Two for the Price of One

Mark 5:21-43

        Who doesn’t love a good bargain? I know I certainly do. When I see the advertisement, “Buy One, Get One Free” I just have to stop and take a second look. And if one item is 50% off, I figure that means if I buy two at 50% off each, I’ve just saved myself some money, right? – Well, only if I need two, I guess.

        Today’s gospel delivers two healing stories – two miracles of Jesus, within this one text of Mark’s. I was going to post “Two for the Price of One” as the title for my sermon today. But advertising a sermon with a  title like that on a church website might be a little counterintuitive.

        While we could all probably use a double-dose of God’s grace most days, what you probably don’t want is a 90 minute sermon.

Healing of a Bleeding Woman,
Peter Marcellinus Catacomb

        All kidding aside, our God is a gracious and generous God whose love is transforming and healing, whose grace, freely flowing through Jesus, brings us new life.

        Today’s gospel texts contain stories of that grace demonstrated in Jesus performing miraculous healing, taking power from death and giving new life and transformation to those who suffer.

        Most of us have some personal experience with healing, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational. Some of us may even have stories of miraculous healing – healing that we ourselves experienced or healing that has occurred to others we know.

        Maybe there was a restoration to health that could not be explained any other way than, “miracle”; healing that took place which was out of proportion to anything that was expected, or a cure that took place where none was expected at all.

        I think that most of us probably know that there are times when healing comes with a cure, and times when a person is cured of a disease but still consumed by demons of another kind.      

        All of us could probably tell the other kind of stories as well – the stories of those who prayed, or for whom we have prayed, where there was no cure, and no apparent healing.

        We admit that the ways of God are both mysterious and challenging.

        This truth, however, often makes healing stories like those in Mark’s gospel this morning difficult for us to comprehend, and difficult for us to hear, reminding us of those other stories from our own experience as they do.

        We don’t fully understand why some people are healed or cured and others are not. There are those who laugh us to scorn for faith in the power of God to heal, especially when healing doesn’t happen the way we want it to.   

        Today we have these two-for-one healing stories in our gospel narrative. Each of these stories presents healing a little differently, each includes a miracle, each exhibits the twin forces of fear and faith which often seem to go hand in hand.

        What these stories do NOT teach us, is that if we simply have enough faith, miracles will happen, healing will automatically occur, and we will get whatever we ask.

        This gospel does not say that illness is a test of faith or that with the right kind of faith we automatically get our wish and receive a cure when we pray.

        Instead, what these stories testify to is the transformational presence and power of God, working through Jesus Christ. These stories invite us to take all the fear, sadness, grief and pain we feel in the face of our brokenness, our illness and even death itself and turn them over to God. And God, who promises to accompany us through the chaos and turmoil of our human finitude will transform our fear, giving us faith, strength, and yes, healing.

        In our text today, Jesus has once again crossed the sea, returning from the Gentile side where he has just cast out demons from a Gerosene man. The sea, figuring prominently in the gospel, reminds us of the powers of chaos and darkness, a boundary Jesus not only crosses but ultimately overcomes.

        We remember last week’s gospel story of the calming of the storm at sea which illustrated for us how Jesus brings calm to the turmoil and chaos of our world and our lives.

        As Jesus reaches the shore in today’s text, a huge crowd assembles around him and follows him, pressing him in on all sides. There is something symbolic in the way that Jesus stands between the people and the depths and chaos of the sea.

        What follows is this two-for-one story.

        First, we have Jairus – well connected, Jewish, but vulnerable to losing the daughter who is so dear to him. He may be used to getting what he wants – he is a man of power and prestige, after all. He may not really know what to think of Jesus but he’ll try anything to save his daughter. He calls out to him, revealing for all to see, his deep vulnerability and need.

        Then, we have the unnamed woman – she has lost all status and whatever money she may have had during the twelve long years of her affliction. She doesn’t have a thing going for her except for her faith.

        She is desperate too. Like Jairus, she may not know exactly who this Jesus is or how he works, but she has heard the healing and teaching stories and believes that there is something about him, some way that God is working through him. And so, she presses through the crowd.

Can you feel the bodies pressing against her from all sides? Can you see her stretch out her hand, reaching, reaching, and then finally touching just the fringe of Jesus’ clothing – the only thing she dares touch, and even that in secret.

She likely fears that if she calls out to Jesus and asks him to help her, the crowd, thinking she is out of her mind, will laugh her to scorn, will chase her away – or worse. Her bleeding has left her ritually, sexually and religiously unclean.

        Finally, there is the little girl, Jairus’ precious daughter, standing at the gate to adulthood, soon to reach what would have been an age of marriagability. On her own she has no status, no wealth, and no power, as she hovers in the threshold between life and death.

     As Jesus and the others reach her home, they are told that it is too late. She has died.

Resisting the people’s call to turn back however, Jesus proceeds to enter the home, allowing only the girl’s parents and his most trusted companions to come with him. The people in the crowd laugh. They think he is out of his mind.

     They laugh him to scorn at the suggestion that he can do anything to help her now. They laugh him to scorn at the suggestion that there is any power greater than death.

     As we move with these characters through this narrative, we see the power of God moving people from death to life, transforming fear into thanksgiving through faith, turning vulnerability to vindication through the power of Jesus’ touch.

     Jairus may not have been a believer when he first caught Jesus’ attention; hope was all he had, but the restoration of his little girl to life moved him to faith, made him a believer.

        The woman experiences immediate healing and more – she who was once nameless and without status is given a name by Jesus – “Daughter,” he calls her – and then lifts her up as the epitome of faith. “Your faith has saved you.” She is not only healed, but restored to community.

 The Raising of Jairus' Daughter
George Percy Jacomb-Hood, 1895

        And the little girl? Her role foreshadows Jesus’ own resurrection, revealing God’s power over even the darkness of death.

        Experiencing God’s power is overwhelming. It is easier to believe that the trusting, hopeful, believing ones are “out of their minds”.

        These days, fear, turmoil, chaos and death are evident every way we turn. So many people in the sphere of our lives are touched by cancer, other incurable illnesses, addiction and brokenness beyond belief. Terrorism, mass killings, systemic conflict and ills infect every corner of the earth. Perhaps you or someone close to you can identify with one of the characters in this Gospel account – desperate, vulnerable, hopeful, or feeling hopeless.

     Maybe you are the person who has it all together but then, through illness, job loss, a broken relationship, or some other storm suddenly finds himself vulnerable and desperate?

Or perhaps you’re the one who has endured so much challenge or adversity over time that, like the bleeding woman you haven’t much else to lose. Perhaps you are ready to dare to reach out, wondering if just maybe Jesus might be able to heal you.

     Maybe you find yourself the helpless one like Jairus’ daughter, utterly dependent on others to pray for you, to lift you up, to fight for you?

      Whichever you are, whoever you are, this gospel message is for you. God’s abundant love displayed on the cross will show you power that is stronger than death, and love that is stronger than any brokenness or ill.

     We believe in a God who heals, and keeps right on healing because our human nature leaves us vulnerable to illness and pain and loss. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we can learn to trust God’s “I love you,” and to hear God’s “I know you,” claims made manifest in Jesus Christ.

     It is in community that we ourselves can begin to become God’s vehicles of compassion, comfort and healing for others. Perhaps the two-for-one good news of this gospel is that whether you have a strong faith or whether you struggle to believe, or fall somewhere in the middle, God walks alongside you as Jesus walked along the sea, holding back the chaos, and through Jesus overcoming the powers of evil and sin. This gracious and generous God is transforming doubt into hope, hope into faith, and bringing healing to all. Thanks be to God.

The Search Is On

Mark 1:29-39

          “Everyone is searching for you.”

And he answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 

          I was taken by those words from our gospel text today. “Everyone is searching for you.” Read another way, “They are seeking you.”

          What are you seeking today?

          What are the nebulous “they” searching for?

          The truth is that today, perhaps more than ever before, people are seeking, are searching – for something. Often that “something” is ill-defined and not even understood by the seeker. But still, there is “something”……

          Part of the human condition is that we are immersed in a lifelong search for that elusive “something” we might call it unconditional love and understanding, acceptance, mercy, or forgiveness when we fail; we seek belonging, and finally, peace and well-being.

                   We seek healing and we seek meaning in life. The simple truth is that even when we think that on our own we have found these things, we also find that they can be quickly stripped away, in the blink of an eye, with one illness or accident or other calamity, leaving us once again seeking healing for what ails us, or for a life that is fuller, more meaningful, essential.

          “They are seeking you.”

          Meet Patricia; I met her while I was serving as chaplain intern in a large hospital the summer between my first and second years of seminary. She was a patient admitted to one of the hospital units I covered.

          Patricia was the wife of a Baptist minister and she served alongside her husband in all manner of ministry in their church. She led women’s groups, organized activities and functions of the church, she taught bible studies, and provided moral and spiritual support to the members of the congregation. She arranged for meals and even child care for members who were ill, recovering from surgeries or injuries, or in other kinds of practical need.

          Patricia prided herself on being the perfect homemaker, perfect pastor’s wife, perfect ministry partner, perfect sister and daughter, perfect friend. She lived to serve Jesus, to support her church and her loved ones in every way possible.

          Patricia was a very busy, very engaged and engaging person, seemingly living a life full of meaning and potential. I loved my visits with Patricia. She was kind and vivacious, upbeat and full of a faith she was more than willing to share and talk about – a rare thing these days. She really seemed to have it “going on.”

          I would often plan my visits with her so that they would come just before a break or at the end of my shift so that I could spend a little extra time with her.  We would sit and talk at length about all kinds of things; we had some great conversations.

           But as one week turned into two and then became three, with each passing day, Patricia was a little less upbeat, a bit less positive. Before long, she became withdrawn and one afternoon, I found her in tears she quickly tried to conceal.

          I found that aside from the normal concerns anyone would have about her medical condition, what wore at Patricia most, what, in short order had robbed her of her joy and optimism and shaken her confidence and her sense of hope, was the impact her illness would have on her ability to be all that she needed to be for her family and her community.

          Already, the isolation of illness was wearing on her. People often tend to shrink away from pain, illness, from what they do not understand – something Patricia was already experiencing. And Patricia knew that she would be unable, at least for a while, to serve the church and its members in the ways she always had.

          Unable to care for others as she was accustomed to, and physically separated from her community, Patricia felt alone, discouraged, and disillusioned as she began to question her identity and her worth, and ultimately, why this was happening to her at all.

          Here was this woman of faith, this woman who knew Jesus, and suddenly, it was as if this illness had loosed her mooring. Where was God in all of this she wondered?

          Patricia began searching for answers to a question that plagues many of us in times like these. “Why?” “Why me?” “Why this?” “Why now?”

They said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”

In many ways, Patricia’s example illustrates for us the “dynamic of difference” that often occur when, due to illness, injury, disability or any other kind of affliction, one becomes isolated from community and disengaged from society. While this kind of removal from social structures still happens to many of us today, in the first century Palestine it was an especially burdensome and disabling function of illness. We can safely assume that Simon’s mother-in-law, whom we meet in the gospel text this morning had experienced this kind of isolation.

 In addition to the potentially grave, possibly fatal outcome of any fever or similar condition in Jesus’ time, illness bore a heavy social cost, as the afflicted one would be unable to carry on his or her normal everyday duties.

 This would mean the inability to earn a living perhaps, or contribute to the well-being of the household. It also meant you would be unable to take your proper role in the community, to be honored as a valuable member of the household, town, or village, and would be kept in likely isolation from the same.

For Simon Peter's mother-in-law, for example, it was her role and her honor to show hospitality to guests in her home. Cut off from that role by an illness cut her off from doing that which integrated her into her world.

 Who was she when no longer able to engage in her calling? Here was a woman in need of healing, something to restore her to life as she knew it. Then, Jesus entered in. With the touch of his hand, Jesus restored not only her physical health, but also and perhaps even more importantly, he restored her to her social world and brought her back to a life of value when he freed her from that fever. Healing is as much about restoration to community and restoration of a calling, a role, as it is about the as restoration to life. For life without community and calling is bleak indeed. 

If you have ever been laid low for weeks at a time by the flu, shingles, or by surgery or other illness, you may identify with the disorientation and depression of being outside of community or work, or whatever the “norm” for you might be. You might know what Patricia or Simon Peter’s mother-in-law experienced; the isolation; the dehumanizing element that often accompanies illness and disease and the resulting rounds of treatment; the loss of trust and confidence in the fidelity of your own body.

          Sadly, there are many in our community and in our world who suffer afflictions not as easily identified and far more isolating and dehumanizing than those I just mentioned. Addiction, mental illness, longstanding or even permanent physical disability or disfigurement all create walls of separation and insecurity. Shame brought on by social circumstances, sin and failure similarly strip us from the life of community and belonging.

          Jesus’ proclamation of the good news of God’s kingdom of mercy, love, healing and salvation is welcome balm for all who seek, search, and long for what they cannot attain for themselves.

          “Everyone is searching for you.”

          If you know or can identify with any of these, then perhaps you can also identify with, and can understand not only the search, but also the joy of simply being returned as a participant in the "ordinary" processes of community and societal structures.

          Jesus' ministry involves the restoration of those cut off from community to a full role in the community. Jesus’ ministry involves the promise and proclamation of more. Jesus’ proclamation includes the good news that God’s power to overcome the powers of the earth, is indicative of his power to bring healing and wholeness to all who suffer under the power of any of the forces that diminish human life.

          Right out of the box, the gospel of Mark identifies Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is a gospel that urgently wants to share this good news. It is as if the gospel writer takes his cue from the prophet Isaiah, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?”

          We have seen Jesus drive out the evil spirits from a possessed man, teach with new authority and conviction and call into discipleship those who would follow him. We have seen, at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry how God, through Jesus, restores the afflicted, and gives strength to the weary. Jesus gives not only new meaning but new life to those who follow him.

          “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary…He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.”

          We  confess a God who loved us even when we were dead in sin, even when we are afflicted by disease, even when we are possessed by unclean spirits, think unclean thoughts, and demonstrate unclean actions. We proclaim the good news of a God who heals and sets free those oppressed by any of the powers of earth which threaten to overcome us. Neither sin, nor addiction, joblessness, homelessness, alien status, illness, isolation, depression, nor doubt or hopelessness, nor divorce, nor any other manner of affliction have power to keep us from the love of God.

          This, my friends, is good news that we can share.  And the best news of all is that our search is over. The good news is that the one whom we seek has already “found” us. God has searched us out, God has “found” us, and God has sent the Holy One, Jesus Christ, to bring us the healing we so desperately need. In Christ, God heals and sets free all those oppressed, restoring us for valuable service and mission in his name.

          Thanks be to God!

Amen.

         

           

         

           

           

         

                    

           

           

         

         

          

The Heart Condition

Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Readings: Joel 2:1-2,12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 

You may not be able to tell this by looking at me, but the truth of the matter is, I have a heart condition. It’s a serious condition, though there is not cardiologist in the world who can do a whit about it. There is no surgeon who has the skill to open up my heart and fix what is broken.

The fact of the matter is, I’ve never even seen a doctor about my heart condition. I know that there is nothing that any one of them can do despite all the medical knowledge amassed over the centuries; there is no research that has come up with a cure, nor could there ever be; and the development of ever-more delicate and intricate procedures, medications and treatments to correct the imperfections of our bodies fail to produce an answer to what ails me.

In a sense, my condition is hereditary and here’s the clincher – I’m afraid that I share this condition with all of you. We’ve all inherited the same heart condition, along with our DNA and all that goes into making us who we are. It is congenital; we were each born with it. As members of a fallen race, there is nothing that our mothers could have done to have prevented it. Here we are, each one of us suffering from the same condition, each with our own set of symptoms and maladies that go along with it. And as I’m sure you’ve surmised by now, this condition is closely related to, in fact is caused by that thing that is undeniably a part of who we are - sin.

Here at the beginning of this season of Lent, it occurs to me that much of the work of Lent is truly about the heart. Our lessons today would certainly lead us to believe that this is true. In them we read words like, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,” and, “Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart,” and, “rend your hearts not your clothing,” then finally, in the gospel text from Matthew, we are left with these final words, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So if Lent is a lot about heart, what do we do about this heart condition of ours?

We often talk about Lent being a journey; after all, we are describing something that isn’t over in a flash but takes more than forty long days to unfold. Yet for most of us, it’s not really our journey, but Christ’s journey that we are after. After all it is Jesus who is on his way to Jerusalem. It is Jesus who is literally and figuratively following a road that will lead him to his passion and his death. We are less travelers along this journey with Jesus than we are spectators, bystanders lined up along the roadside, observing the events taking place and marking the signposts along the way.

Those signposts include the gospel images of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, and his encounter with Nicodemus and later, with the Samaritan woman at the well. During Lent we hear from our gospel texts about the man who was born blind and was healed by Christ, and about Lazarus being raised from the dead. Then, finally we arrive at the gates of Jerusalem where Jesus is met by a jubilant crowd bearing royal banners in his honor and waving palm branches in exultation, followed in short order by Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, his being handed over to the authorities under whose watch he will suffer his passion and death.

So, with all of this happening to Jesus, how do we enter this Lenten journey? And why would we even want to? What might we hope to take away from this holy season? How does Jesus’ journey become our journey?

I think the answers to all of these questions lead us back to our heart condition and to these impossibly broken hearts and the sin that we cling to. I think we come looking for a cure. We look for the reassurance that our heart condition will not be fatal. We seek ways to closer union with God, so that our hearts might be created anew and strengthened. My friends, we come to this journey because we desperately need our hearts to be healed and we know deep down inside that our only hope for these diseased, corrupted, and faulty hearts of ours is to be found through Jesus, most powerfully at the foot of his cross.

In Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, a church in conflict with itself, suffering divisions and distractions to the mission of the church, with many of the members at odds with each other and many under the influence of false apostles, Paul talks about the reconciliation of relationships.  Paul makes it clear that it is through the cross, that God’s reconciling sacrifice and God’s love bring a cross-shaped reality to the disciples of Christ. It is God’s healing work on the cross that makes it possible for us to be reconciled and healed in two directions – healed in relationship with God, and healed in relationship with one another. It is through this reconciliation with God that God is able to take our hearts that have been torn apart by sin and brokenness, and create them anew…making possible reconciliation with others and restoring the relationships that reflect the love of God and the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

Disciples of Christ, living out the reality of the cross in daily life and ministry, live with a new reality – that God’s reconciling, loving embrace of us, with all of our raw edges and imperfections, with these heart conditions that rule our lives and our interactions, is not only able to change us but save us and bring us to new life. And God uses the cross to do it. Christ invites us into ministry and life shaped by that very same cross.

Our Lenten journey, not surprisingly is also shaped by the cross of Christ, not only on Good Friday but every day; … it’s why the ashes we mark today are in the sign of a cross. While Paul describes reconciliation that is cruciform – it will include the work of opening our hearts to and for God, and opening our lives and hearts to and for one another. It is only through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that this kind of reconciliation and new life is possible. 

Opening hearts to God comes in many different forms – Lenten practices like fasting, praying, exercising patience and compassion and generosity through almsgiving all draw us into the Lenten journey, drawing us closer to God. The reality is that although spiritual practices are needed in order for us to distance ourselves from all that distracts and divides us, it is God who makes all this possible.

Like the people in the encounters with Jesus that we will witness through the biblical texts in the coming weeks, our own encounters with Jesus will be transformative.  God’s heart-work of changing lives, forgiving sins, healing broken bodies and souls and raising the dead to new life, calls us to engage in this journey called Lent that we might experience God’s reconciling reality for all. Therefore, as we begin this season of Lent, let us rend our hearts to the great physician, engaging in those tried and true Christian practices that engage our body, mind, and spirit. And may the peace, love and reconciling grace of God be with you throughout these forty days.

Let us pray. O Lord our God, we come to you with hearts broken by sin. Have mercy on us O Lord, and through our journey with Christ this Lent bring us the healing and wholeness we so desperately need. Make our hearts clean and our spirits, focused on the cross, that our relationships with you and our neighbor might be restored for the sake of your kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.