Restored

Mark 1:29-39

February 4, 2024

 

Several years ago, I watched a wonderful movie called Lars and the Real Girl. It is a relatively little-known indie film that tells the story of a young man named Lars Lindstrom. At the beginning of the movie, we see him living in the garage of his family home after his older brother, Gus, and sister-in-law, Karin, have moved back to the family home while they expect their first child. Lars is a quiet, painfully shy, kind of odd young man. He’s very much a loner and no matter how hard Karin tries to engage him in their lives, he resists. Always with a smile, but he resists. 

But his resistance doesn’t mean that he’s not lonely. Lars does want a meaningful relationship, and he finds one in a unique way. He orders his girlfriend online. Lars orders an anatomically correct, life size doll from a site called RealDolls. Lars sees this as an opportunity to finally have a relationship with a woman. After the doll arrives, Lars goes to Gus and Karin and asks if he can bring a date to dinner. She’s just arrived in town. They met on the internet, and she must use a wheelchair, so he’ll need help getting her into the house. Of course they agree, thrilled that finally Lars is interacting with other people. And they can’t wait to meet Lars new girlfriend. 

            Imagine their shock and surprise when Lars brings this doll to their house for dinner. He introduces her as Bianca and tells them her story of doing mission work in other countries, and the travels she’s had. 

            You might expect that the movie becomes some snarky joke at this point, but it doesn’t. Lars isn’t doing this as a joke either. Lars is living in a delusion. He believes that Bianca is a real girl and has come to be in his life. He even asks Karin if Bianca can borrow some of her clothes, because they’re about the same size. 

            Even though they know something is terribly wrong and Gus is convinced that Lars is going to need some sort of hospitalization that night, they decide to play along with him. Karin even sets the table for four, so that Lars can see that Bianca is included in the meal.

            The next day they take him to a doctor, Dagmar. She is a good doctor, a psychologist,  and a kind woman. She tells Lars that she is going to give Bianca a checkup. She tells him that Bianca is going to need a treatment for low blood pressure every week for a while. And while Bianca is receiving the treatment, she talks to Lars. But at this first visit she tells Gus and Karin that they should continue going along with Lars on this delusion and pretend that Bianca is real. Lars has brought Bianca there for a reason, and perhaps the best way to help Lars and find out the source of his delusion is to allow him to live with it for a while.

            Gus and Karin agree, and they turn first to their church, their pastor, and members of the church council for help. They share what’s going on with Lars, and everyone, every single person, agrees to go along with it. They welcome Bianca and accept her as real. Phone calls and e-mails fly through the town. If this is the way to help Lars, then this is how they help Lars. Bianca is real. Lars brings her to an office Christmas party. He brings her to the local hair salon where she’s given a makeover. Church friends invite her to help with children at the library. At one point she’s even elected to the school board. They do all this to help Lars.

            At other points in the movie you find out a little more about why Lars is caught in this delusion; why a relationship with a doll is easier for him than with a real person. But that’s a spoiler I won’t share. But what makes this movie so remarkable and sweet is that the people in this town love Lars enough to do this for him. They walk with him through this delusion, not condescendingly, not patronizingly, just with him. And in turn, their love, their willingness to be there for him in this amazing way gives him the space to heal, to let go of his need for Bianca and imagine living in a relationship with a real woman, not a real doll.

            Gus, Karin, Dagmar, the congregation, and the whole town come together to restore Lars to health, to lift him up out of his sadness, out of his loneliness, out of his delusion. They lift him up to restore him to life and wholeness, and in the process, they are lifted up and restored as well.

            Our story in Mark is about healing, about restoring people not only to health but to wholeness, to the life they were called to live. Jesus and the disciples leave the synagogue and go to Simon and Andrew’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law is suffering from a terrible fever. In those days before antibiotics, a fever could have been fatal, so the family’s fear for Simon’s mother-in-law would have been palpable. Jesus goes into her. He takes her by the hand and lifts her up. Immediately her fever left her, and she is restored. She stands and begins to serve them.

            For many folks, including myself, this point in the story is troublesome. Simon’s mother-in-law is restored to life so she can … serve? Didn’t she deserve even a few days of bedrest before she had to get back to her household responsibilities? There’s no way to completely reconcile this with our modern understanding of serving, but I will say this. The Greek word used here is where we get our word for deacon. It is the word used to describe the ministrations the angels gave to Jesus. Her service was not just about household drudgery but about serving God. And when Jesus lifts her up, it is more than just an action, it is a resurrection. He will be lifted up, resurrected from the tomb, from death, and this unnamed woman was resurrected too. She was restored.

            Word of this healing got out, and by sundown when the Sabbath was over, the whole city had congregated around the door, bringing sick loved ones, friends who were possessed with demons, etc. for Jesus to heal. And Jesus did heal them. He cast out demons and warned them not to speak of what he had done, for the demons knew his true identity before anyone else had realized it.

            Can you imagine what that scene must have looked like? A whole city assembled at the door of this one house. Even if it was a small city, or a small town, that’s just described as a city, that still would have been a lot of people pushing and nudging, trying to get Jesus’ attention, trying to make their mother’s, their brother’s, their friends’ needs known to him. Jesus healed them. He lifted them up and restored them from their sickness, from what possessed them. He healed them and he restored them. There were many more who wanted to be healed, but early the next morning, after Jesus spent time in prayer, he knew it was time to leave that place, to keep going.

            One commentary states that these stories are hard for modern readers to take, not because we don’t believe them, but we wonder why those people thronged around Jesus are the lucky ones. How many of us have prayed for healing, prayed and prayed for restoration, whether it’s for ourselves or someone else, and the situation has gone from bad to worse? Someone gets sicker, someone finally loses the battle. Why weren’t they lifted up?  Why were they not restored? And what about those people that Jesus left behind? What about them? In a few minutes we will offer our prayers of the people, and all of us will pray for someone who we hope will be restored, restored to health, restored to wholeness, but we have no guarantee that they will be. Will Jesus restore them as he restored the people in this story? And if they aren’t restored as we think they should be, what does that mean?

There are no easy answers to these questions. Certainly I don’t have them. But it seems to me that this story is not so much about why some people are healed and some are not, but about the response of the woman who was healed and restored to the fullness of life. She responded by serving. She responded by ministering. She was a diakonos, a deacon, sharing the love of God through acts of kindness and pastoral care. She served, not only because it was her duty or because of the gendered roles of that culture, but because it was her response of love to being restored. It was her response of love after experiencing the love of God through Jesus. What I find so remarkable about the movie Lars and the Real Girl is what the entire town did for Lars. They put their prayers and their faith and their love into action. They walked with him, even in this strange delusion. They walked with him, and they accepted him, and they loved him, and in that love and acceptance he was restored.

When someone we love is sick or hurting, we may long for and pray for miracles, for supernatural experiences of restoration. Sometimes that happens. But I think the real restoration, the true restoration comes not from a hand reaching down from heaven, but from a group of people walking with the hurting person in love. It seems to me that restoration happens, in all the ways that it happens, when we remember that we are part of the body of Christ in this world. We are his hands and his feet and his heart. He restores us so we can restore others. He showed us true service so we too can serve. He loves so we can love in return. So, may we gather around one another, walk with one another, love one another, restore one another as we have been loved and restored as well.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.