how much sadder to be shackled to it after it is over. Anne FitzPatrick writes of coming home one night after a pleasant outing with her husband and friends to find that their house had been broken into and robbed. The house had been ransacked and many of the things taken had not only monetary value, but sentimental value as well. Anne was at first shocked, then angry and finally frightened. Her inner spring of security had been poisoned. For weeks, the break-in was never far from any of Anne’s conversations. She became suspicious of anyone she didn’t recognize and had trouble sleeping. She had become shackled to bad memories. Another thing that happens when we cannot forgive is that we deny ourselves happiness. In an old Dear Abby column, Abby asked readers who had caught their spouses being unfaithful, but had forgiven them and gone on to have a happy marriage, to write and tell her their story. She received a rapid and overwhelming response. The gist of these letters was the same. Although each of these betrayed spouses was truly hurt, they consistently recommended the “rewards of forgiveness and the futility of harboring a grudge.” Forgiving someone is not the same thing as excusing the behavior. Forgiving does not mean that we label another person’s actions as acceptable. Sometimes we must prosecute even after granting forgiveness. Remember several years ago when there was an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II? After that man was apprehended, the pope visited him in jail and freely forgave him. But he made no attempt to have the man freed. The Lord’s Prayer Back in Jericho, when Elisha threw salt into the spring, he was acting as an agent for God. It was God who healed the spring, and it is God who can heal our inner springs of poisoned waters as well. To return to Anne FitzPatrick’s story, one evening, several weeks after the robbery, the theft was again the topic of family conversation. Anne’s teenage son, Bill, said, “We should stop dwelling on what happened to us. We lost only things, but [the thieves] lost a lot more. They’re out of grace of God by breaking his law.” Bill went on to suggest that they should pray for the intruders. Slowly, Anne began to understand the godly wisdom her 17-year-old son had spoken. She later said that as she was able to forgive the thieves, her own sense of inner peace returned. The New Testament reading for today gives us Jesus’ response to a request that he teach his disciples to pray. As a model, he gives what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, which appears not only here but also in Matthew 6. There are several petitions in the prayer, but in the Matthew account, the only petition Jesus chooses to add any commentary to is the one about forgiveness. He says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” We sometimes hear that as though it were a threat, but the point behind it is how to live in a godly way. If you want to live as a godly person, then you need to do what God does, forgive people their trespasses. A priest in San Salvador tells the story of an 11-year-old boy named Juanito he met in an orphanage. A few years previously, the boy had been found beneath the bullet-riddled bodies of his mother, grandmother, and three older brothers. Juanito was covered with blood but unharmed. Since then, he had had a difficult time, sometimes spending entire days totally withdrawn, without speaking a word. While the priest was there, Juanito came to him for confession. Afterward, the boy said to the priest, “Father, pray for me, so that I can forgive the soldiers who killed my mother and brothers. I do not want to live with hatred in my heart.” Juanito, it would seem, was wise beyond his years. He somehow understood the damage an unhealed spring could do to him. There are many stories like Anne FitzPatrick’s and Juanito’s, but the common element in most of them is that the victim opened his or her heart to God so that those inner springs could be healed. Forgiveness isn’t pretending nothing happened or that it didn’t hurt. In fact, initially at least, it is not even something you feel; it is something you do. It isn’t starting over as though the offending incident had never happened. But forgiveness is refusing to let what happened diminish the soul and character of the injured party. Sometimes, but not always, it is also allowing a relationship to be restored. But always, it is allowing God to heal what is inside us so that we can be mentally, emotionally and spiritually whole. |
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