St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

4 Pentecost; June 28, 2009

Mark 5:21-43

2 Corinthians 8:7-12

BRINGING JESUS WITH US

        The woman was probably very embarrassed. She had probably been very embarrassed for years – 12 in fact, since the day she had first contracted that hemorrhage.

        She had probably avoided her friends, because of her debilitating condition, and they had probably avoided her.

        Then it was probably more and more time spent alone, more and more time spent away from prying eyes, more and more time spent in isolation, away from people, away from embarrassment, away from everyone but the continuing round of physicians and their difficult operations, and their demands for more payment; until even that had dried out; and both the money and the hope was lost.

        Then she had heard about this teacher, this wonderful man, and she decides to go see him. Nothing else has worked.

        Nothing else has worked! She is not necessarily a woman of great faith. We don’t really know. But the fact is; she tried him last, after the money runs out.

        If all else fails, I’ll pray, right? Try the sacred action after the secular. Don’t we all do that?

        Well, yes. Jesus is used to it. Don’t worry about it – so long as we get to him.

        So long as we get to him – isn’t that’s what’s important? Jesus says: “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”

        Well, yes and no. Jesus made her well. His power going out from his body made her well; but she had to touch him. She had to come into his presence. She had to get to him.

        Finally, she did. Her faith, her trust, her desire to be healed by any means necessary, got her to get up, risk embarrassment, risk shame, risk publicity, and get into his presence.

        Even then she tried to do it secretly. She tried just “to touch the hem of his garment,” from the back, so no one would notice, so he wouldn’t notice; and then quietly steal away to her quiet room off by herself to see if it had worked.

        Not so fast.

        “Who touched my clothes?”
        “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”

        “He looked all around . . . to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling (wondering what he would do, perhaps), fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.”

        “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

        He wants to know – who we are. He wants to be at peace with us.

        Healing us is not enough for him. Giving us our heart’s desire is not enough for him.

        Fulfilling his heart’s desire is enough for him; and his heart’s desire is to know us and be with us. He wants a relationship, not anonymous healing. He wants disciples, not just needy people who show up and leave.

        Who are you? Who touched me? Daughter. Child. Son. Be at Peace. The Peace of the Lord be with us.

        Peace to the person in the sickness. Peace to the person in the storm. No one is excluded.

Welcome back to the community – the community of earth in the storm, old friends you haven’t seen for years in your community.

        Welcome back.

        Jesus is the one who comes to us first. Then Jesus is the one who invites us to come to him. Don’t be so shy, he seems to say. Others might reject us because of our condition. He doesn’t.

        Does unemployment or disease or disaster make us unclean in today’s society? It doesn’t to him. Does anything about us keep other people away from us – or us away from them? It doesn’t keep him away.

        We do, however, have to come into his presence, and let our desire propel us there, despite the embarrassment of being with others, or despite the embarrassment of not being able to do anything ourselves in our self sufficiency, the embarrassment of running out of money, out of time, out of patience, out of energy; the embarrassment of running out of friends, the embarrassment of having to turn to God for help.

        She doesn’t let embarrassment keep her away any more. She comes into his presence, at her wit’s end. It’s a new beginning.

        “Daughter.”

        Someone else has come up, looking for help; someone else, at his wit’s end: Jairus, the synagogue leader; Jairus, the father of a sick child. At this point he doesn’t care if he’s a synagogue leader, if he’s rich, important or powerful. He just knows he has a sick child. Nothing else matters. He may be rich, powerful and in control – but he’s not in control of this.

        He falls down before Jesus, and asks his help. He’s at his wit’s end too.

        Jesus responds too.

        He comes.

They get to Jairus’ house, after healing the woman. They are weeping and wailing outside because the girl has died. All hope is lost.

        Not lost – Jesus says. They go in.

        But first Jesus does something interesting. He takes some of us. That is to say, he takes some of the church. That is to say, he takes with him Peter and James and John.

        Why them? Why anyone? Do they just crowd in with him? Does he ask them? These are those special few, with Andrew, who go with him on the Mount of Transfiguration. They are the special few whom he asks, he asks, to stay awake with him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

        He expects something of us. He wants something of us – the friendship with the woman; the 12 disciples whom he calls out and invites to follow him; Peter, James and John.

        Does he want their support? Does their presence make it easier for him to operate? Does their friendship hold him up in some way? At least he’s not so shy, perhaps; all by himself. Who knows?

        He goes in the house. People who think the child is dead laugh at him. Often people don’t believe us, don’t share our faith. No matter. Let them laugh. It doesn’t seem to hinder Jesus or his work at all.

        “Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.”

        So they’re all crowded into that little sick room, the child on the bed in the corner, Jairus and his wife looking sad and desperate, and Peter, James and John, looking not entirely sure why they’re there, a little embarrassed at having barged in or having been brought in by Jesus, trying to make themselves useful or standing awkwardly in different parts of the room, trying to be out of the way.

        “He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up.”

        Isn’t that a wonderful statement, a wonderful, domestic statement; not: “By the power of God, I command you, get up” –or something grand like that. We’d expect that from Disney but not, apparently, from Jesus.

        It’s like in the storm, he said to the wind and the waves “Peace, be still;” not, ‘I command you,’ whatever.

        “Little girl, get up.”

        And she got up.

        And she didn’t say – ‘Oh my Lord and my God, I worship thee’ – or anything we would write into this scenario where we meet God, our life giver.

        “The little girl got up, and began to walk about.” She’d been in bed for days, so she was ready to stretch. Maybe she toddled across the room and sat in her mother’s lap. I don’t know.

        Then “they were all overcome by amazement,” but Jesus is ever practical, ever human, and says – “give her something to eat.”

        Worship and amazement and conversion to Christ and his power is all very well – but give her something to eat.

        Then we leave this scene of domestic bliss; the family, restored to itself, restored to the larger community; the little girl toddling around and the family eating.

        Jesus has restored the girl to her family and her family to her – all around the idea of food and walking around and an informal disregard for the magnificence of God and his work.

        Jesus has restored the hemorrhaged woman to her friends.

        He did it because he does not fear to come near an unclean person, a social outcast. He did it because he did not fear to help the most important or the least important. He just comes to us, and waits . . . for us to come to him, when we’ve mustered the faith to do it, even if it takes a long time, even if everyone else laughs.

        Then it turns out he needs some help, some friends, to go with him, even if we feel awkward. That would be us, the church.

        Unfortunately in this day and age he does not walk in the flesh, and power does not come forth from his body, but he still comes, he is still present with these friends, with us – and he comes with us still, to the clean and the unclean, the powerful and the powerless. He goes with us still to fill each of these rooms and each of these relationships with his divine love.

        We may be the woman, or Jairus, or the daughter. We still become a part of his community, and we still carry his presence to others – if we’re willing to be called out of the crowd. “Who touched me?” “Daughter.” Peter, James and John. You. Come too.

Jesus is still with us – and with that sick person we’re visiting, that poor person we’re feeding, that powerless person we’re helping.

        He’s been with us before as a church, a few years ago, when we wanted to help a family evacuated from Hurricane Katrina – and we did.

        We wanted to open an apartment – and we did.

        We wanted a family to come – and they did, and many people let their love turn to action, and helped them get settled and get on their feet and move on.

        Something happened one night, when they had been here about 2 weeks. I got a call at home. Idella – the mom – needed to get to choir, but couldn’t.

        They had gone to KFC to get takeout and had gotten all the way home and Idella was about to go to choir; but they had left the macaroni and cheese for Drew – the child – behind.

        Drew had been depending on it. She was just 5. She had lost her home in a hurricane. She was far from friends and family. She needed her macaroni and cheese. She was having a meltdown.

        Idella called me to settle her down. I’m sure she thought that maybe the priest would say the right things about how God and this church loved her.

        I quickly decided it would be far more effective, and quicker, to go to KFC and pick up the macaroni and cheese.

        I did. She felt a whole lot better. The macaroni and cheese, as it were, spoke volumes to her, about how she was loved and cared for, and that she would get through.

        She did.

        Jesus is interested in human beings. Why work miracles and intone words of heavenly help when human things and human people will do. Food and friends, whether we’re sick or well, rich or poor; that is what we need. That is beyond any sickness or health. That is what Jesus brought. That is what Jesus brings. That is how Jesus comes. That is whom Jesus sends – Peter, James, John, all of us – to others.