NOTE FROM PASTOR J R FOR SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2021
This Sunday is the Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost. The assigned texts from Jeremiah and Luke speak to the importance of touch, God’s touch. Any healing touch we receive from another person is God’s touch. The person doing it is simply on a divine appointment from God to you at that moment. My dear friend of many years, Wes is a massage therapist. At the beginning of every massage, he says to me, “Take this time to open your mind and allow your body to relax, letting go of all your stress and frustrations.”
That must be what happened to Jeremiah when it says, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.” Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. (Jer. 1:8 – 9) Similarly, that must be what happened to the woman bent over for 18 years in the Gospel text when it says, “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.’ Luke 13:12-13)
Natalia Pisetskaya says in The Gift of Touch, by, she says, “touch is the most neglected sense for all adults. … We live in the world of sensory overload. … Touch helps us to establish communication with the life flowing with us, life that was unnoticed and unappreciated before.” She says, “the touch guides us into the world of subtle perceptions and to the most profound discovery of peace within:
The touch invites us to be present,
To stop, to rest, to simply settle.
And as we hear this quiet call,
A different world begins to show:
The rainbow of colors not seen by the eye,
Angelic sounds from Heaven above,
Familiar tastes and smells are here –
This all the simple touch brought near.
That perfect stillness, inner peace,
Was waiting there underneath
All fears and worries and everything else…
Receive the gift of your True Self!
The marvelous thing is that we can experience what Jeremiah and the woman experienced through a spiritual touch of God’s hand or the healing touch of God through another person’s hand. After all, “Just a touch will do.”
Join us this Sunday, in person, by Zoom or Facebook Livestream. My sermon is “Just a Touch Will Do!’ based on Jeremiah 1:4-9 and Luke 13:10-17.
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