Luke 5:12-14
“Jesus stretched out his hand and healed him.”

Some years ago, we saw the play, Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It is a powerful piece.

The play delves into contemporary issues: complexity of online relationships, cyber chat-room communities, PTSD/addiction, and at its heart—connection. Here people live in near isolation, yet they reach out to one another despite the odds of making true connections. It demonstrates how people cling to thin threads of hope and the possibility of healing, either through the cyberworld of rehab or spirit world of redemption.

Near the end of the play, two of the characters who have only known each other by the names of Gargantuan and Chutes & Ladders, take a risk and they meet in the real world:

G: “Oh, you dummy, you big old dummy. Put ‘er here, you San Diego Padre.” They shake hands.
“What’s your name?”
C&L: “Clay. Clayton “Buddy” Wilkie.”

G: “I’m Madeleine Mays.”

C&L: “It’s weird, huh?”

G: “Totally weird. The land of the living.” At this moment they hug and melt into each other’s arms.
It is a hug of basic survival and necessary friendship.

I believe that God was with them in those chat rooms, God nudged them out into world, to find community, to find people like us. As people who walk in the way of Jesus, who also struggle with insecurities and addictions, the question is always before us: how can we help those so lonely, so afraid, so hoping their coping mechanisms don’t fall apart? What a challenge for each of us. Our model is Jesus, who stretched out his hand and healed the leper, the sick, the lonely, the outsider—and you and me.

Prayer: Dear God, here I am. You have lifted me up. Help me to see others in need and let me be your outstretched healing hand. Amen

Song: Will You Let Me Be Your Servant by Richard Gillard, ELW 659