June 29, 2003
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It
starts like this. Jesus has been going from one side of the Sea of Galilee to
the other, first on the western Jewish side, then on to the eastern Gentile
side. Jesus offers his ministry openly to people on both shores.
Now he is back on the Jewish side by the beach, teaching and preaching.
Wherever there is human and spiritual need, Jesus is there. Today’s
lesson starts like this. Back on the western side of the Galilee, Mark tells a
story that moves from player to player. It is a story about radical healing and
about death and life, and in its telling shows us what it means to believe in
Jesus Christ. But did you notice how much today’s lesson is about
interruptions? We first
meet Jairus who is a leader in the local synagogue. It is his responsibility to
make sure the facilities are maintained, the scrolls are secure, worship leaders
are selected, and the business of the synagogue gets done (www.lectionary.org/mark5.31-43). He is an important man
who is used to people asking him for things.
But he has not come to see Jesus on
synagogue business. This is personal. He interrupts Jesus while he is
teaching because his daughter is dying, and he needs for Jesus to come to his
house immediately. Jesus ends the
teaching session and begins to make his way to Jairus’ house. While
they are on the way, they are interrupted by a woman with a chronic condition.
In another era, we would say that she was having “female trouble”. She has
been hemorrhaging for twelve years. She interrupts Jesus with a touch,
and is healed immediately. They are interrupted again when someone comes from
Jairus’ house to tell him that they do not need Jesus to come after all, his
little girl is dead. And Jesus interrupts death itself and calls the little girl
back to life. Henri
Nouwen tells of a conversation he had that teaches about the power of interruptions. He says, “a teacher once remarked, ‘you
know…my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly
interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work”
(Interpretation, Mark. Lamar Williamson, Jr.
Atlanta. John Knox Press. 1983, p.112). It is in the interruptions that
we fill in so much of what gives meaning for our lives. Each
time, with each interruption Jesus stops what he is doing to attend to an
immediate need. He shows love and compassion to people and models it for us by
his willingness to respond in mercy when people reach out to him, even when he
was interrupted. Few
things cause me to have to count to ten more than having my well planned day
interrupted. The other day I was here looking for some information on the
internet when the door bell rang. I looked in the mirror above Bonnie’s desk
and saw that the visitors were two people in clerical collars. My first thought
was that they were people trying to sell us something. But as I went downstairs,
I recognized an Episcopal colleague who wanted to introduce me to his new
associate rector. It was a good visit as we spent the next 45 minutes or so
talking about among other things, the ways our congregations might share
community together. In the
midst of life, there are interruptions. And in these interruptions are four
aspects of these stories, which is really one story. We see the power of
interruption in the story of a young girl at the end of her life and a woman
whose life’s blood is literally leaving her body. First,
“in both stories, competent authorities have proven that no remedy is
possible. The woman spent all her money on physicians over the years, and their
best remedies failed. The crowd at Jairus’ house has started the mourning
ceremonies, because the little girl is dead. They laugh when Jesus says the
little girl is only sleeping” (lectionary.org, p. 1). But
Jesus will have the last word. Like
many with a chronic illness, the woman has been left impoverished by her
condition. She lived in a time when the only safety net was a husband or sons,
or other male relatives. At one time she may have had means, she had resources
to spend. Now she does not have access to Medicare or a prescription drug
benefit, her condition is deteriorating. There are people today who know how she
feels. Right now, right here in the wealthiest nation on earth, there are people
who cannot afford adequate health care, and so suffer in silence or receive
barely adequate care. What can
she do? She has heard about Jesus and she decides in her spirit that she would
risk all she had left. And all she had was a little bit of a reputation since
her condition left her cut off and isolated from everyone. She makes her way
through the press of the crowd and says “if I can just get close enough to the
one people call the Great Physician, I might get some relief”. Jesus was
likely wearing his prayer shawl, with its tassels that were a wearable reminder
of the 10 Commandments (Dynamic Preaching, June 2003, p.18).
She reaches in and grabs a tassel and as she does, she feels the flow stop and
she knows she has been healed. Did good things happen when you reached up or out
and connected with the power of Jesus? Life may not have gotten perfect, but did
it get better? Did you find what you needed to endure, to stand, to leave a bad
situation, to grab hold of a good situation, to claim something for yourself? She
reached out and Jesus, even surrounded by several dozen people feels power flow
from his body. Jesus knows that this touch wasn’t just flesh to flesh, or
flesh to prayer cloth, it was spirit to spirit. Jesus knows that an exchange has
been made, illness and brokeness have been exchanged for health and wholeness. Then in
her new state of health, she found a new boldness. She steps up, she makes
herself known and trembling with embarrassment, or excitement, or empowerment
she tells Jesus and every one else what the last twelve years have been like for
her. Jesus then speaks the words their touch has accomplished. “Your faith –
that trust you placed in me has made you well. Daughter, go in peace, be
healed.” In the
meantime, news arrives that Jesus need not come to Jairus’ house, the little
girl had died. Imagine the hurt and anger and impatience of Jairus. “What kind
of teacher, or healer are you? While you are here with her, my child has died,
did you forget that we were walking to my house?”
Can you see Jesus looking into Jairus’ teary eyes and at his tense body
and says, “this is a time for faithfulness, don’t be afraid, the last word
has not yet been spoken. Believe that God has something more for your daughter
and for you. When he
gets to the house the scene is what we expect it to be. Family and friends have
gathered and along with the professional mourners who are there. In those days,
mourners were hired to come to the homes where a death had occurred. They
“wail, beat their breasts, tear their hair, and their garments. Musicians play
sad music, and along with the other activities, they let the community know that
a death has happened and it is time to grieve (lectionary.org. p.
4-5). I doubt
that family and friends needed help grieving. There is something so deeply sad
when a child dies. It violates what we think of as the natural order of things.
Jesus walks into the home and declares that their mourning is premature. They
have mistaken sleep for death. Then with only her parents present, Jesus takes
the little girls hand and gently
tells her to get up, and she does. Her parents are amazed. Their daughter had
been sick, now she is well. She had been dead, now she is alive. ”Keep this
between us”, he says, “and give her some lunch”. In Mark, Jesus often
wants his work to be known only among those who witness it, but it is never to
be. What he does is too powerful, too wonderful, too life-changing to be kept
secret. So the word spread and we can all rejoice in its telling today. The
three remaining aspects of this story can be told quickly.
The second is that “both instances involve issues of uncleanness. The
woman is unclean because of her hemorrhage (Leviticus 15.25-30).
The child is unclean because she is dead (Number 19.11-20).
Anyone who touches either of them is rendered unclean by that touch” (lectionary.org.
p. 1). But
Jesus has embraced what society calls unclean and has declared everyone worthy
of touching him and of being touched by him. When we feel unworthy, Jesus says
touch me and let me touch you so that you can be whole and healed. The
third aspect is that this is not only a healing story, it is also a salvation
story. The Greek word which means
healing or to be made whole is important. Jairus begs that Jesus might come and
heal his daughter. Jesus says to the woman, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Healing, being made well can refer to healing or delivery from danger, but
the Old Testament often uses it to refer to the salvation of the Israelites and
the New Testament uses it to refer to Christian salvation (lectionary.org,
p. 2). They are saved from misery and death and they are saved to praise
and thank God. Imagine them now. Now the woman is free, she is healed physically
and spiritually. She is free to have an intimate relationship again. No longer
unclean, she is free to walk about in public again. She can go to Temple. She is
free. The little girl literally has her life back, and we are free to know the
saving fullness of God’s love when we reach out and connect with the power of
Jesus. The
fourth aspect is this. “Both Jairus and the woman demonstrate considerable
faith in Jesus. They believe that he can end their isolation and anguish. Their
faith leads them to seek him. Faith is a key component for both of them” (lectionary.org,
p. 2). It is a
key component in our stories too. Yesterday I was one of six people who served
communion at the Pride worship service. I also delivered the benediction. There
was a heckler or two inside the church, who were not members of First
Congregational Church, where the service was held, including the person who
began heckling as the benediction began. I was not particularly worried, but I
was grateful that police officers quickly ushered the heckler out, and that my
micro-phoned voice and my camp counselor pitch was louder than the heckler’s.
They came to worship the living Christ and to feel his loving embrace. The
service was deeply moving and spiritual and it was an affirmation of the faith
of the gathered congregation. I pray that what we do here affirms our faith. As I
worshiped yesterday, a quote from Barbara Harris came into my spirit. Barbara
Harris was the first African American woman to become a bishop in the Episcopal
Church. Her election and installation were not without controversy. But she
weathered it and served the church well by reminding herself and her people that
Christians are an Easter people in a Good Friday world. It is in
such a world that we are called to live with the faith that Jesus is a
spirit’s touch away. When we
reach out to Jesus for healing in our most desperate moments, we say in the
midst of life there are difficult times, we are living as Easter people. When we
let him come with us even we are impatient, heartbroken and grief-stricken, we
say even then, there is hope. When we are blessed to hear him still our cries
and call out of us life when all others can see is death, we are living as
Easter people. Then, in
our Easter faith, we can know and celebrate that in the midst of life, even with
its interruptions, there is a greater life. Thanks
be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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