July 6, 2025

Extraordinary, Ordinary Miracles

One of the classic old jokes is about the guy who went to his doctor and said, “Hey, Doc, it hurts when I do this (bending his elbow a few times).”  The doctor answers, “So, don’t do that.”  Something like that happened to me once.  I spoke to my doctor about a spot on my leg that frequently itched so badly that it drove me up a wall.  This had been going on for several years in the same spot.  The itching would come and go, but it was always in the same place.  After relating this tale to the doctor, he said, “Yeah, I’ve had something like that too.  It happens.  It’s a real annoyance, isn’t it?”  I just looked at him and didn’t say another word.  I thought, “That’s it?  For cryin’ out loud, isn’t he even going to examine me, or recommend some ointment, or take a biopsy, or give me a CAT scan?  ‘These things happen.’  That’s all he’s got?”

I guess I know how Naaman felt when he went to see Elisha to be cured of his leprosy.  The prophet didn’t even do him the courtesy of meeting with him face to face.  He sent a messenger telling him to go wash in the river.  Frankly, I don’t blame Naaman for being more than a little ticked.  The guy travels all this way to see the famous miracle worker of Israel, and all he gets is a messenger telling him to take bath.  He figured the guy ought to at least dance around a little and shake a magic stick at him, utter some long, mysterious incantation, smear sacred potions over his body, or have him walk through a blazing inferno to scare away the evil spirits – something, anything, that sounds like a cure.

His skepticism and frustration are very familiar.  The brokenness and afflictions of our lives have often taken many years to develop.  They come from multiple and complex sources, and we assume that they will require sophisticated, powerful, and, as yet incomprehensible, interventions to cope with.  At times, the sheer weight of pain from our maladies and incapacities seems so enormous that it appears unlikely we will ever be free of it.

Such is often the case with alcoholism.  The alcoholic frequently sees life as overwhelming, and the sources of his frustration so intransigent and beyond himself, that it seems virtually impossible to find any solutions.  If someone suggests to him that his central problem is drinking, he scoffs in much the same way that Naaman must have when he was told to go take a bath in the river.  “Alcohol is not my problem,” he’s likely to say, “It’s far more complex than that.  I could stop drinking any time I wanted to.  My problem is with my boss . . . my wife . . . my job . . . my friends (or any of a dozen other identifiable sources).”  To think that going to AA and giving up drinking is going to make any huge improvement in his life is laughable.

It’s the same with many of our “inner demons.”  We often become so used to our habits, hurts, and limitations that they become like old friends.  In time, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we couldn’t live without them.  Surely, we conclude, there’s no simple way to resolve such life-long patterns, so what’s the use in trying?  We scoff at the idea of therapy, or of self-discipline, or any of a host of other possible solutions because we figure our problems aren’t likely to be resolved by anything so straightforward.

And the same is true of spiritual impairments.  Those who feel unknowledgeable about the Bible or religious faith see themselves as hopelessly ignorant when it comes to theological or spiritual matters.  The simple suggestion of actually studying the Bible is readily dismissed, because when one’s lack of knowledge seems so vast, certainly it would take a herculean effort to overcome it.  The suggestion that a person is already an expert in the area of their own beliefs and perceptions about Divinity and humanity is scoffed at as though it were advice to take a bath in the river – “Of what value are my simple ideas when it comes to something so incomprehensible as Christian theology?”

And if a person feels hopelessly cut off from Divine grace because of an enormous weight of guilt – a feeling that they can never be good enough, or never forgiven – it’s virtually impossible to convince them that they are, indeed, loved and forgiven: “The answer to this overwhelming and unforgivable guilt is ‘you are forgiven?’  You’ve got to be kidding.  I can’t accept that.  It’s too simple.”

We want to be healed.  We want to be whole.  But when the path to wholeness is shown to us, we frequently turn away from it.  I think that’s partly because we are so convinced that our problems are too big.  They are simply too large to be dealt with by anything but a miracle.  Well, here’s a news flash: miracles happen every day.  They are virtually bursting out of the ground we walk on, and wafting through the air we breathe.  The extraordinary thing about life is that it is basically inclined toward things “working out” in the end – and generally through very ordinary means.  Miracles are not Divine intervention to overthrow the laws of nature, they are the power of the bias of grace that’s built into those very laws.  Extraordinary, ordinary miracles are the standard fare of our lives.

Do we seek healing from the human disease of war?  Peace will not prevail in our world through the impending peril of a stray asteroid threatening to blow us all to bits unless we cooperate to find a way to defend ourselves against it.  Peace will not come as the result of an invasion from outer space, or any number of other grand science fiction scenarios.  Peace will finally rule on our planet because overwhelming numbers of ordinary men and women around the globe will write letters, hold vigils and marches, keep their governments’ feet to the fire of justice, and demand that the architects of hatred and engineers of violence step aside.  Peace will dawn upon us as an ordinary miracle of hard work and dedication.

There are broken bodies and broken spirits all over our world.  There are countless African men and women dying of AIDS, way too many children going to bed with empty bellies, famines, droughts, and diseases regularly ravaging populations.  We look at these realities and turn away because the problems are too large.  Surely, we imagine, there’s nothing we can do.  Surely the only hope lies in some miraculous new vaccine yet to be discovered, or in some amazing technological achievement that will give answers to questions we can’t begin to tackle now.

But bodies are healed, children are fed, and resources flow, when ordinary people like you and me and ordinary churches like ours give money to relief efforts like One Great Hour of Sharing or through Our Church’s Wider Mission, and other empowering ministries like Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders, when ordinary folks put pressure on governments and corporations to build the infrastructures of mercy, when ordinary citizens go to the polls and vote into office those who stand for something grander than protecting profits and narrowly defined national self-interest.  Those things happen and will happen because the hearts of human beings, though often dark and greedy, are, in the aggregate, inclined toward love and justice and wholeness.  And that’s a miracle!

It occurs to me that there is one great miracle at the base of everything: the universe is put together in such a way that, even though “bad things happen to good people” (as Rabbi Kushner was famous for saying), in the main, things are tilted in the direction of good things happening.  Every morning that we get out of bed and take a breath of air, we’re beating the odds – because creation is designed for us to beat the odds more often than not.  And even when the odds catch up with us, we human beings so frequently find a way to bring something of value and nobility out of disaster – that’s miraculous!

I was searching my mind for some way to illustrate this point.  I thought of my marriage and how miraculous that kind of everyday love is.  I thought of people I have known who have lived extraordinary lives even in the face of great adversity.  While I was ruminating on all this, I almost absent-mindedly entered into the Yahoo web site the word “miracles.”  In the screen that opened up, I saw some little advertising boxes off to the side.  One of them said, “Miracles online.  Shop Target.com.”  That really fascinated me, so I clicked on it.  What came up was a list of products, most of which were various versions of something called a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle.”  Out of curiosity, I clicked on one to find out what a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle” was.  I learned that it’s a special kind of horseshoe-shaped pillow that is used to put around a baby to help it sit up for feeding, playing, and so forth.  I let out a sigh, and started to continue racking my brain for illustrations.  Then it occurred to me: probably a lot of young mothers and their little ones have benefitted from that ingenious little pillow, a product of someone’s creative mind – someone who put to use the amazing powers that reside in these wondrous, infinitely complex brains of ours.  And, as a result, some number of children sat up rather than toppling over onto their heads.  Think about it.  Isn’t that one of the most miraculous things you ever imagined?

Folks, if you’re coming to church on Sunday mornings looking for Divine inspiration, and not taking the time to recognize the work of providence in the mailing of a letter, or the divine hand of guidance in the boy on the street corner, you just might be passing over miracles while you’re looking for something more grand.

We live in a miraculous world.  It has been made in such a way that answers to staggering questions are often right at our fingertips, opportunities for healing and growth frequently present themselves in the most unexpected ways, the prospect of justice, peace, and global community is not simply a distant dream, it’s a living possibility.  And it’s all part of the here and now – the you and me.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds herself transported by a wondrous event to a mystical land where she and her companions find themselves on a quest against all odds for those things that might make them whole: compassion, intelligence, courage, home.  Their brokenness appears to be irreparable, though, when the forces against which they battle seem overwhelming, and finally the great wizard who could work wonders to give them what they lack turns out to be a charlatan.  In the end, Dorothy finds herself back in Kansas, and discovers that everything they had been looking for was right there all along.  All that was required was to open her eyes and see the world in a new light.

Do you need a miracle?  I’ve got extraordinary news for you.  They’re ordinary occurrences.  Do you need healing?  I’ve got a hopeful word to share.  You might find it in something as common as taking a bath.  Do you want to see the world made new?  I’ve got “tidings of great joy.”  The world is being remade, and you are helping to do it.