May 8, 2025 • 19 mins
The episode explores the connections between disability, health, and the biblical concept of shalom, urging a reevaluation of how these ideas intersect with personal and communal relationships. Through a healing narrative from Mark and a focus on holistic wellness, the discussion emphasizes the importance of relational healing and community.
• Shalom is a holistic concept encompassing peace and right relationships
• Disability and sin should not be conflated, as neither equates to divine punishment
• Jesus' healing narratives showcase relational restoration beyond physical healing
• The language used in scripture reveals deeper meanings surrounding health and healing
• Interdependence is a vital aspect of community and God's creation
• Misinterpretations can lead to stigma, reinforcing harmful narratives around disability
• Engaging with scripture can transform personal and communal views on health
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Disabling the Church is a production of the Center
for Disability and Ministry atWestern Theological Seminary.
This series amplifies thevoices, giftedness and
perspectives of disabled peopleto enrich the ministry and
witness of the church.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello all and welcome back.
This is Disabling the Churchpodcast, and I am your host, dr
L S Carlos.
This episode we are picking upthe conversation where we left
off with health and healing.
This episode we're going tofocus on sort of engaging and
critiquing the relationshipbetween disability and sin, but
(00:53):
in relation to this idea ofshalom.
So shalom is this overarchingconcept of holistic,
far-reaching, all-encompassingpeace.
And as you listen to thisepisode and enter this
conversation, keep in mind theholistic nature of the person,
(01:17):
the way in which God seeks to,in relationship with God,
restore every aspect and layerof the person, and that there is
such a key component to thatthat is fundamentally relational
.
We are, like our maker,fundamentally designed to be
(01:40):
relationship.
Think about the fact that thetriune God who, in a great act
of love, creates the cosmos toshare God's self with a created
being or set of beings or thingor created order.
In the Orthodox Church there'sa tradition that says God
(02:05):
created out of love and Godredeems and restores that
beloved creation out of the samelove.
And God exists before anythingelse exists in relationship, in
the Trinity.
And so, as God creates us, godcreates us fundamentally to
(02:26):
mirror in the image of this sameGod.
And so at the core of what itmeans for us to be healthy and
whole is this drive to berelationally rightly connected
to God, to ourselves, to oneanother, to the cosmos.
(02:47):
And when that right connectionexists, this is shalom and sin.
Sin is fundamentally a breakingof relationships, and so as God
comes to redeem the world, godcomes to restore this broken
(03:08):
relationship.
Disability is not factoring into Christ's healing action in
the way that our culture in the21st century West wants to make
it seem, 21st century West wantsto make it seem.
So when you think about theprevious episode, you think
(03:36):
about this episode.
Keep in mind that the key hereis reframing some of how we
engage the biblical text, theconcept of the person and the
concepts of health and healingand the concept of what God
understands to be the holisticideal for us.
If we can grasp these new waysof framing these rather ancient
ideas and let the Bible speakfirst, then the way that we
(04:02):
relate to one another and relateto our call and relate to our
embodiments fundamentally shifts.
Friends, I'd like to invite youto this before the conversation
gets fully rolling, as we lookat some of the biblical text in
the previous episode and sort ofreflect a little bit again in
this one.
Keep in mind, anyone void ofthe Spirit can listen to the
(04:26):
text being read to them, canread the text themselves,
perhaps can watch something thatexpounds the text.
Anyone can engage the text,read the text in some fashion.
It requires the engagement ofthe Spirit upon the mercy of God
for the text totransformatively read us.
(04:49):
That is what we're beinginvited to as we rethink and
revisit some of these concepts.
So allow me to lay out somewords that are going to show up
in the text that we're reading,and if you're listening and you
want to open your Bible in thisspace, feel free to open up to
Mark, chapter 5, and we'll readverses 25 through 34.
(05:13):
Mark, chapter 5, verses 25through 34.
Now in the Bible there are fivewords used for health and six
words used for healing.
In the New Testament, fivewords used for health, six words
(05:33):
used for healing, and in thenarrative we're about to read
today you'll see two words thatare used for health and you'll
see two words that are used forthe verb to heal or healing.
Sotazo means to save or torescue.
In the holistic sense.
(05:53):
This is a word that in theGreek New Testament gets at an
aspect of shalom and in manyways is translatedto-one to
shalom in the Old Testament.
And we see this word in thistext, but it's not in a simple
bodily sense.
It's referencing the holistichealing that Christ is inviting
(06:17):
the person into.
In this healing narrative, abiblical studies scholar who
does a lot of work aroundmedical anthropology and
biblical studies, john Wilkinson, in his classic text from the
90s, explains that this wordso-to-so is comprehensive in its
scope person, not just theperson's physical body being
(06:49):
restored into this concept ofrelational salvation, and even
the soul in relation to sozo, isnever understood as only
spiritual, but it's this wordthat points to the combination
of the total person, physicaland spiritual, and relational.
The other word that's going tocome up is ilmai, and it means
to heal physically.
St Luke in Luke's gospel usesthis word the most often, but
(07:15):
Wilkinson, who we just talkedabout, states that St John and
St Luke appear to use this word,appear to use this word as a
synonym for a word terapuyo.
Terapuyo is a word that pointsto the comprehensive idea of
physical healing from illness ordeliverance from demonic
(07:36):
possession, but it's always inconnotation with either
interacting with Jesus or thedisciples.
Only one time is it used inreference to an interaction
between a person and a physician.
Only one time.
So every time that these wordsare used, including words that
(07:59):
reference physical healing, it'sin the context of something
much bigger than a person'sphysical body.
Now there are two more wordsthat you're going to hear when
we read this narrative that aresimply translated from the word
health.
One is hegeis, and that meansessentially wholeness, or
(08:22):
soundness of one's whole being.
It's a holistic reference tobringing the whole person back
into union with themselves, withGod and with others.
The second is irene.
Irene is a reference to absenceof war or strife, but it's not
simply physical war or physicalconflict.
(08:45):
It's the absence of tension andstrife relationally, in every
aspect of the person, and thisword can often then be used to
describe the absence of thedestruction that occurs during
war or strike.
So one quick review.
Let's read the passage togetherand we'll break it down a bit
(09:16):
as we try to relate this back toremembering that healing is
synonymous with Shalom.
Friends, listen for the word ofthe Lord from the gospel
according to St Mark, chapter 5.
And a great crowd followedJesus and thronged about him,
(09:39):
and there was a woman who hadhad a discharge of blood for 12
years and who had suffered muchunder many physicians and had
spent all that she had and wasno better off but rather grew
worse.
She had heard the reports aboutJesus and came up behind Jesus
in the crowd and touched hisgarment.
For she said, if I touch eventhe hem of his garment, I will
(10:05):
be made well From the word sozo.
And immediately the flow ofblood dried up and she felt in
her body that she was healedfrom the word Iomai of her
disease.
And Jesus, perceiving inhimself that power had gone out
(10:26):
from him, immediately turnedabout in the crowd and said who
touched my garments?
And Jesus' disciples said tohim you see the crowd pressing
in around you and yet you saywho touched me?
And Jesus looked around to seewho had done it.
But the woman, knowing what hadhappened to her, came in fear
(10:48):
and trembling and fell downbefore Jesus and told Jesus the
whole truth.
Jesus said to her Daughter,your faith has made you well
from the word solito, go inpeace from the word irene and be
(11:09):
healed from the word heges ofyour ditties.
Friends, this is the word ofthe Lord.
Thanks be to God.
In one passage we see fourseparate words used to reference
(11:32):
aspects of wellness, wholeness,peace and healing, or health.
All of these words, when youlook at them together, in the
concepts that they denote orpoint to draw out aspects or
layers of shalom.
(11:53):
Many of these words so to so inparticular, in particular, are
often translated one-to-one fromshalom.
So what does this help?
Us see by paying a little bitmore attention to the language
that's used.
Okay, let's walk through this.
The woman has been suffering inisolation and ostracization
(12:15):
alone for 12 years because sheis bleeding uncontrollably.
Remember the purity system thatthis culture is embedded in.
This woman is consideredspiritually unpure and
untouchable and unapproachablebecause she is bleeding.
(12:35):
Read the Mosaic Code and thepurity laws and what you arrive
at here is as long as someone isbleeding, whether it's a cycle
or a longer period of time likethis, as long as a woman is
bleeding, she is consideredimpure.
So to be out in a crowd aroundother people is absolutely
(12:58):
frowned upon, because any personwho is then around her and
touches her also becomesspiritually impure and can't go
to the temple for worship or bein the presence of God.
So she is isolated, alone,socially cut off from her
communal body and she knows thisbecause of the purity laws.
(13:23):
And she goes to Jesus and knowsthat she shouldn't be there,
and so she tries to do it inanonymity and seeks total
healing.
So to go, absolute deliveranceand total healing in every
aspect of what makes her aperson, that's what she goes to
Jesus seeking.
(13:44):
But the text says immediatelyafter touching Jesus, the flow
of blood dried up and she feltin her body that she was
physically healed, physicallyhealed of her disease.
She did not receive theholistic healing that she sought
by simply receiving thedeliverance from quote, her
disease.
After Jesus stops and says whotouched me?
(14:10):
In a crowd full of people,where people are pressing in
around him, jesus notices thetouch of one person with an
intent, with a desire to be nearhim for the purpose of being
transformed by him.
Jesus notices that one personand in that moment remember
(14:34):
shalom is primarily rightrelationship.
In that moment Jesus calls thiswoman out of anonymity into a
place where her identity can berestored and he says daughter,
your faith has made you well.
So does O, your faith has madeyou well.
So does O.
After Jesus interacts with herand relationally calls her close
(14:57):
to him.
In that interaction shereceives the holistic healing
that she came for.
That is relational in scope.
Go in peace, be free of thestrife and the tension that has
divided you socially andphysically and spiritually in a
(15:19):
name and be healed physically ofyour disease, but healed heges
is of your whole being.
Be healed in your whole being.
After she engages Jesus not bysimply being in proximity with
Jesus, but by engaging Jesus asGod she receives the holistic
(15:43):
healing in every aspect of herperson that she initially sought
in the first place.
Shalom is something that Jesusinvites her into.
That then restores every aspectof what makes her a person, and
then she is sent back into thevery social context that has
(16:04):
rejected her because she'simpure, and she is sent back
into a context where she canworship God at the temple
because the Holy of Holies withflesh on Jesus has beckoned her
back into relationship with God.
And then she is also returns toher family context and her body
is restored to her.
When you see these kinds ofthings in scripture and slow
(16:29):
down a little bit to payattention to shalom at work,
healing looks very different.
When we make healing somethingthat is primarily about the
altering of someone's bodilystate.
We actually cheapen the workwhen we make disability about
(16:50):
something that is simply aboutfitting in or fitting the norm,
or the presence of evil isproven by the presence of
disability and the presence ofdeliverance is proven by a
normate body, and we map thatonto scripture.
We miss so much of what God isdoing and what Jesus is
demonstrating for us.
This is one passage and it's abeautiful example because the
(17:14):
language gives us an explicitpicture, but it is one passage.
When you take this framework andmap it onto the healing
narratives, it all fits.
It all fits.
There's been a number of worksthat I have done and others have
done that help to kind ofstretch this out a little bit.
(17:35):
I can include portions of someof my graduate work that works
through the healing narrativesand if you're interested, you
can click the link below thisepisode and read a little more.
Just keep in mind that it isbiblical studies in nature and
so it may take some work to getthrough it.
But this framework can beapplied faithfully to the
(17:57):
biblical text in general andwhat it shows for us is that God
is bigger than the normateassumptions, biases and
frameworks that we map onto afirst-century, individualized
way of being.
When Christ speaks restorationto us, it doesn't remove
dependency from us.
(18:17):
It recalibrates our way ofbeing so that we can be
healthily and rightlyinterdependent with God and
others.
This is why disability beingequated with evil doesn't make
much sense.
Friends, it's good to be withyou.
I'm praying for you.
May God bless you.
May God keep you.
(18:39):
May God cause his face to shineupon you and bring you shalom.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
This has been a Center for Disability and
Ministry production.
Join us next time for anotherinsightful episode.
Disabling the Church is a production of the Center
for Disability and Ministry atWestern Theological Seminary.
This series amplifies thevoices, giftedness and
perspectives of disabled peopleto enrich the ministry and
witness of the church.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello all and welcome back.
This is Disabling the Churchpodcast, and I am your host, dr
L S Carlos.
This episode we are picking upthe conversation where we left
off with health and healing.
This episode we're going tofocus on sort of engaging and
critiquing the relationshipbetween disability and sin, but
(00:53):
in relation to this idea ofshalom.
So shalom is this overarchingconcept of holistic,
far-reaching, all-encompassingpeace.
And as you listen to thisepisode and enter this
conversation, keep in mind theholistic nature of the person,
(01:17):
the way in which God seeks to,in relationship with God,
restore every aspect and layerof the person, and that there is
such a key component to thatthat is fundamentally relational
.
We are, like our maker,fundamentally designed to be
(01:40):
relationship.
Think about the fact that thetriune God who, in a great act
of love, creates the cosmos toshare God's self with a created
being or set of beings or thingor created order.
In the Orthodox Church there'sa tradition that says God
(02:05):
created out of love and Godredeems and restores that
beloved creation out of the samelove.
And God exists before anythingelse exists in relationship, in
the Trinity.
And so, as God creates us, godcreates us fundamentally to
(02:26):
mirror in the image of this sameGod.
And so at the core of what itmeans for us to be healthy and
whole is this drive to berelationally rightly connected
to God, to ourselves, to oneanother, to the cosmos.
(02:47):
And when that right connectionexists, this is shalom and sin.
Sin is fundamentally a breakingof relationships, and so as God
comes to redeem the world, godcomes to restore this broken
(03:08):
relationship.
Disability is not factoring into Christ's healing action in
the way that our culture in the21st century West wants to make
it seem, 21st century West wantsto make it seem.
So when you think about theprevious episode, you think
(03:36):
about this episode.
Keep in mind that the key hereis reframing some of how we
engage the biblical text, theconcept of the person and the
concepts of health and healingand the concept of what God
understands to be the holisticideal for us.
If we can grasp these new waysof framing these rather ancient
ideas and let the Bible speakfirst, then the way that we
(04:02):
relate to one another and relateto our call and relate to our
embodiments fundamentally shifts.
Friends, I'd like to invite youto this before the conversation
gets fully rolling, as we lookat some of the biblical text in
the previous episode and sort ofreflect a little bit again in
this one.
Keep in mind, anyone void ofthe Spirit can listen to the
(04:26):
text being read to them, canread the text themselves,
perhaps can watch something thatexpounds the text.
Anyone can engage the text,read the text in some fashion.
It requires the engagement ofthe Spirit upon the mercy of God
for the text totransformatively read us.
(04:49):
That is what we're beinginvited to as we rethink and
revisit some of these concepts.
So allow me to lay out somewords that are going to show up
in the text that we're reading,and if you're listening and you
want to open your Bible in thisspace, feel free to open up to
Mark, chapter 5, and we'll readverses 25 through 34.
(05:13):
Mark, chapter 5, verses 25through 34.
Now in the Bible there are fivewords used for health and six
words used for healing.
In the New Testament, fivewords used for health, six words
(05:33):
used for healing, and in thenarrative we're about to read
today you'll see two words thatare used for health and you'll
see two words that are used forthe verb to heal or healing.
Sotazo means to save or torescue.
In the holistic sense.
(05:53):
This is a word that in theGreek New Testament gets at an
aspect of shalom and in manyways is translatedto-one to
shalom in the Old Testament.
And we see this word in thistext, but it's not in a simple
bodily sense.
It's referencing the holistichealing that Christ is inviting
(06:17):
the person into.
In this healing narrative, abiblical studies scholar who
does a lot of work aroundmedical anthropology and
biblical studies, john Wilkinson, in his classic text from the
90s, explains that this wordso-to-so is comprehensive in its
scope person, not just theperson's physical body being
(06:49):
restored into this concept ofrelational salvation, and even
the soul in relation to sozo, isnever understood as only
spiritual, but it's this wordthat points to the combination
of the total person, physicaland spiritual, and relational.
The other word that's going tocome up is ilmai, and it means
to heal physically.
St Luke in Luke's gospel usesthis word the most often, but
(07:15):
Wilkinson, who we just talkedabout, states that St John and
St Luke appear to use this word,appear to use this word as a
synonym for a word terapuyo.
Terapuyo is a word that pointsto the comprehensive idea of
physical healing from illness ordeliverance from demonic
(07:36):
possession, but it's always inconnotation with either
interacting with Jesus or thedisciples.
Only one time is it used inreference to an interaction
between a person and a physician.
Only one time.
So every time that these wordsare used, including words that
(07:59):
reference physical healing, it'sin the context of something
much bigger than a person'sphysical body.
Now there are two more wordsthat you're going to hear when
we read this narrative that aresimply translated from the word
health.
One is hegeis, and that meansessentially wholeness, or
(08:22):
soundness of one's whole being.
It's a holistic reference tobringing the whole person back
into union with themselves, withGod and with others.
The second is irene.
Irene is a reference to absenceof war or strife, but it's not
simply physical war or physicalconflict.
(08:45):
It's the absence of tension andstrife relationally, in every
aspect of the person, and thisword can often then be used to
describe the absence of thedestruction that occurs during
war or strike.
So one quick review.
Let's read the passage togetherand we'll break it down a bit
(09:16):
as we try to relate this back toremembering that healing is
synonymous with Shalom.
Friends, listen for the word ofthe Lord from the gospel
according to St Mark, chapter 5.
And a great crowd followedJesus and thronged about him,
(09:39):
and there was a woman who hadhad a discharge of blood for 12
years and who had suffered muchunder many physicians and had
spent all that she had and wasno better off but rather grew
worse.
She had heard the reports aboutJesus and came up behind Jesus
in the crowd and touched hisgarment.
For she said, if I touch eventhe hem of his garment, I will
(10:05):
be made well From the word sozo.
And immediately the flow ofblood dried up and she felt in
her body that she was healedfrom the word Iomai of her
disease.
And Jesus, perceiving inhimself that power had gone out
(10:26):
from him, immediately turnedabout in the crowd and said who
touched my garments?
And Jesus' disciples said tohim you see the crowd pressing
in around you and yet you saywho touched me?
And Jesus looked around to seewho had done it.
But the woman, knowing what hadhappened to her, came in fear
(10:48):
and trembling and fell downbefore Jesus and told Jesus the
whole truth.
Jesus said to her Daughter,your faith has made you well
from the word solito, go inpeace from the word irene and be
(11:09):
healed from the word heges ofyour ditties.
Friends, this is the word ofthe Lord.
Thanks be to God.
In one passage we see fourseparate words used to reference
(11:32):
aspects of wellness, wholeness,peace and healing, or health.
All of these words, when youlook at them together, in the
concepts that they denote orpoint to draw out aspects or
layers of shalom.
(11:53):
Many of these words so to so inparticular, in particular, are
often translated one-to-one fromshalom.
So what does this help?
Us see by paying a little bitmore attention to the language
that's used.
Okay, let's walk through this.
The woman has been suffering inisolation and ostracization
(12:15):
alone for 12 years because sheis bleeding uncontrollably.
Remember the purity system thatthis culture is embedded in.
This woman is consideredspiritually unpure and
untouchable and unapproachablebecause she is bleeding.
(12:35):
Read the Mosaic Code and thepurity laws and what you arrive
at here is as long as someone isbleeding, whether it's a cycle
or a longer period of time likethis, as long as a woman is
bleeding, she is consideredimpure.
So to be out in a crowd aroundother people is absolutely
(12:58):
frowned upon, because any personwho is then around her and
touches her also becomesspiritually impure and can't go
to the temple for worship or bein the presence of God.
So she is isolated, alone,socially cut off from her
communal body and she knows thisbecause of the purity laws.
(13:23):
And she goes to Jesus and knowsthat she shouldn't be there,
and so she tries to do it inanonymity and seeks total
healing.
So to go, absolute deliveranceand total healing in every
aspect of what makes her aperson, that's what she goes to
Jesus seeking.
(13:44):
But the text says immediatelyafter touching Jesus, the flow
of blood dried up and she feltin her body that she was
physically healed, physicallyhealed of her disease.
She did not receive theholistic healing that she sought
by simply receiving thedeliverance from quote, her
disease.
After Jesus stops and says whotouched me?
(14:10):
In a crowd full of people,where people are pressing in
around him, jesus notices thetouch of one person with an
intent, with a desire to be nearhim for the purpose of being
transformed by him.
Jesus notices that one personand in that moment remember
(14:34):
shalom is primarily rightrelationship.
In that moment Jesus calls thiswoman out of anonymity into a
place where her identity can berestored and he says daughter,
your faith has made you well.
So does O, your faith has madeyou well.
So does O.
After Jesus interacts with herand relationally calls her close
(14:57):
to him.
In that interaction shereceives the holistic healing
that she came for.
That is relational in scope.
Go in peace, be free of thestrife and the tension that has
divided you socially andphysically and spiritually in a
(15:19):
name and be healed physically ofyour disease, but healed heges
is of your whole being.
Be healed in your whole being.
After she engages Jesus not bysimply being in proximity with
Jesus, but by engaging Jesus asGod she receives the holistic
(15:43):
healing in every aspect of herperson that she initially sought
in the first place.
Shalom is something that Jesusinvites her into.
That then restores every aspectof what makes her a person, and
then she is sent back into thevery social context that has
(16:04):
rejected her because she'simpure, and she is sent back
into a context where she canworship God at the temple
because the Holy of Holies withflesh on Jesus has beckoned her
back into relationship with God.
And then she is also returns toher family context and her body
is restored to her.
When you see these kinds ofthings in scripture and slow
(16:29):
down a little bit to payattention to shalom at work,
healing looks very different.
When we make healing somethingthat is primarily about the
altering of someone's bodilystate.
We actually cheapen the workwhen we make disability about
(16:50):
something that is simply aboutfitting in or fitting the norm,
or the presence of evil isproven by the presence of
disability and the presence ofdeliverance is proven by a
normate body, and we map thatonto scripture.
We miss so much of what God isdoing and what Jesus is
demonstrating for us.
This is one passage and it's abeautiful example because the
(17:14):
language gives us an explicitpicture, but it is one passage.
When you take this framework andmap it onto the healing
narratives, it all fits.
It all fits.
There's been a number of worksthat I have done and others have
done that help to kind ofstretch this out a little bit.
(17:35):
I can include portions of someof my graduate work that works
through the healing narrativesand if you're interested, you
can click the link below thisepisode and read a little more.
Just keep in mind that it isbiblical studies in nature and
so it may take some work to getthrough it.
But this framework can beapplied faithfully to the
(17:57):
biblical text in general andwhat it shows for us is that God
is bigger than the normateassumptions, biases and
frameworks that we map onto afirst-century, individualized
way of being.
When Christ speaks restorationto us, it doesn't remove
dependency from us.
(18:17):
It recalibrates our way ofbeing so that we can be
healthily and rightlyinterdependent with God and
others.
This is why disability beingequated with evil doesn't make
much sense.
Friends, it's good to be withyou.
I'm praying for you.
May God bless you.
May God keep you.
(18:39):
May God cause his face to shineupon you and bring you shalom.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
This has been a Center for Disability and
Ministry production.
Join us next time for anotherinsightful episode.
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