R&B Co-founder Neil Ellingson concludes our sermon mini-series on healing by reflecting on the power of words to harm and heal, the lessons we learn from kids who say whatever, and trite street art.
Readings:
Matthew 8:5-17:
When he came into Kfar Nahum (Capernaum), a centurion, a Roman officer, came near, beseeching him. “Sir, my servant boy is lying paralyzed in my house, and in terrible pain.”
And he said to the centurion,
I will come to heal him.
The centurion answered, “Sir, I don’t deserve to have you under my roof. Only say a word and my son will be healed. I am also a man under orders, with soldiers under me, and I say to this man, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Hearing him, Jesus was amazed and said to his followers,
Yes, I tell you, in all of Israel
I have found no one with such deep faith,
and I tell you, many from the east and west
will come and lie down beside the table
to eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
in the kingdom of the skies.
And other sons of the kingdom will be thrown out
into the far outer darkness.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus said to the centurion,
Go back to your home. Since you have had faith,
let the event take place for you.
And his son was healed in that hour.
Then Jesus went into the house of Peter, whose mother-in-law he saw lying in bed with a fever, and he touched her hand and the fever left her. She got up and served him.
That same evening they brought him many who were afflicted with demons. With a word he cast out the spirits and he healed all their sicknesses. He was fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah:
He attended our sicknesses
and removed our diseases.
Second Reading:
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.