The prophet Jeremiah’s question echoes across centuries: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Bishop Hughes reflects on how it speaks to us today, when discord and suffering abound, and reminds us that God’s people are called to be the healers our world desperately needs. (Time: 6:06.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark. For the last few weeks, the Sunday Lectionary has given us the option of hearing from the prophet Jeremiah. He spoke at a very specific time in history to the nation that was Judah, where Jerusalem sat, and talked to them about the need for them to stay in relationship with God, and the mistakes that they were making that were driving them away from God.
He told them, if you don’t listen, God is going to punish you in some way, or terrible things will happen to you. And of course, they did not listen to him, and eventually they were overrun by another nation, sent into exile, and spent a significant period of time – enough that their children’s children did not know Jerusalem. They eventually made their way back home, but they were no longer the same people.
He also talked to them towards the middle part of their exile, about how, even though things were terrible, that God was still with them. That all of this, as bad as it was, is something that God could handle, and God had a plan for them, had a plan for their future.
The section that we heard this past Sunday has really stayed with me, in part because it’s not Jeremiah speaking just for himself, it’s Jeremiah speaking the words that God spoke to Jeremiah to share with God’s people. And so Jeremiah speaks them in the first person, speaks God’s words in the first person, and one of the things God speaks of is God’s incredible sorrow watching God’s people suffer.
And at one point in that passage, God says, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Are there no healers here?” That translation is from Robert Alter, who has done a translation, a Jewish scholar, has done a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, what we often call the Old Testament. What you probably heard on Sunday is, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Are there no physicians here?” I like that word “healer” in particular, because most of us are not physicians – some of us are, but most of us are not physicians – but all of us are called to be healers.
And I have been appreciating Jeremiah’s words of caution in his prophecy about how we’re to live our lives as God’s people, not so much because God is going to punish us, but because terrible things are happening around us in a time that is confounding, full of contempt, full of discord, full of confusion. Where we are watching this kind of authoritarian rise happening across the globe – not just in our country, but across the globe. One that seems to crush people who do not have the influence or the finances to buy their way past all of it, and one that really seems very bent on making the poorest among us suffer – those with the least, making them suffer the most. Taking away goods, taking away services from them, saying you need to work harder in order to have the things that you think you need to have, or things like us.
It is a very hard and harsh way to try to navigate for any person, but especially for Christians, when we have this call to be healers. Is there no balm in Gilead? You could say, is there no balm in Sudan? Is there no balm in Kiev? Is there no balm in the United States? Is there no balm in Israel? Is there no balm in Gaza? Is there no balm in northern New Jersey?
And I have to say, yes, there is, and it is the healers. And there are healers everywhere. There are people who are determined to help, and that is our calling as Christians, is to be the healers. We are called to be with the least. We are called to be with the poor. We are called to be with the ones whose rights are not being observed. We are a nation of laws, and part of our calling is to make sure that those laws are adhered to for everyone.
It’s interesting. Every time I talk about laws, someone has to say to me that they think I said, do something illegal. I’m not. I am saying, make sure that our laws are followed and followed for everyone. That is what healers do. Healers make sure that people are able to live a life that is good, that is healthy, that they know that they’re beloved by us and that they’re beloved by God.
It is a hard time to be a person in the world at the moment, and that seems to go across the board. It doesn’t matter if you are with or without. There’s an unsettlement with everyone. It doesn’t matter how elite you are, how much money you have, what school you went to or did not go to. People are having difficult times making their peace with this time.
I can’t tell you that there’s any one answer, but I can tell you that the answer that we find in that passage from Jeremiah to be the balm here, to be the balm in your world, to be the balm wherever you go, is a calling. It’s a calling for God’s healers. Trust me when I tell you, wherever you go, there is someone who needs help. If you want to know what a healer looks like, look in the mirror and then go and help them.
