Space to Heal Near Jesus

Homily for February 16, 2025
The Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
Luke 6:17-26

A great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon… had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. 

Several mornings each week I attend classes at the local yoga studio where it’s not uncommon to see people working really hard to try to do the poses. Perhaps it was in response to seeing such hard work that Gregor, the Friday morning yoga teacher, recently said:

So often when we do yoga, instead of letting it nourish the body, we cause it to confront the body.  This confrontation comes from the mind (Gregor said), which is full of judgments and assessments about our body, and which tends to hold the body in a vice-like grip, in the way it thinks the pose is supposed to be.  The mind’s confrontation with the body leads only to struggle (said Gregor).  But (he continued), if we can allow our body to explore and of its own accord to find the pose, and then to just be in the pose because it feels good, we experience openness and space, and yoga –rather than being an occasion to confront the body – becomes very healing.

And I want to get back to Gregor and yoga and letting our bodies explore and experience openness, space and healing, but first this morning’s Gospel lesson.

If this morning’s Gospel lesson sounds familiar, that’s because it is. This morning’s Gospel is Luke’s version of Matthew’s famous Sermon on the Mount.  But Luke makes a few changes from Matthew.  For example, whereas in Matthew Jesus “went up the mountain” to speak and teach, in Luke, Jesus “came down… and stood on a level place.”  And whereas in Matthew, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” in Luke Jesus is more concrete and says, “Blessed are the poor.”  And to Matthew’s blessings, Luke adds a series of “woe’s:”  “Woe to you who are rich, “Jesus said.  “Woe to you who are full now...  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”  

These are significant changes that Luke makes to Matthew’s account, and they are consistent with Luke’s focus on caring for the poor and feeding the hungry, and on Jesus making a concrete difference in people’s lives.  But an often-overlooked addition that Luke makes to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is in his preface to Jesus’ sermon.  Whereas in Matthew, Jesus more or less starts right in – “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain…and he began to speak and taught them,” Matthew writes – in Luke, Luke tells how.

A great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea,Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon… had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.  And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

And only then did “he look up at his disciples” and begin to preach.

Getting back to Gregor, my yoga teacher…  Much as Gregor noted that the mind can hold the body in a vice-like grip with judgements and prescribed notions, so is it true that the mind can hold the soul in a vice-like grip with judgments and prescribed notions.  For example, the mind might tell the soul things like, “The Church and religion are a crutch, and if you were strong, you wouldn’t need them.”  Or, “Praying to Jesus is like having an imaginary friend.” Or, “There are too many people in the world for God to pay attention to you.”  Or the mind will get us hung up on whether or not God “exists.”  Or the mind will tell us that religion is impractical and that there are better ways to spend our Sunday mornings.  Or the mind will tell us that central Christian teachings such as forgiveness and mercy and turning the other cheek will only get us into trouble in our “dog-eat-dog” world.  Just as the mind’s confronting the body with judgements and prescribed notions leads to struggle, so does the mind’s confronting the soul lead to struggle.

In Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, Luke acknowledges and affirms the soul, its needs and desires, and its presence at the center of our lives.  Luke tells of “a great… multitude…

…of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon… [coming] to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.

In this morning’s Gospel,Luke tells of crowds and multitudes that had escaped from the “vice-like grip of the mind” and who had allowed their souls to explore and of their own accord to find the “pose” that nourished them.  They had broken free from the shackles of the mind that might have confronted them and told them that Jesus was a waste of their time, or that to follow him a sign of weakness, or that to obey his teachings would lead only to trouble in our dog-eat-dog world.   The multitudes in Luke managed to give their souls the space they needed to explore and to find themselves in a “pose” that deep-down they knew nourished them, a “pose” they knew was healing, which is: Jesus Christ.

All of our souls want Jesus.  Our souls want to be in his presence, to hear him speak and teach, and – as they did in this morning’s Gospel – to touch him. Deep-down all of our souls know that this “pose” of Jesus Christ is good for us.  I wonder, can we allow our souls the openness and space to go there, to find ourselves in this “pose” near to him who can offer us the healing we seek?  

The “crowds and multitudes”of morning’s Gospel reminds us that it is possible to let our souls go there, but that going there into this “pose” is perhaps best done with company.  We may not be “crowds and multitudes” here at Trinity, especially on a wintry Sunday, but gathering herewith others to hear the Word, to celebrate the sacraments, to give, to serve, and to take part in formation opportunities helps us to find this “pose” that is Jesus Christ.

“But if we can allow our body to explore and of its own accord to find the pose,” said Gregor, “and then to just be in the pose because it feels good to be there, we experience openness and space, and yoga becomes very healing.”  Similarly, if we can allow our soul the space to explore and of its own accord to find this “pose” that is Jesus; and if we can allow ourselves to simply be in that “pose” with Jesus, it will not feel like hard work but will feel good.  And it can be very, very healing.

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