Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. Martha Koenig Stone

October 18, 2009 – Children’s Sunday

Matthew 17:14-21

“One Smile at a Time”

I am always disturbed when I read this story. Does it bother you at all? I am disturbed because the story seems to be saying that, if you just have enough faith, you can cure any illness. But I know that, despite the best efforts of people who have way more faith and a lot more intelligence that I do, there are some diseases that we just can’t cure.

And I am disturbed, because this story seems to show Jesus as a callous, arrogant teacher, who uses put-downs and ridicule to make his point—not exactly the kind of teacher that I want to be—because I know that when you encourage and build people up, they learn a lot better than when you make fun of them and put them down.

And when I read this story I am painfully aware of how, down through the ages, over and over again, people are blamed for their illnesses, or blamed for their children’s illnesses, and how doctors are blamed when they can’t cure an illness, and how sometimes, we even blame ourselves when our bodies don’t do what we think they should do. And usually, when we blame ourselves and others, it doesn’t really help us heal at all.

So I’m disturbed by this story. It doesn’t quite jibe with the reality that I know, and the world that I live in. But when a story in the Bible makes me squirm like this, I figure I’d better look at it more closely, because there’s probably something that I can learn from it. So here we go:

The story tells about a man whose son was sick. Our translation says he was epileptic, but the Greek word used here actually means “moonstruck,” and it has as its root the name of the Greek moon goddess, Selene, or in Latin, Luna. So it’s kind of like saying that the boy was “loony.” No one really knew what was wrong with him; they just knew that he was acting strange. Some powerful condition had this boy in its grip. He was so sick that he would pass out at random moments—he fell into fires and into the water—not good places to seize up and fall down. All in all, it was pretty scary. This boy was in trouble.

His family was in trouble too, because the burden of caring for him fell to them. I don’t think it’s reading too much into the story to say that they were probably facing some social ostracism from friends and neighbors who were frightened by the disease and inclined to stay away. And with a sickness like this, there probably wasn’t much the boy could do to make a contribution to the household, so we can assume that he would have been an economic drain on the family as well.

But the man loved his son. He didn’t want him to suffer this way. He had a vision in his mind’s eye of a life that was full and happy for his child, a life in which his boy was whole and well. And so, with great hope in his heart, he brought the boy to the disciples for healing—only to be disappointed again. This was no simple illness, easy to cure with some ointment and a band aid. This was a mysterious, unexplained illness, and despite their best efforts, they couldn’t cure him.

You know about this kind of predicament, when an illness just won’t quit—when an addiction has taken hold of someone’s spirit; or when a problem in delivery yields a child with permanent disabilities; or when a tumor of unknown origin is crowding out normal brain activity. We know there are folks whose relief from illness comes only when they die. And we know folks who live on for quite some time, with no relief in sight. It’s not necessarily for lack of faith—it’s just a fact of life.

That’s what it was like for this boy. He just kept falling down. And yet…the boy’s father still wants something better for his son, and he is determined to find it. So he brings the boy to Jesus and tells him the whole story. “They did their best, but no luck…is there anything you can do?”

Now, this is the point in the story where you would expect Jesus to say something like, “Your faith has made you well” or, “Stand up and walk.” You’d expect something encouraging, something affirmative. But in this story, Jesus’ response isn’t like that at all. He sort of snaps—maybe from too much stress or something—like a parent who’s been up all night with a sick kid and can’t wait to climb in bed and then has to respond to the older child, tugging on his sleeve, asking for a drink of water. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jesus says. What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you learned how to do this yet? How long to I have to put up with you guys? Oh, just bring him here and I’ll do it myself.” Jesus scolds the disciples and the father and even the sickness that has the boy in its grip. It’s not exactly his finest moment of teaching—but still, when he turns his attention to the boy and addresses the problem, the boy is healed!

The disciples are amazed and perplexed. They draw him aside and ask, “How did you do that? What did we do wrong?” But he scolds them again and just says they have to have more faith. “Just have faith, and you can move a mountain from here to there!”

“Yeah, right,” I think to myself. “That’s helpful. Really encouraging to us poor schleps here who are trying our darndest to heal the world. Don’t talk to me about faith! Don’t tell me that having more faith could have saved my mom’s life after her heart surgery, or kept my friend from getting breast cancer. I know better than that!” We know there are all kinds of conditions and diseases and mental illnesses and addictions that are completely intractable. You can’t re-grow a leg that’s been shot off in war, and you can’t undo Down’s syndrome or Cerebral Palsy after they’ve happened.

Still, there stands the story. I wonder—what kind of faith would it take to heal someone from a disease that medicine can’t cure? Or to turn it around the other way, what kind of healing could faith bring about for someone with an incurable disease? Maybe Jesus just a product of a different time, when people relied on faith because, in the absence of modern medicine, that was the best they had. Maybe he just got lucky? Or maybe there something else going on here, something that might speak to us in our time, something that might help us in situations where no other approach has worked?

This week I watched a DVD that came in the mail from an organization called the Smile Train. It’s a charity that I’ve sometimes sent money to over the years—and their goal is to help children around the world who are born with a cleft lip or palate. Cleft palate is a condition in which a person is born with a gap in the roof of the mouth. If you have a cleft, the roof of the mouth is not fully formed, your lip is split in two, and your teeth are displaced, and sometimes your nose is affected as well. It makes speaking and eating very difficult. A cleft can usually be fixed by surgery, and in the US, the surgery is normally done at birth. But in the developing countries, where hospitals are scarce, and where doctors may never have seen this surgery before, being born with a cleft usually leads to a life of seclusion and poverty and malnutrition and overall poor health.

As you watch the film you see child after child with this condition—one sad and gruesome face after another. Most of them are kept secluded by their parents, out of shame, or fear of mistreatment. Often, since these kids can’t talk, they never get to go to school. And they have no hope of marrying because they are so disfigured. With no possibility of healing or acceptance, these children often remain hidden away, dependent on their families, aimless and hopeless.

But the DVD documented the work of some US physicians who wanted to help these kids. At first, they did the surgeries themselves, traveling to needy places whenever they could. But the need is huge. In India, for example, there are 1 million children living with a cleft, and 35,000 more are born each year. So these doctors figured out that if they were to train local doctors in how to do the surgery, then more children could be helped. So far, they’re able to provide about 3,000 surgeries per year in India, but the project is growing. One smile at a time, they are bringing healing and hope to these children and to their communities.

Getting the word out about the free surgeries isn’t easy—the film documents one social worker who goes into the cities with flyers, telling people that if they know someone with a cleft, they should pass the flyer on. Then he moves out into remote villages, speaking with children in schools, asking them if they know someone with this condition. “There’s no shame,” he explains. “We need your help to find out who needs the surgery.” In one classroom, it’s the children respond who respond, telling him the name of a girl they know who has a cleft. So the worker makes his way to the hut where the family lives, to tell them about the surgery.

The film highlights two children in particular. One of them, Ghutaru, is 9 years old. His mother says that she thinks he has a cleft palate because there was an eclipse when he was in the womb. When she hears about the free surgery at the hospital in Benares, she’s not sure what to do. She has a new baby now, 5 days old, so she’s not sure if she can make the trip with her older son. The people in her village gather around to discuss the options. “I’m afraid,” she says. “He’s my son…” And you can tell that she fears that the surgery will do more harm than good. But one of the women says, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” And someone else says, “You should go. You can do it! Your son’s future is worth it.” One of the villagers even offers to lend the mother 500 rupees so that she can take the train to the Benares with her son. As you watch the people deliberating, you can feel their excitement. The whole community now has a vision of new life and health for Ghutaru, and their vision gives his mother the courage to take a chance.

The other child is named Pinki, and she’s five years old. “When she was born,” her mother said, “I lost consciousness. When my sister saw the baby, she said to me, ‘What have you done to make this happen?’ and called the child a monster.” When the mother hears about the possibility of surgery, she mother is terrified. She’s not sure she wants to let her daughter go. But the daughter wants to go. The social worker explains that although the medical care is free, they’ll need to bring food for the 7 days in the hospital. “I can barely afford to feed them,” says her father. How will I pay for the train to Benares?”

“I could walk,” says Pinki. And after a moment, her father says, “If your feet get tired, I’ll carry you.” When the day comes, they set out to walk the 10 miles to the city—barefoot. When an interviewer asks Pinki if she’s scared, and she says, no, she’s not scared at all! She can’t smile very well, because of her cleft, but her eyes twinkle, and her ponytails dance. For the first time in her life, she has a vision of healing, and that vision gives her courage and hope.

And now the camera shows the scene at the clinic. Hundreds of families have come with their children, all with clefts. The camera is able to catch many of the emotions—fear, as the people arrive and aren’t sure where to go; expectation, as each one fills out forms and receives instructions; disappointment, as an older child is told he’ll have to wait till the next round of surgeries. But what struck me the most as I watched this scene was how the children looked at one another. For the first time in their lives, they weren’t the only one around with a cleft—here, at this place, every child had a cleft! Suddenly, they were in a place where everyone was just like them! Suddenly they were in a place where everyone had the same kinds of needs, and where the whole community was working to address those needs. Even before anyone had any surgery, a kind of healing had begun. One father, whose child was too weak for surgery, was told he would have to wait until his child had gained weight. He said to the workers, “I’m sad my son can’t have the surgery, but I see what you are doing, and it makes me happy.”

Well, the doctors of the Smile Train haven’t eradicated cleft palate yet, but they still have a vision of the day when no one will have to suffer exclusion and mistreatment because of this condition. And that vision drives them to keep working, keep caring for these children. That’s why, after surgery, each child is asked to help them spread the word about the Smile Train. “A hospital is no good if the patients don’t know about it,” the nurse says. “So we need you to tell others. You are our heroes!”

I suspect that the kind of faith that Jesus was pointing toward in the gospel story wasn’t some magical healing power that belonged to him alone. I think that he’s talking about a vision for the future, a willingness to look ahead and say, “That’s the kind of world I want to see; that’s the kind of world I want to participate in creating.” I guess I can forgive Jesus for getting a bit testy with the disciples. After all, this was a BIG vision he had. He wanted the disciples to develop the kind of faith that would spread healing and wholeness far beyond his own reach. The kind of faith that made the father of the boy with seizures keep looking for a way to help his son, even after the disciples told him there was no hope. The kind of faith that made the Smile Train doctors say, “It’s not enough to do this for a few privileged kids in America; we want to do it for the poor kids in India and all over the world.” The kind of faith that made those doctors decide to share their healing knowledge and teach their surgical methods to Indian doctors, so that even more surgeries could be done. The kind of faith that says, even in the absence of physical healing, I will bring my sick child and my hurting self into the light, into the world, into the community, because my child and I, whether we’re sick or well, are beloved by God and are part of God’s family.

That kind of faith is alive and well in this world, isn’t it? We may not know how to cast out demons or cure seizure disorders, but we can share our vision for a world where every child and every adult is welcome. And we can continue, one smile at a time, to build communities that work together to share life and hope. Therein lies great possibility for God’s amazing healing!

Let us pray: O God, on this Children’s Sabbath, take our tiny grains of faith, and help them to blossom into beautiful communities of hope and peace, where children of all ages are accepted and nurtured. Amen.