If we were to ask our congregation, "Are there things that happen in our congregation that irritate you, or make you angry?" we might be surprised at the range of answers. It's a very rare garden in which everything is rosy. Even were that so, it might only be a sign of complacency, rather than real satisfaction based on discernment.
I imagine one thing that wouldn't be on the list is 'making bent people straight'! In any sense of the word 'bent'. I was once told of an elderly woman suffering from severe scoliosis being healed & literally straightened, during a healing service, but though the teller was of good repute, a credible witness to the event, I remain sceptical. I guess I still wonder what happened next. In fact, today, if we're honest, most of are sceptical about any non-medical healing of something of a more serious nature. We're certainly not likely to get agitated because it happened 'in church'. That sort of thing just doesn't happen. Or does it? Even if / when it does, what happens next?
As I move around parishes, 'irritations', & in some cases angers I've had expressed to me in the last few months include: don't like that new hymn tune; that acolyte's allowed to wave her / his hands in the air too much; too many public baptisms week after week; the rector ought to....; the parish council ought to.....; I come to the early service to be quiet, not forced to socialise at The Peace; I don't like name badges; etc., etc.. Nary a complaint about people being healed during worship time! Nary a complaint about anyone being freed of some affliction in the midst of Christ's Body gathered in his name! Nor have I heard anyone being told to come back at a more appropriate time for healing, freeing! It's all a matter of expectation, & whether we have any.
Whether or not God's gifts of medicine, surgery, etc., are the way he normally makes his healing presence felt today, each & every congregation (= "We are the Body of Christ") has a role to play in that process; contributing to freeing people from physical, mental, emotional harm that spoils their lives; nurturing such healing & freeing through taking them seriously, praying thoughtfully; nurturing them in down to earth ways in compassionate love. Sharing ourself with them as God shares Godself with us. In Jesus. In us as Jesus' Body. Is there anything at all unreasonable about that kind of expectation?
