Sermon: What Happened to You?

Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)         

What Happened to You?
Psalm 130
Mark 5:21-43

July 1, 2012  

It’s dangerous to start a sermon with a disclaimer, but I like living on the edge…so I wanted to say this morning that this is not the sermon that I expected it to be.  With all that happened this past week in the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, and the fact that these scriptures are about healing, and that Independence Day is this week, I assumed a different sermon would come out.  However, as I let the scriptures do their work in my soul I was moved to something a bit different – hopefully it is something that will speak a bit to your souls too.  If, when worship is done, you wanted to hear the other sermon perhaps we can talk.  In the meantime will you pray with me?

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our minds and hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, for you are our Strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

            If you hadn’t noticed in our society we tend to have a bit of an obsession with folks who have celebrity status, either as politicians, musicians, authors, actors, athletes and so on.  We have an entire industry that focuses on following these people, getting close to them, getting the best headline or headshot, and then feeding it to the rest of us.  It is because of that industry that we have watched OJ’s slow speed chase down the highway not once on the news but multiple times over the years, learned that Bill Clinton really did have relations with that woman, and John Edwards was equally guilty.  We now know that over the weekend 54-year-old Alec Baldwin married his 28-year-old girlfriend in a simple ceremony in Manhattan, and that power-pipes singer Adele is pregnant.  And that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes aren’t going to make it after all.  We have seen celebrities at their best and at their worst.  Perhaps the true test of who a celebrity really is though is in how they deal with interruptions and folks who just want one autograph or photo.  And as I mentioned this can become a bit of an obsession, dangerous even at times.  All you have to do is speak with the guy who shot John Lennon to realize that we “normal” folk sometimes get too far over the line when it comes to our famous friends.  But when someone gets close to a celebrity we tend to try to get the lowdown – how was it?  What happened?  What was he like?  Gotta’ love those soundbytes.  That’s where we tend to learn a lot of the things that happen between the lines though, whether they are true or not, where we get an inside glimpse into the lives of people we “want” to know about. 

            That is what makes the scripture readings for today so fascinating to me too.  There is a lot going on in between the lines of the text to folks who are openly trying to advocate for themselves in the face of their own celebrity of the time, even folks who find a voice in a time when they wouldn’t normally have been granted one.  There’s more to these scriptures than meets the eye.  Although the basics, the most visible aspects are pretty impressive on their own – salvation from distress, healing from a seemingly chronic illness, conquering death – it is the who, when, where, what and how of these stories – the post- interaction interview, the background that speaks even lengthier volumes about God, about Jesus, about how he dealt with interruptions in his life, and about who matters.

            The first person we heard from today is the Psalmist.  The Psalmist was suffering from some ailment or trouble.  We never hear the official problem.  What we do come to know is that the Psalmist is a person of faith, someone who had a relationship with God, someone who was willing to appeal to the mercy (and therefore forgiveness) that he had come to know as a part of God’s nature.  I get the sense if someone had asked the Psalmist “What happened to you?”  he would have said, “I felt alone, awful.  I had been in a state of utter distress, but then…then I remembered my God, the God of Israel, and my hope was rekindled.  I was set to praying – asking for mercy and forgiveness and suggesting to my nation, my beloved people that they do the same.”  No details are really necessary, what we do get from the words of the Psalm is the sense of a deep seated belief in God who will not allow distress to have the last word.

            When we then enter into the narrative in the gospel of Mark, as Jesus crosses back over the Sea of Galilee to return to familiar territory, we meet up with three other folks whose own stories scream at us about who God is and how God can change lives and hearts.

            The first of these folks is Jairus.  Now Jairus is a really interesting character for a few reasons.  On the surface, with our context in our minds, what we might read into his story is that he is a worried and loving father.  We totally get that, because that is how we understand parents would and should react and relate in a situation such as this one.  If you or I had a child who was gravely ill we certainly would appeal to God and any other forces to help make them well again.  However, that was not really the context of that day and age.  We have to remember that this was in a time before modern scientific advances.  One article I read about the connection between faith and healing for this week reminded me that it was generally acceptable for parents to not get too attached to their children before the modern era because infant and child mortality rates were higher.  If one got too attached they may end up with a broken heart – and, even worse, before the age of birth control, multiple cracks in that broken heart.  And in ancient Israel girl children were also not deemed as important as boys – those who could carry on the blood line, especially for the powerful people in society, which we get the sense from the text that Jairus was.  So just for those reasons we realize that Jairus’s case is an interesting one.  Add to it the fact that he was a leader in the synagogue – that he and his friends may have been those who were initially against Jesus’ teachings, as they often times challenged the traditions and laws of the time, and you get an even more interesting story.  I think Jairus used that power, the power of being a respected leader to push his way through the huddled masses to get an up close and personal conversation with Jesus.  And when he does, something even more out of the ordinary happens – he throws himself down on the ground in front of this traveling preacher-healer-teacher person, and he begs.  I imagine someone asking Jairus, “What happened to you?  What were you thinking?”  And I hopefully envision Jairus saying, “I couldn’t take it any more.  I couldn’t watch her suffer.  I had nowhere else to turn, nothing else to do.  I had to humble myself and appeal to the only thing left – my hope and faith…and so I turned to him, to Jesus, to the one who challenges my tradition but whose power I have heard about in action.  It was a last resort, but I had to do something….I couldn’t let her die without a fight.”  Jairus initially turned to Jesus because he was desperate, but when the folks come to announce that his daughter had died before they made it back to his home, he had to appeal to his faith – perhaps a new found and different faith from that he espoused at the synagogue, but his faith all the same.  In those moments Jesus preached a very short and challenging sermon, “Do not fear.  Only believe.”  Jairus listened and followed. 

            Which brings us to Jairus’s daughter, the nameless young woman – after all at 12 years old she was about ready to marry and bear children of her own.  In her house surrounding her that day were not only her family but the professional mourners who were often times called to be at the site where someone was dying.  As one translation puts it they were the “gossips looking for a story, and the neighbors bringing casseroles,” as tends to be our custom.  Certainly we have run into the gossips at times like these, or been the folks who work to ply those in need with good food when we aren’t sure of what else to do.  So whether this girl was truly dead and dying or, as some commentators would have it, was ill enough to be unconscious or perhaps comatose, she was in need of a miracle.  Because she appeared dead no one would even have touched her because they would have been made unclean.  So perhaps at the time when she needed love, care, and some contact the most people retreated and began to mourn.  That was the scene when Jesus arrived.  He refused to believe that she was dead, and the professionals refused to believe him or believe in him.  So they ridiculed him.  And perhaps because of their ridicule they were left out of the part of the story that happens next.  Jesus goes into the house, bringing with him only the girl’s parents and three of his trusted companions, and provokes the girl to rise.  “Little girl, get up.”  And when she does, they are overcome with amazement!  Wouldn’t you be?  So when I envision someone asking the girl “What happened to you?  What was going on inside your head?” I imagine her saying, “I was on my way to meet my maker when I heard a voice calling me back, calling me to rise and be well.  I fought the forces of death and made my way back to that voice, back to my family.  And, you know what else?  When I did, that voice – that man – continued to care for me.  He called on people to me to feed me and care for me, to be sure that I was returned to health.  He showed me the face of compassion.  He told us not to tell anyone of what had happened…but how could you not tell of kindness, healing, compassion, and sacrifice – certainly I was not the only who had needs to be fulfilled that day, including himself, and yet he made me a priority in those moments.”

            When it comes to the final major player I wonder what people like Jairus had to be thinking, because she was the one who interrupted Jesus on the way to heal his daughter.  The woman who had been plagued with bleeding for 12 years, might possibly have cost his daughter her life in the face of anyone less powerful than God.  The woman, instead of fighting for anyone else, was appealing to Jesus for herself.  She was coming to him to be healed herself.  She had tried everything else.  She had worked for years with doctors only to get worse.  She had exhausted all of her resources.  And at that point, after 12 years of bleeding she certainly would have been an outcast – ritually unclean and, much like the young girl on her deathbed, would have made anyone she touched ritually unclean as well.  For both of those reasons I think the woman tried to get to Jesus in a way that would go unnoticed.  She was sneaky at worst and deeply faithful at best.  She believed that if she could but touch Jesus’s clothes she would be made well.  And so she wrestled her way through the crowd, for once not worrying about who she touched and what the ramifications would be, and she fought for herself.  So when I envision someone asking her “What happened to you?” I imagine her saying, “I couldn’t do it anymore.  What kind of life was I living?  I was as good as dead.  No one would even come near me, let alone touch me.  I had to do something, and this was my chance.  So I pushed my way through the crowd just to touch the edge of his cloak.  He knew.  He knew that something had happened.  I immediately felt well, and he knew that I had taken something from him.  He could have been so angry.  He could have turned around and struck me down.  Instead he asked with true curiosity who it was that had touched him.  I didn’t feel afraid.  I felt like it was a moment that I was called to step up and answer.  So I did.  And do you know what happened?  He didn’t get angry or try to send me away or consider himself, or me, or anyone else unclean because of me.  Instead he looked at me with love and compassion and said, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.’  And in peace I went….for the first time in 12 years I was able to find peace.  I was able to be near people and to build relationships with people.  For the first time in 12 years people would touch me and I could be me again.”

            Through all that we can read in between the lines of these stories, in the inner monologues of these folks perhaps, we are reminded of some of the most important and foundational characteristics of our God.  We are reminded through the words of the Psalmist that God is merciful and forgiving, allowing hope & peace, not distress, to have the final word.  We learn through the actions of Jairus that humility is sometimes a good thing in the face of our own circumstances and our God, and that God challenges us at times and calms our fears at others.  We learn through the story of the young girl that God is compassionate and caring.  And we learn through the story of the woman that God wants to know who we are and wants us to be in relationship both with God and with one another. 

            When I read these stories I read into the lives and words and actions of these folks prayers.  And haven’t we prayed these prayers before?  Haven’t we appealed to God for forgiveness, for healing – either for ourselves or for someone we love?  Haven’t we looked to God to provide us with one particular answer to prayer like the woman and gotten something else in return, like a reminder about how important it is to be open and surrounded by other folks who can walk the journey with us.

            These stories challenge some of our modern day sensibilities.  After all, we often find ourselves praying one thing to God, and the answer sometimes comes in the form we wish but other times doesn’t, which can sometimes be challenging and painful.  We live in a society where we do have scientific advances, where we are blessed to have the best when it comes to doctors and hospitals here in the United States.  We live in a society where we can fix a lot – where we can cure a lot of things.  I would argue, as I learned during my hospital chaplaincy internship, though, that there is a difference between being cured and being healed.  Healing can take place on all sorts of levels, whether cures happen or not.  All you have to do is sit at the bedside of someone terminally ill but who is deeply faithful to understand that sometimes God works in people’s lives in different ways – bringing them comfort, peace, healing in mind and spirit, and strengthening the love and faith of those around them.  Ideally we get the happy endings that are written about in these stories today, but inevitably, if we are but open and willing, we get reminded about the love and mercy and compassion and peace of our God.  We get reminded that we are not alone, that others are here to care about us and support us – whether in person or on the phone or via Facebook.

            So when I envision people asking me some day, “What happened to you?”  I imagine two different answers.  I could say, “I left God behind in church on Sunday morning.  I couldn’t possibly believe that my faith mattered when it came to the other parts of my life, like my own health, or how I dealt with daily interruptions.”  Or I could say, “I brought God out with me into the world.  I traveled with God on my journey – and it got me into some challenging situations but some life giving ones as well.  I used my gifts to serve God.  I appealed to God for the things I wanted but opened myself up to the things God knew I needed.  I built relationships based on my faith and on the belief that my God loves me, forgives me, and offers me more than I can imagine.  I tried my hardest to do God’s will – not just in church but in my life as well.”  My hope is that we all might be able to answer like that second one.  That, even when the times are tough, and we can’t quite understand what is happening, that we might hold fast to our faith and do our best to remember that we are not God – but that we have a God who loves us and offers us far more than we might deserve or imagine.  Amen.