The Healing of the Soul

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on October 12, 2025 by Revd Richard Carter

Reading for address: Luke 17: 11-19

Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a gratefull heart.

Today I want to talk about gratitude. Perhaps a surprising theme when today we focus on St Luke the physician and our need for healing. But perhaps the concept of gratitude is the meaning within the miracles- the healing that Jesus Christ brings.

I want to begin with a story from my childhood. When I was about 11 years old my mother and father invited a friend of our family called Anne to come and stay with us. She had terminal cancer and was very unwell. She had been our babysitter and friend when we were small- we had always loved her – she was brilliant with us as children; artistic and creative and good company- the sort of babysitter you loved because your parents were out and she was such fun.

My parents believed it would not only provide love and care for Anne, who was single and had no close family, during her illness but also good for all our family too- to be with her during this last period of her life. To be present to her and learn from her as we cared for her as a family. I remember Anne staying with us so clearly. I remember praying for her and wanting her so much to get better. I remember she used to have a lot of Christian friends who used to come round and pray for her. I remember my mother and father simply caring for her as she got sicker and weaker. It was a difficult time for all of us- seeing her losing her strength and becoming thinner and to hear her as she cried out from her room in pain and I remember how desperate she became for pain killers and frightened and restless, sometimes wandering about the house at night- looking so emaciated, desperate, wild eyed and agitated. I remember I cared about her so much that I stopped praying that she would get better and started praying that she would find peace. I wanted her to be at rest not because I didn’t want her to live but because I didn’t want her to suffer anymore. My parents became more and more involved in her need for constant care until the last few days of her life when she was taken into hospital and died a few days later. I remember feeling thankful to God that, the God who she had always loved, had finally helped her to find peace. Not long after she died I can remember overhearing my mother saying to my father how upset my mother was- the prayer group had come round and told my mother that they felt that they had failed Anne and for some reason their prayers had not been answered. I remember my mother saying that she felt this was so ungrateful to God, to Anne, and to all we had learnt through caring for her and that she felt God had been with us and Anne and God had answered our prayers. As Sam Wells would have said they had been praying for her but not with her but we as a family really had tried to be with her and it had felt we had handed her gently over into God’s love.

I tell you this story because it was an early lesson in my life of what the miracle of healing means. Not a magic answer to the pain and suffering of our human lives but somehow a presence through the storm- a handing over into God’s love. I learnt at that young age what I have seen many times since- the tender wound of solidarity- when you are with someone loving them through their pain, feeling it as if it was your own- and knowing there is a love both deeper than the pain and also somehow beyond it- a love that in life and in death will not let you go.

To recognise that love- a love present in both life and death is not the failure of healing but the realisation that real healing is about something much more and much greater than curing a malady- it is about the miracle of life- life before death, life beyond death and life through death. Perhaps our greatest fear is that we will be abandoned in death, totally alone, cut off from all that we love- an eschatological dread of a dark void which nothing can cross. Yet each of the healing miracles of Jesus points us towards his own life story- points us towards his own passion and death- that somehow the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never put it out- and that actually nothing, nothing in heaven or in hell, above or below, nothing in all creation, not even the horror of crucifixion- can ever separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus. Each miracle in the Gospels is a foretaste of the miracle of the whole Gospel that we will see and witness in Jesus Christ- that Christ is risen -and that even death itself will have no dominion- or as s Francis says in his beautiful canticle- praise be my lord for sister death for in God’s most holy will even death itself will do us no harm.

I myself, fortunately, have enjoyed good health for many years. But April of this year I had an accident in which as many of you will know I fractured my ankle in three places. I saw my foot in front of me bent in the wrong direction like a fish. I worried that I would not walk again. Of course I prayed for healing and I was also very grateful that others prayed for me too. But that did not mean that all the pain was suddenly gone and that I could pick up my bed and walk. My ankle would need months of healing. Somehow I needed to reframe the story. Not in terms of an instant solution or a miraculous moment but in terms of gratitude for what was and is- despite the pain or disappointment or failure I was feeling. This reframing of the story had to somehow move me from feeling the victim of something I could not change- like an enemy I had to fight against- to recognising for better or worse that this was the situation somehow entrusted to me and that how God helped me to respond to it was the true meaning of healing. So as I lay in the hospital bed certain things began to be revealed to me- as the real meaning of Christ’s healing. A healing which was real and holistic.

First of all the company and the care of others- those who cared about you and through that care and support and prayers palpable upheld you. Actions that spoke louder than words, presence, acts of kindness, simple acts of care helping to do the things that felt most embarrassing like getting to the toilet, or washing. I became very aware of the kindness of both friends but also strangers- and this was deeply healing. I was very aware and grateful too for the skill of doctors and the privilege of care, and gifts of medicine and surgery.

Second the realisation of how wonderful the human body is- something I had so often taken for granted. Think of the ankle itself, which I was so very conscious of- its ability to move, rotate, balance, turn spring- what an incredible joint and how the body is so dependent on the function of each part of our miraculous bodies. How wonderfully and fearfully we are made as the psalmist says. I have heard others talking about this when facing sickness- how incredibly aware we become of the astonishing functioning and giftedness of our own bodies – our heart, our lungs, our digestive system, our mobility, our senses- the taking away of something we have always depended on, actually enhances our sense of gratitude for our bodies. I also began to recognise the incredible miracle of the human bodies capacity to heal itself- other senses enhanced to compensate for the loss and the slow natural power of the human body to knit itself together again and bring natural healing from within.

Thirdly I was aware that how though through injury or sickness you enter into the mill stream of uncertainty– increasingly you realise the things to which you can hold fast. Circumstances mean that you must in some way put your trust in a greater deeper providence of God- come what may. We have often grown up believing that everything depends on us: what we do and what we achieve. While not negating the need to motivate and help ourselves it is also true that there are times to recognise we are not in control- and our lives do not have instant remedies. Nor is there someone always to  blame. Deeper healing can teach you about your soul and whether you soul is willing and able to trust in God. It is when we are forced to live vulnerably that we learn to live by faith. The most important healing of all is the healing of the soul and the realisation that through all the chances and changes and achievements of our lives the most  important treasure of all is that which is immortal within us- the love that fills our souls. Possessions, ambition, greed, pride- ultimately count for nothing. It is possible to live with all kinds of sickness but it is difficult to live without a soul. I don’t want to sound glib, or to make light of suffering that people face but over and over again I have witnessed that the miracle which can take place in both the patient and carer is the healing of the soul. So that even at a hospital bedside, perhaps sometimes most especially at that bedside, one is often so conscious of hearts full of deep love and gratitude.

So let us re-join those ten lepers in the Gospel today. Those ten lepers who must have felt all the isolation and discrimination that leprosy would have meant- that somehow they were unclean, rejected, abandoned, punished, despised, feared, cut off and alone. And physically Jesus heals all ten but only one returns to show his gratitude. And perhaps it is only that one who fully realises the healing not only of his body but also his soul. And this man was also a foreigner-  the one outside who recognises the miracle within – your faith has made you well. And he is full of gratitude. The gratitude itself which brings healing to the soul.

St Luke the physician saw and understood the miracle of healing that Jesus brought- was life beyond death. This miracle of healing was the whole Gospel-  the life death and resurrection that Jesus’ own story incarnated- a healing that could be experienced through the care of a good Samaritan, or a sinful lost prodigal returning to his father’s love, by a tax collector up a tree who Christ sees and comes to visit, even by a thief on the cross who can still share with Jesus in the forgiveness and healing of paradise. Healing is about much more than a magic moment- it is about the mercy and grace of God for all eternity.

I preach this sermon on a day we all wait in prayer for peace and healing in the Holy Land and for the healing the soul of our very world- Lord have mercy upon us and heal not only our bodies, our minds, our communities, heal the wrongs we have done and the wrongs done by others- Christ have mercy on us. Heal our immortal souls and fill us with gratitude for your love and the peace which passes all human understanding and which only you can bring.