Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today's passage from Mark combines two stories of healing—a daughter at the point of death and a woman with a long-standing hemorrhage. "Do not fear, only believe," Jesus exhorts the daughter's father. And he announces to the healed woman, "your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed."

These stories suggest what is implied in so much of scripture—that our Lord calls each one of us to be whole. But what does "whole" mean? How are "whole" and soul related?

Before I say more, let me bring in the second lesson for today as well. This is the final few verses:

I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little." (2 Cor. 8:13-15)

Does it occur to you, as it did to me, that the healing stories of Mark are intimately connected to this story of sharing in Paul's second Corinthian epistle? Restoration to wholeness—reconciliation of those aspects of self, God, and creation that get out of whack—is about many things at once.

The healing stories speak of faith as the source of healing. As I have said already noted, both healings contain poignant reference to belief: "your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed." This is surely the case, for a mere physical restoration does not result in what we might fully imagine "wholeness" to be; that would only address one part of the integral and complex nature of what it means to be fully and entirely human. I have talked about this before in sermons and will no doubt do so again, but my heart is drawn to the fuller meanings today—the ones that involve the physical as well as other forms of healing.

What a great phrase we find at the end of our passage from 2 Corinthians 8. I looked at this in several translations, but this one gets to what I believe is the core insight: "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little." It sounds so simple. There is not a single word in that entire sentence that is more than two syllables. But it says so very much about who we are and who we were created to be-and what it means to be whole and healthy in a broader context than inside our bodies.

Paul is exhorting the Christians at Corinth and us to share—to live in such a way that our abundances are complementary—so that we build up one another and so that our mutual abilities and resources may enhance the common good.

This strikes me as incredibly important as we look to be healed in our day. Like the healings in the gospel today, the healing of which Paul speaks is also brought about through faith. It is in verse nine that he clues us in: "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." The richness of our coffers, our homes, our spirits, our bodies, and our intellects are intended as motivations for the kinds of generosity demonstrated by our Lord. In his richness, he became poor in order to enrich us. We are called to do likewise-to bring all that we are and have together for the good of all.

This kind of healing, this type of wholeness, is exceedingly important in our day. I speak now of the restoration not only of the body and spirit, or even of the person and the community, but of the whole of God's creation.

I have been immersed in recent months in reflection, reading, engagement, and coursework connected to the healing of the world that God created. The theme upon which the clergy renewal grant that was recently awarded to St. Thomas by the Lilly Endowment was based is extending our efforts to repair the earth that human beings have injured deeply. It is intended to assist me, the congregation, and the congregations throughout the state of Indiana learn how to live more sustainably and then do so.

Likewise, the two-week course I recently completed in "permaculture" focused on similar goals. The word "permaculture" combines the words "permanent" and "agriculture" and seeks to teach folks how to return to the kinds of insights by which our ancestors lived-living lightly on the land, producing most of what they needed close to home, paying attention to the soil, and leaving everything in better condition than they received it. It is about making us all into farmers as much as possible, and into partners with God in restoring the abundance of creation.

I think about this kind of wholeness in terms of practicing restoration or repair. I believe that this is central to what our planet needs as well as central to the wisdom of scripture set before us this morning about healing self and restoring right relating.

In preparing the Lilly grant, I wrote about the importance of repairing:

"When I was eight years old, I assisted as my father overhauled our 1954 Pontiac Chieftain. I didn't know it then, but it was the same vehicle that I would first drive—and then later 'total'" in my first accident (at the age of sixteen).

"I grew up watching my father fix things. He was raised on a farm, watching and helping with all sorts of repair and improvement jobs. And then, after serving in World War II, he worked for 35 years in a factory, making things (from refrigerators to missiles). I also enjoyed learning from my mother about foods (e.g. persimmon pudding, gooseberry pie) that have become treasured traditions in my own home now that both of my parents have died. I have ensured that unusual ingredients are available from my gardens (and trees).

"I have come to understand that being a man (and a human being, and a Christian) means fixing things. From repairing cars to building a new garage to helping with projects at St. Thomas to preparing a meal for the family, I gain deep satisfaction in making or re-making something well. Planting, building, and repairing are rooted in my soul; my relatives still own land in Preble County, Ohio, where my father learned his skills at the side of his father.

"It isn't only fixing things that gives me joy. It's also caring for them. I learned early how to enrich the soil using leaves and other organic material. My father wanted to leave the soil better than he found it. I still carry that philosophy—and those old practices—into my gardening. This avocation conveys a satisfaction that connects me to what could well be ancient memory and reconnects me—consciously—to at least two prior generations. Woodworking has that same poignant power.

"I suspect that my vocation as a minister is similarly founded. I often consider my work that of repair—caring for and restoring souls, teaching to repair damaged theology, counseling to assist the Spirit in repairing broken relationships, administering to honor gifts that too often go unused. Much of who I am is shaped by this urge to make things better—an urge embedded in family, ancestry, parental affection, and likely in the DNA and the spirit of our humanity.

"Elizabeth Spelman's assertion, in her book entitled Repair, that innate impulses motivate us to repair and restore feels right to me. I like her suggestion that we should be known not as 'Homo sapiens' but as 'Homo reparans'—not the being that knows but the being that repairs. After all, recycling, renewal, and repair are not only good ideas; they are at the center of the nature of the universe. Our bodies are composed of the stuff of the cosmos, and nebulae are recycling centers for stars. And so, we need to be about this work of repair—this restoration to wholeness—on as many levels as we are able, including the personal, theological, practical, spiritual, and communal."

My study of permaculture gives me new tools for this work of repair—or restoring to wholeness. It is based on three simple ethics—earth care, people care, and fair share. These are shorthand for suggesting that we all need to take care of the earth, to take care of one another, and to share equitably from our abundance. As I repeat that, it sounds much like what Paul was advocating to the church at Corinth. As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little."

We have created a world in which too few have much and way too many have too little; and the planet is wasting away. Let me share some perspective on this.

The human population has nearly doubled during the past few decades, increasing by 2.5 billion peopleThe use and extraction of "fossil fuel" resources like oil, coal, and natural gas—the non-renewable energy stockpiles—followed and exceeded the trends set by the population curve... Likewise, tree consumption for paper products doubled over the last thirty years, resulting in about half of the planet's forests disappearing, while in the oceans, global fishing also doubled. Further, since the end of the 1960's, half of the planet's wetlands have either been filled or drained for development, and nearly half of the Earth's soils have been agriculturally degraded.(The statistics are listed in Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature, pp. 3-5.)

Perhaps most telling has been the parallel tendency over this time period towards mass extinction for the great diversity of species, including vast numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Comparing the numbers involved in this catastrophe with the handful of other great extinctions existing within the prehistoric record has led the esteemed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey to coin this as the time of "the Sixth Extinction," a great vanishing of creatures in the last thirty years such as the planet had not seen during the previous sixty-five million.

The divide between rich and poor has been gravely exacerbated, with the gap between the two nearly doubling itself from an outrageous factor of 44:1 in 1973 to about 72:1 as of the year 2000. (Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature, p.4.) So approximately 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 per day and nearly 3 billion live on less than $2 per day(World Bank, World Development Report 1998.)

The present standard of living enjoyed by those across the planet is estimated to utilize somewhere between two to four times the amount of sustainable resources provided by the planet. As population continues to rise toward 9 billion people and living standards increase in commensurate measure, it is calculated that to have a sustainable planet by the year 2070 would entail technical advances capable of enabling 60 times as much production and consumption as presently afforded, while only generating one-half to one-third the amount of present resource and environmental cost. [Ted Trainer, "What is Sustainable Development?" in EDucate! Magazine 5 (Karachi, 2002), pp. 38-40.] Yet, according to a United Nations report, a vision of continued growth of this kind is consonant only with extinction; either great changes are made in global lifestyle now or an irrevocable crisis will descend upon the planet by 2032. (United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environmental Outlook 3: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives, 2002, pp. 13-15.)

There is much to repair and much to be healed. But it is essential that we remain hopeful—as Christians that is our lot. We aren't pessimists or optimists; we live in hope. And we are undergirded by the loving, sustaining, compassionate love of the Lord who confronts us today with lessons of miraculous healing and who holds out for us an abiding promise of wholeness. The call to be healed is urgent. It is, as Paul says, "a question of a fair balance between (our) present abundance and their need."

Remember that our faith is central and that everything we do makes a difference. Every incandescent light bulb replaced with a compact fluorescent bulb saves 500 pounds of coal and saves you between $30 and $50 in energy costs. Every tree planted creates a carbon sink. Every bit of food you grow or purchase from local farmers saves most of the energy required to transport food from elsewhere-and the average distance our food travels is 1500 miles! Walking, biking, car-pooling, or using public transportation to get to church or to work saves more non-renewable resources. Carbon offsets may be purchased when travelling by air. Recycling, reusing, repurposing, refusing, reducing, and repairing all aid in the movement to wholeness.

May God bless us with forgiveness for our wasteful ways and with the will to work towards wholly sustainable and healthy living. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.