Year B, Epiphany 5 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church North Andover, Massachusetts The Rev. Stephanie Chase Wilson
In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."
Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who’s packing your parachute?" Everybody needs someone to pack their parachute. We all need that kind of support both on a daily basis and especially in times of need. We all need those who step out in front and say, “Yes, I’ll help.”
He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory - he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. Nobody gets where they are without the help and support of others. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.
At the same time, we need to realize that all of us are parachutes packers as well. We give strength and support to others around us every day. Our children, our spouses, our parents, our siblings, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, even strangers are all touched by us and what we do and what we fail to do. We help pack their parachutes. We are called to serve and be served by each other in an endless web of interconnectedness. “No man is an island,” noted John Donne.
When Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew he was told that Simon’s mother-in-law was sick. They didn’t ask him to heal her. He could’ve chosen not to, but he did it anyway. In response, the mother-in-law immediately rose from her sick bed and began to minister to Christ. Jesus served her, and she in turn served him. Jesus packs her parachute with healing so that the mother-in-law has the strength to live her life, she packs Christ’s parachute with food and drink so he has the strength that evening to heal all those who come to him with their various ailments.
But parachute packing is more than just physical stuff. As Charles Plumb mentioned, there are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual parachutes, and all need tending to by others to make them strong, well-packed, and able to withstand the challenges of life.
I remember while I was in Lithuania I spent one semester teaching a public speaking course. I had had no training in teaching a college level class and my public speaking credentials were limited to sermons. I was uniquely unprepared for this challenge. For the first few weeks I felt entirely out of my element. Classes were awkward, boring, and I was unsure how much learning was actually accomplished. To top it off, most of the students were rude, disruptive, and blatantly flaunting my authority. I got a pit in my stomach ever day before class. I admit, I am a high achiever and don’t take failure well and I was failing to teach this class. I remember finally going to see the Department Chair and spilling out to her all my frustrations, anxieties, and fears about teaching this class. She patiently listened, commiserated, gave advice, applauded what I did do well, and essentially packed my emotional parachute. I only got through the semester because of her and the other two public speaking teachers. They held my hand, cheered me on, and gave me the professional and emotional support I needed to succeed.
There’s a great emphasis in this gospel lesson on physical healing. Fevers, demon possession, and various diseases of virtually the whole city were healed by Jesus on that day. One suspects that the reason people were flocking to him was not because he was preaching the coming Kingdom, but because they were poor and suffering. They needed a doctor and Christ is a man of tremendous compassion. He sees the need for physical healing and he heals them. At the same time, despite the importance of physical healing, his mission is to tend to spiritual healing. That is why the next day, after he left their home to pray for a while, he didn’t return. “Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’” Surprisingly Jesus doesn’t say, “Oh, really? Then they must need me. Let’s go back so I can continue healing the sick.” Instead he says, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ In other words, he completely disregards the pleas for further physical healing. He said his piece, now it is time to go on.
But for Jesus, both physical and spiritual healing are intertwined. When speaking about the Kingdom, the prophet Isaiah says it will be a time when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” [Is. 35:5-6]. Today’s gospel is a fulfillment of what the earlier prophets had said would come to pass – that a sign of the Kingdom of God is that the people would be healed and find wholeness. Today’s psalm also gives a description of God saying, “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.” Then Jesus comes along and does these very things! He both proclaims the Kingdom and then does the very things that are supposed to happen when the Kingdom has come.
Jesus is packing spiritual parachutes. That’s what he came for. However, in the process of proclaiming the good news, physical healing takes place as well. That too is part of the proclamation. Christ serves us so that we in turn may serve God and each other.
So today I leave you with several questions. Who packs your parachutes? Do you let people pack your parachutes? For whom are you a parachute packer? Are there parachutes you should pack, but don’t? And do you allow Christ to fully and completely pack your spiritual parachute? As we look forward to St. Valentine’s Day, we note that it is in service to each other that we most fully express our love for one another.
