In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Someone in your house has
a dreadful accident. Life -threatening. You call
an ambulance. Ambulance is on the way. It stops.
For a long time. to care for someone else. Your
beloved has died. If I had to transpose the story
today from the gospel into some modern situation,
perhaps that's the way I would think about it.
Except we're dealing with Jesus, not an ambulance.
We've all been, brothers and sisters, especially
our seniors, in situations of uncertainty. When
a beloved one is sick, maybe if those of you
that are younger, you haven't experienced this,
you will. A beloved one is dying. You're afraid,
you're anxious, you're in incredible pain and
suffering. You're praying, you're praying constantly.
You're waiting for God to act. Where are you,
Lord, you say? Where are you? Why don't you act?
The story today has every drama you could think
of, but in brief words with no literary dramatic
technique, St. Luke, the physician, tells this
story about this father, and you have to imagine
his wife. In terror for their daughter who is
dying. The young girl herself probably in some
pain. And then there's this woman. Tradition
knows her as Veronica. In fact, tradition tells
us that she made a statue of Jesus. Which stood
for a long time but was destroyed sometime in
the third century. And here she is. Twelve years
she's suffering from this flow of menstrual blood,
which isolates her because she's unclean, not
sinful, just can't be touched in that society,
in that religious situation. Can't eat with her
family, never touched or embraced by her husband
or her children. Can't go to the synagogue or
to the temple. The crushing loneliness and despair.
Perhaps some of you have known that feeling in
yourself or for someone you love and you pray.
The gospel tells life like it is. There's nothing
sugar -coated in this gospel. Because Jesus has
come to save us from all that destruction and
corruption and pain. I don't say that on my own
authority or as some sort of wishful thinking
about the future. The apostles were called together.
Jesus gave them power over unclean spirits to
cast them out and to heal every manner of disease.
Today, we're celebrating That beginning of the
rescue, the change, the transformation, the healing
of people in the church. I want to say something
about illness too. But let me say something about
the unmercenaries. Because today is the feast
day of the gathering, the assembly, the synaxis
in Greek of the unmercenary healers. Those who
were doctors, physicians, and caregivers who
healed without taking. In Greek, without taking
silver. They weren't paid. What a precarious
thing physical health is. Sickness, which by
nature is not good. And suffering is not good.
It is not part of God's divine plan. But he uses
it. It's not part of his will, let's say. but
he has used it in his plan so that it becomes
a path of the cross and the resurrection. A cross
is not something, as one famous writer said,
to figure out and to get over it. A cross is
something we carry and changes us. Sickness,
then, in the light of God's help, when we're
praying, when we're troubled, when we're unsure.
Sickness illustrates the weakness of our human
nature. It tells us we don't understand the mystery
of life, our existence. It shows us how fragile
we are. It shows our fallen nature, that we are
not self -sufficient, although we pretend it
and we live that way. And our pride is broken.
St. Seraphim. our venerable father said, a person
who is very sick comes back to himself. If one
has faith in Jesus Christ. Now faith in Jesus
Christ is not something that comes because of
a miracle. And in this story today, Jesus sent
everyone out of the room. And he said, after
he healed and raised this girl from the dead,
don't speak about this. Just another magician
trick. That's not what Jesus is about. Only believe,
the Lord said to Jairus. Only believe. And to
the woman, tradition knows her again as Veronica.
He said, your faith has made you well. This healing
that goes on in the church, something from God.
We have these unmercenaries to get back to that.
Cyrus and John, Panteleimon, Irmelaos, Diomedes,
Samtison, Mochius, Photius, Aniketus, Artemius,
Thalallius, Triphon, all martyrs, and St. Luke
the surgeon, who died only in the 60s, and of
course St. Luke the apostle. Perhaps the earliest
healers of these are three women. who became
the first in the long series of mercenary healers
stretched even to today. These women were sisters,
Zenaida and Filonella. We have Carla Filonella
in our parish, who is an immunologist, epidemiologist.
Is that right, Carla? With her Ph .D. These women
were born in the early first century. They were
believed to be, by the church, cousins of St.
Paul the Apostle and highly educated women at
that, which is unusual for the time. Both sisters
studying philosophy. Now, philosophy in the ancient
world is not what we think of it today. Philosophy
was the study of all of nature, including medicine.
Once they became Christian, Orthodox, they gave
themselves to the healing of others. So we have
them in the icon here and St. Panteleimon in
the middle as the leader of the unmercenary healers.
They had faith. And listen to what the gospel
tells us. Faith in what? That they'd get well?
No. Or that they could heal? No. They had faith
that Jesus could heal, yes, but they had faith
in Jesus Christ as the bringer of the kingdom
of God. Not the kingdom of this world, but the
kingdom of God. Their presence for someone in
pain is the presence of God. And we have that
reading from marvelous, incredible reading of
St. Paul in 12th and 13th 1 Corinthians about
love. You are members of one another. You have
all these gifts. But the highest gift, the one
that the unmercenaries demonstrated over and
over again, is the gift of agape, selfless, egoless
love, using the gift that God gave them. We can
cast in our faith all our hope. All our thoughts,
plans, fears, anxieties, whatever, on the mercy
of the Savior. Like the desperate Jairus and
the desperate Veronica. Because faith leads to
holiness. We can trust Christ so much we can
be like Joseph of Arimathea who served the Lord
even though he thought the dream was over. And
the Messiah, had failed. This is about love of
God so deep that we trust in his providence.
Or we can be like the young ruler with his wealth
who couldn't get over himself. I'll finish this
brief meditation with these words from St. Barsanufius.
one of the early writers on the spiritual life.
He said, let us not give in. We have a merciful
God who knows our weaknesses better than we do.
And if, in order to test us, he sends illness,
at least we have the apostle who provides us
consolation when he says, God is faithful. and
he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength,
but with temptation will also provide the way
of escape that you may be able to endure it.
And if God's help is slow in coming, we should
know that in any case the trial will not last
indefinitely, and that God never leaves a person
without means of help. Be attentive to the limits
of endurance. Do not despair. Do not be discouraged.
For God is near he who said, I will never fail
you nor forsake you. The story we heard today
from the gospel, the reality of that, is the
sign of the coming of the kingdom of God and
the healing in the resurrection. Let us rejoice
in that. What did the psalmist say? The reader
said it. The choir repeated it over and over.
Sing praises to our God. Sing praises. Sing praises
to our King. Sing praises. Make a shout of joy.
Amen.