Category Image Miracles




There's sort of a story behind this one. A friend sent along a quote left at the Getty museum site about their exhibit of icons. I may blog on that separately, as I'm a bit conflicted about the show. A female priest (Episcopalian, of course), was the poster, so I googled her and discovered that she belongs to supposedly AngloCatholic parish in San Francisco. I say supposedly, because what they have are the pretty ceremony without being bothered by the doctrine that comes with AngloCatholicism.

I decided to read one of her sermons, and was struck by something that I had commented to others about before. You'll have to read here sermon in its entirety yourself, but here is a couple of paragraphs:

"And this same disconnect has led churches over the centuries to respond in several different ways. A hallmark of some protestant responses during and after the 16 th century was to differentiate between what God did in Jesus the Christ and through the apostles and what God does now. They would tell us that God does not engage with us now in the same way – the Holy Spirit is removed just a bit from us – we should not expect miracles. That was then, this is now. Even less hopeful was the response that we do not experience a plethora of miraculous healing because of defect in ourselves – because we are simply not praying hard enough, because we are simply not holy enough, not deserving enough – that this is somehow dependent on us, not God.
And there is a contemporary explanation too – one that I have crossed paths with again and again in research and study that comes out of the more catholic traditions that have restored the anointing of the sick in the 20 th century. This approach emphasizes the difference between healing and curing – that while we may not see or know or experience a physical cure, the sacramental ministry of healing – particularly the anointing of the sick – heals, heals our relationship with our own body and brings wholeness to an individual human being, heals our relationships with others, relationships broken through the alienation that sickness brings, and heals our relationship with God, broken through anger, pain, feelings of rejection. Sacramental healing gives us strength – if not physically, then spiritually, emotionally, mentally to resist despair and feeling abandoned. I do not in any way want to suggest that these are not important or worthy effects – I believe in them, I believe that the sacrament of anointing does do all this and more. "


She is commenting on how the miracle stories in the Bible don't really "grab" her. The reason that they don't is largely because she hasn't witnessed such miracles. I can understand that, as I've not had the opportunity to witness such things either. On the other hand, I know people who have, and yet her entire sermon, and particularly these paragraphs, is predicated on the notion that, in the West, and particularly within Protestantism, miracles have largely ceased. At least miracles of this magnitude. She does go on to discuss other meanings - perfectly valid meanings - that we should draw from the Gospels. A willingness to be open to the presence of God, among those.

But her main thesis appears to be that miracles largely don't happen in the Church anymore, and that saddened me in a profound way. It did because I heard many of these excuses when I was an Anglican. To be sure, you would hear of the occasional miraculous healing (rare) - mostly coming out of the charismatic movement - a movement I'm highly suspicious of for a lot of reasons. However, this was not something "normal" within Anglicanism or most other Protestant bodies. I don't know that the presence of miracles testifies to something being "the Church". After all, Benny Hinn and others can come up with a combination of sham miracles and perhaps a couple of real ones to bolster their claims of being anointed or doing God's work, or whatever. On the other hand, the absence of miracles, by and large, should be of some concern, shouldn't it? There really is not foundation, in either Scripture or the Church Fathers, for asserting that miracles would cease. Certain specific things, like the famed speaking in tongues, were addressed, but not the general occurrence of miracles. In fact, these sorts of miracles are found throughout the history of the Church, and to this very day. The stories are told all the time - especially if you hang around Monastics, who have either experienced them or have in turn been told the stories. Certainly, these are not all well documented (unlike the Holy Fire ), and maybe some aren't true. However, these stories are not told for any material gain. When Gerontissa Markella, at the Monastery of the Theotokos, the Life Giving Spring, told us some stories of miraculous events in the Holy Land, she didn't have her hand out asking for money for a miracle. No, she was merely using these stories to help encourage us, some pilgrims, in our daily walk. Or when she gives us some myrrh from the relics of St. Demetrius , it is so that this myrrh can potentially heal us.

So, as Orthodox Christians, we can unashamedly believe in miracles. We hear about them, and we expect them. We don't have to come up with a bunch of excuses and rationale for why they have stopped, because they haven't.

Picture is of the relics of St. Demetrios.

Posted: Sunday - February 04, 2007 at 08:11 AM          

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