june 28, 2009

Anna Blaedel
June 28, 2009
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

Many of you know, or have noticed, that I have been gone. First, at Annual Conference in Ames with Cal Nicklay and others from each of the 824 United Methodist congregations in Iowa. Then, I went on vacation. I am learning that those pastors who have been at this decades longer than I know to schedule vacation for after Annual Conference, when the need is great.

I travelled to Ocean Isle beach in North Carolina with my family, the beach where we have been finding rest, renewal, and reconnection for the last 25 years or so. It is, for each of us, a sacred place, a place of letting go—of obligations and expectations, of worry and stress and schedules and rushing. And it is a place of reconnecting, refueling—with the simple pleasure of play, the awe of a wide open, star-lit sky, the power of the waves to drown out all other sound, the simple relief of sweet tea in the summer sun, of washing off sweat and sand in the salty water. A thin place, as some have called it, where the distinctions between heaven and earth, mundane and miraculous, nearly disappear.

Year after year the ocean gives back to me the wisdom I have found, and often forgotten, in previous years. I am reminded that awe and mystery and amazement can be offered to God as prayer. That the earth is God’s body, and that we are intimately tied with this body we call home—what we dump in the water comes back to our shores, that climate change impacts which shells we see washed up, and which creatures are thriving, and which disappearing, that coal and farm chemicals and oil spills are leaving more and more fish toxic, inedible. That all of creation is sacred, and we are called to be good stewards. That each morning offers miracles, and each day opportunities to experience God’s healing power.

The beach is, for me and my family, a miraculous place. Finding healing. Restoring hope. Receiving new life. Turning away from fear. Standing on the weathered wooden pier gazing at a school of eight stingrays in the water beneath me; walking on the beach during the day or watching crabs scatter and flee in their funny sideways dance at night; writing prayers in the sand and watching the waves carry my prayers to sea, over and over I found myself breathless, speechless. In awe. Amazed. Bearing witness to the miracles of God, already all around me. Each year I vow to bring some of this wonder, this peace, this fearlessness, this care-free awe, this amazed gratitude back with me into my every day life. And each year, I find it is a struggle.

It is the struggle of recognizing traces of the miraculous in my everyday life, and acknowledging the grandeur of God in my everyday surroundings. It is the struggle of living out of and living into the peace of God which passes all understanding not just when I am away from it all, but when I am in the middle of it all. Do you recognize this struggle?

I believe this is something like the struggle we find in this morning’s gospel story from Mark. The miracle in these miracle stories is this, Frederick Beuchner writes: “Jesus gives life not only to the dead, but to those of us who are only partly alive…who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and the miracle of things, including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.” The wild beauty and miracle of every day we live…the power of new life, new hope, new being…

In the gospel reading for this morning, we encounter two prominent healing stories, structured in a way that is typical for this particular gospel writer. One story is inserted into another, as though the writer wants to make their connection crystal clear.

These healing stories are found in the fifth chapter of Mark. The first four chapters have spent time sharing Jesus’ preaching with words. His parables of the sower, and of the mustard seed. His clarifying of ancient texts and teachings, inherited from Jewish tradition. Jesus has been preaching with words, proclaiming the reign of God on earth, instructing people in the ways of living that bring about this reign of justice, healing, and love. Now, in the fifth chapter of Mark, we find a significant shift. Now Jesus is preaching with his actions. Showing, in a sense, not just telling people what the reign of God looks like. This is where Jesus helps the people learn to experience the reign of God, not away from it all, not after retreating to heaven, or the beach, but in the middle of it all, the kingdom come on earth…

Even as the parables take form in concrete action, it is hard to know what to do with these miracle stories. It is hard to make sense of them, whether you are in the pulpit, or in the pew. As a disciple of Christ, I believe that the living God surprises us. That in and through the Holy One, the impossible becomes possible. That Jesus’s defiance of brokenness in any form coaxes new life and healing out of deepest despair and grief. That having bold, mature faith calls us to risk participating in the process of creating the unimaginable, believing in the unbelievable, and witnessing the impossible.

And, as a pastor, I know that linking faith with healing, belief with answered prayers, is dangerous. People with deep faith suffer. Fervent pray-ers face devastating diagnoses. Those who help others find hope are swallowed in their own despair. Faithful disciples put their trust in God, and still lose their jobs, or their loved ones. Fathers and mothers throughout time and space have fallen to their knees, begging the Resurrected One for healing touch, for their child’s cure. And still face the horror of their child’s very real death.

So. We turn to the gospel stories. A man, Jairus, is described as a leader of the synagogue. This tells us he is a man of great importance, power, and wealth. He is desperate for his daughter, who is dying. Please, please, he begs Jesus. Some scholars note that this act begins the miracle story, for it can be miraculous indeed for a wealthy, powerful, important man to find his way to his knees, admit his powerlessness, and beg for help. As Jairus and Jesus make their way back to Jairus’s house, they meet a woman with a bleeding disorder. A woman who has been hemorrhaging blood for twelve years. Try to imagine being in her shoes.

There is a hidden message in this description, for this a not just a woman with a painful, chronic medical condition. According to Levitical law, the purity codes found in Leviticus, the constant flow of blood made this woman permanently unclean, an abomination to the purity of the community. Unclean. Untouchable. Irredeemable. It is perhaps worth noting that the very purity code condemning this woman is the one people turn to to find biblical backing for condemning same sex relationships, or calling gay and lesbian people abominations.

According to the scripture in Leviticus, this woman isn’t supposed to be in public, around people. Her otherness comes with forced isolation, which she defies when she reaches out her hand and touches Jesus. According to the purity code, her unclean touch threatens to make Jesus unclean—raising the level of daring, desperation, and hope we find reflected in this touch.

Instantly this forbidden touch brings her healing, and restores her to wholeness. The crowd, even the discipels, miss this scandalous miracle entirely, but Jesus knows the power of transformation, and recognizes at once that something big has taken place. “Who touched me,” he asks? Who was bold enough to do such a thing? The disciples try to brush him off, but Jesus persists. And the woman knows she is in trouble. She has broken the rules. She has reached out and defied the law in scripture.

Filled with fear and trembling she falls at Jesus’ feet and offers her confession. She expects to be rebuked. Condemned. Reprimanded, at least. Humiliated, dismissed, pushed aside. The consequences are clear. But instead, and think about what Jesus is teaching through these actions, instead: Jesus calls her “Daughter.” Puts himself in relationship with her. He doesn’t debate scriptural authority or question her status as sacred or sinful. Jesus calls her Daughter. And Jesus lifts up her bold, risky faith as an example. And Jesus blesses her, and after offering her a benediction, sends her off in peace.

All of this happens while Jairus is waiting to take Jesus to his daughter. I can’t help but wonder what desperate, frantic Jairus had to say about this detour. He is an important man. His daughter is near death, and Jesus stops to bless this one cast aside and condemned by the very synagogue where he is a leader? I wonder if he resents her. I wonder if he resents Jesus. I wonder if his suffering, his helplessness, his desperate hope, helps him see and connect with the unclean woman’s suffering, her helplessness, her desperate hope. I wonder if seeing Jesus bless her, call her Daughter, and praise her faith restores something in him, and deepens his faith. I wonder if my impatience, my fear, would keep me from recognizing the miracle taking place before my very eyes…

Then we hear it is too late. Jairus’s daughter has already died. Jesus tries to ease their fear, but they are held captive by it. Fear and worry and anxiety rarely do anything to bring healing, or restore hope. And yet, so often it seems they are the final threads we cling to when desperation sets in. He tells the gathered crowd of mourners that the girl isn’t dead, just sleeping. And they respond by laughing. Surely they think Jesus is a fool. Or naïve. Or out of touch. Perhaps a cruel trickster. Except, then the girl gets up. And seeing her hand in hand with Jesus, the crowd’s laughter turns to amazement. And then, as quickly as she is miraculously restored, Jesus shifts our focus from the miraculous to the mundane, from the extraordinary to the ordinary, from the divine to the daily. “Give her something to eat,” he says. Share what you have. Feed her. Demonstrate your care in community. Break bread together.

We are left without explanation, without guarantee that the same answer will be found through our prayers. We are simply invited, with the disciples and the gathered crowd, to stand amazed, witnessing the restoration made possible by the healing presence and tender touch of God.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

Barbara Brown Taylor believes Mark writes this particular account of the gospel story to establish Jesus’ identity. These stories of miraculous healing “Are not stories about how to get God to do what we want, which is just another way of trying to stay in control. Instead, they are stories about who God is, and how God acts, and what God is like. Jesus giving us a glimpse of the reign of God. Where no suffering goes ignored or remains overlooked. Where everything else takes a backseat to the priority of coaxing restoration. Where those who have been declared unclean are restored into community, and receive tender touch. Where we learn about faith from the very people we have condemned.

Frederick Buechner claims this story can bring the miraculous into our own lives. He invites us each to imagine ourselves in the place of the little girl. Fragile. Frightened. Barely alive. And now, Jesus speaks to us. Takes our hand. Tells us to rise up and live: You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could…Get up, he says. All of you. All of you! Jesus gives life not only to the dead, but to those of us who are “only partly alive…who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and the miracle of things, including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.

And with that, Jesus shows us what he taught in the parables. The kingdom of God is among us. The reign of God is within us. Be amazed, and be healed.

Let us pray: Companion in life and death, your love is steadfast and never ending. Our weeping may linger with the night, but you have promised us joy in the morning. Touch us with your healing grace, that restored to wholeness, we may live into our calling as your resurrection-recognizing, kingdom-living people. Amen, and amen.