Healing Power

We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Luke in which Jesus heals two people from very different segments of the community. The writer of Luke seems to have an interest in “the great reversal,” in which, for example, the downtrodden are elevated and those of privilege are taken down. These two healing stories in Luke 7 reflect in the realm of Jesus the equality of a centurion and a widow, whose stations in society are not at all the same. The two stories also comment on two stories in 2 Kings that involve the prophets, Elisha and Elijah, respectively. For us, it demonstrates the gathering of God’s people into a worshiping community, the church, where everyone is welcome at the table and is subject to God’s grace. We, as the church, need to realize how central this was to the ministry of Jesus, and how our own behaviors should reflect that.