Sermons

The Healing Power of Touch

Gracious God, you have touched us. Let us open our mouths to speak. Amen

To start today, I want to ask you to do a little self-reflection. So first, get comfortable. Close your eyes or soften your focus. Turn your attention inward. I want you to remember a time when a touch changed you for the better. What was a time when a touch changed you? It could be from a human or an animal, from a parent or a friend. Recall a time when that hand on the shoulder or the brush of a hair behind your ear changed you. What did it feel like in your body before it happened? What did it feel like in your body afterward? And now I want you to hold onto that memory and perhaps to share it at Sermon Seminar or afterwards. But I wanted us each to have a touchstone (pun intended) because that is what this sermon is going to be about: Touch.

In the Episcopal Church, we don’t just choose the scripture readings for ourselves; they are chosen for us in what’s called the lectionary. And I thought the lectionary committee did something really interesting today in pairing these two readings from Jeremiah and from Luke. In Jeremiah, we have the call story of a prophet. This is from the first chapter of Jeremiah, and we hear the prophet who resists the call of God. But then God affirms that Jeremiah is indeed called. And to mark that call, he touches his mouth. A few months ago, I preached on the call story of Isaiah, and the imagery is similar there as here. God touches the prophet’s mouth, and he is able to speak.

Then, in the story of Luke and Jesus healing on the sabbath, we see Jesus curing a woman of her inability to stand up straight by laying his hands upon her. After his healing touch, she also experiences her own prophetic witness when she stands up straight and begins praising God. Both of these stories hinge on a human receiving a touch: the prophet whose mouth is touched by God, and the woman upon whom Jesus lays his hands. What is more human than to have a body and to experience that body through our senses? Touch is absolutely fundamental to who we are. 

An unfortunate side effect of the increasing availability of technology that makes our lives “easier” and “better,” things like delivery apps and chatbots mean we are able to isolate ourselves more than ever, reducing the opportunity to experience our bodies in space with other bodies. You don’t have to visit a restaurant, order by speaking to a person, or stand around awkwardly waiting for your food to be ready. With just a few clicks on an app, the same meal can be delivered to you seamlessly. It’s almost like magic. Similarly, you don’t have to risk the discomfort of calling a friend whom you haven’t spoken to in too long to unload your problems. You can simply pull up a chatbot, spill your secrets, and not risk potential judgment or inconveniencing another person. 

And while for some of us, these tools provide accessibility to goods and services that would otherwise be inaccessible, for many of us, and I know this is true for me, what we are looking for is convenience, to reduce the friction in our lives. However, a problem here is that another word for friction is ‘touch’. What we miss when we skip these interactions is the chance for human connection, the chance to make a new friend, to give a compliment that lifts someone’s spirit. Last night, some of us attended an event at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, and the Free DC speaker emphasized repeatedly that we must get to know our neighbors. Risk the vulnerability it takes to be in community. Or, as a meme I saw recently put it, “If you want to have a village, you have to be a villager.”

A disembodied virtual self cannot take the place of our humanness. But even then, the advice for someone who is spending too much time online is “touch grass.” Go outside and experience the sensation of the green grass on your feet. Be in your body. And even better than touching grass is to hug for 20 seconds. Find a willing partner (as with all touch, consent is key) and embrace for 20 seconds, which will probably feel like a long time. That’s the duration of a hug needed to release oxytocin, which reduces feelings of stress and anxiety. 

And so now I wonder if you’re thinking, Caitlin, all this lovey-dovey talk about touch ignores a glaring reality: not all touch is good. So much evil is also done through touch: sexual violence, assault, battery, acts of war, etc. Indeed, like so many of the best things, touch can also be used to harm. And I see that nowhere more than on the streets of DC right now, where groups of law enforcement officers are targeting our neighbors as part of the president’s militarization of DC. One group that has been particularly affected is the moped delivery drivers, many of whom are Venezuelan immigrants. These are the same people who make our deliveries possible. The touch they are being subjected to is not the kind of healing touch that opens one’s mouth to praise God. Rather, they are receiving the dehumanizing touch that strips them of their humanity. 

And so let us turn back to our readings for today. Something I want to point out is that neither of our main characters, those receiving a transforming touch, is a person with power or privilege. When Jeremiah is called to be a prophet, he protests, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” We do not hear the words from the woman who is healed in Luke, but we know that women were not typically the purveyors of power in the 1st-century Middle East, and especially not one who is crippled, as the text calls her. And yet, she is worthy of healing, worthy of God’s touch. And so both of these people, a child and a sick woman, become the people God chooses to work through. 

We don’t have to be perfect for God to work through us. We don’t have to be powerful. We simply have to be open to being transformed, to having our mouths opened, to being touched.

And now I want to circle back to the memory you recalled in the reflection time at the beginning of this sermon. Hopefully, you recalled a particular time when a touch in your life transformed you for the better, and the feeling that was left with you. Now, I would like to ask you to consider how you can do that for others. Maybe it’s through physical touch, but it may also be through words or other actions. “I was so touched that you called.” “That movie was touching.” We can feel the effects of kindness in our bodies, even when the action isn’t physical. How can we transform a moment, open a path, remove an obstacle? How can we, like Jesus, heal the world? Sometimes all it takes is a touch.