Life Happens

Lisa Rzepka, July 2, 2006
Scripture: Mark 5:21-43

	Text: "But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, 'Do not fear, only believe.' " (Mark 5:36)

For many of us, in our fast paced, get-it-done world, there is nothing more frustrating than interruptions. Like, when we are heading out the door and the telephone suddenly starts to ring or an unexpected visitor shows up ringing your doorbell. The interruption that sets me into a panic is when I'm driving somewhere, and I come upon a sign that says "Detour Ahead." Although, my husband John tells me that a GPS (global positioning system) takes care of that.

Almost every day we come upon interruptions and other events that we had not anticipated. If you are a type of person like I am, those interruptions can be very stressful, because usually I have a plan about what I want to accomplish. I have a certain time I like to work on sermons, a certain time to do pastoral visits, a certain time for meetings, and so on. So when something unexpected comes up, that causes me some stress. So if you know you are going to have a personal crisis and need my help, Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday mornings usually are the least stressful for me. I really appreciate your cooperation.

I'm reminded of the summer I had a plan for a youth retreat in Montreat, NC. The plan was that once we arrived in Montreat we'd be interacting with literally hundreds of young and older adults in time spent sharing faith stories and worshipping. I'd also spend time reading, sitting on the porch of the Glenrock Inn, and generally watching the world of Black Mountain go by—it was going to be great getting away! Now, on this adventure with me were four chaperones and ten young people.

As a backdrop, let me remind you how interest for youth retreats is generated: Some retreats, like Confirmation, are a requirement. Not much choice about signing up. But, for the more optional retreats the sign ups follow a pattern. There are the ambitious, active types willing to try something new, so they readily sign up. Then there are the types who are a little reluctant but they heard from their friends what a great time was had last year, so they also eagerly sign up. Then there are the types who, for one reason or another, have parent that decide it would be 'good for the son or daughter' and they send a somewhat reluctant youth along.

With that said, arrival day at Montreat seemed to go well. We left with 15 people, we arrive with fifteen. Keys are located, rooms assigned, everyone fed, dutifully participated in get to know you games, everything appears to be on an even keel…but there's that one guy, Alex. He seems to be alone - a lot. We adults are trying to keep him engaged but he's sullen. He spends most of his time in his room drawing.

The next morning a couple of the other youth overhear him on the phone saying, "I hate this place! I'm in hell!" If this elicited sympathy from the two who overheard Alex…greater was their fear of Alex's temperament and demeanor. As one teen hurried off to participate in morning worship she told her mom what she had overheard. The mom reasoned that our days at Montreat were pretty full with activities and maybe all Alex needed was interaction with a different group of kids. No such luck. By the end of the day we had an all out crisis on our hands. Alex was desperate and the entire group was miserable. Life happens even when you have a plan!

Our morning Scripture reading might appear on the surface to involve interruptions, it is really desperation that permeates every movement of the story. It's a story of two very different yet desperate people, whose stories bump and touch one another; a desperate father with a terminally ill daughter and a desperate woman with a chronic illness. Both individuals approach Jesus in alarming, boundary crossing ways. As these stories cross one another we catch a deeper glimpse into the power of God.

Take a look at Jairus, a religious leader, a Jewish religious leader, an important Jewish leader. We know this, in part, because he's the only person named in all of chapter five of Mark's gospel. What's remarkable about Jairus is that his religious colleagues have been spinning feverishly to diffuse Jesus' popularity - since he's the hottest ticket in town. They're commenting, "He's from Nazareth, you know…questionable birth…the father hasn't been heard from since he was twelve…where'd he go to seminary anyway…" And yet, this major player in the religious community falls at Jesus' feet and begs him - repeatedly - to come and lay hands on his little girl - touch her so that she may be made well and live. Many of you, if not all of you, have loved that deeply and probably can sense the kind of desperation that father felt at the prospect of losing someone so dearly loved.

Jesus, of course, follows Jairus. The One who calls people to follow him follows the desperate soul and sets on his way to spare the young girl from an untimely death. But along the way desperation reaches out to him again; this time an anonymous woman, with an issue of blood - hemorrhages. That's how commentators refer to it, an issue which lasts 12 years. Imagine 12 years - that's 4,380 days in a row of a nonstop flow of blood - what we would delicately call "female problems". Even in our no-holds-barred twenty-first century culture, if you tell folks you have 'female problems,' it's enough said, no further questions! Around our house, five days is enough!! (Liz Curtis Higgs, Really Bad Girls of the Bible: More Lessons from Less Than Perfect Women, 2000, p. 239)

Female problems aside, the older you are the more you might be able to step into this woman's shoes - and her lack of success with her physicians. Many have either experienced or witnessed that, often, as the years go by, the list of ailments expands and the ability to cure decreases. As one man in his seventies put it, "After a certain age, you never really get well - just less sick." (Pheme Perkins, "Mark", NIB, Vol. VIII, p. 590)

Notable is that two thousand years ago a woman suffered in silence - and shame - for bleeding made you unclean and a social outcast; a dozen years of no houseguests, no public events, no potlucks; a dozen years of no husband, no children, no visits from family; a dozen years of never being touched by anyone. Ever.

Touch - we now know the importance of touch in one's life for health and wholeness. We know that babies fail to thrive without touch. We know that those who have recently lost a spouse are at greater risk health decline due in part to a reduction in touch. We know that for people who live alone that the touch of a beloved pet is very important. We know that touch heals.

Jairus and the anonymous woman were kindred spirits in their desperate need for Jesus' touch. Each in their own way risked social boundaries in their approach to the One they believed could turn things around for them. They remind me of Alex, the youth I spoke of before, who also risked - risked crossing a social boundary in the hope that things might be different this time. You see, despair knows no boundaries. It crosses all social categories: age, status, gender, ethnic - it is the great leveler - and it drops us to our knees. Down on our knees we encounter a defining moment in our despair - a time when we can become bitter or better. It's this idea of which Ernest Hemingway poignantly wrote, "Sooner or later, life breaks us all, but many become stronger in the broken places." (Pulpit Resource, Vol. 34, No. 3, p. 7) This morning we hear stories about the One who has the power to make us stronger.

At this point I think it's important to acknowledge that there are so many questions this passage raises. Questions like: If my faith is strong enough will I be healed? Can faith really produce a miracle that reverses death? Whose faith is important, the individual needing healing or is the faith of someone else involved? Am I the healer or the one in need of healing? And, some of you might be wondering, as I did, why are we reading this on the 4th of July weekend?

Writer and theologian Frederick Buechner asks an important question, "What kind of story is this? If the little girl had actually died the way people in the house believed she had, then it is a story of a miracle as dazzling as the raising of Lazarus and bears witness to the power Jesus had over even the last and darkest power of all. If she was only sleeping as Jesus had said - in a coma or whatever he meant - then it is a story about a healing, about the power of Jesus to make the lame walk and the blind see. It's about a foretaste into the kingdom of God. Either way it is a story of a miracle…but it's a story that doesn't end with an exclamation point the way you might expect, but with a question mark or at most with the three little dots that means unresolved, to be continued, to figure out for ourselves somehow." (Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, 2006, 277)

This is a story so rich with meaning we could talk for at least an hour --but I know that's not what in the plan - at least not at this time. But, for the next couple of minutes I want to share with you what I have sorted out so far about this story. As I share some thoughts with you I'll close the chapter on the story of Alex. At an impromptu gathering of the youth, they began were filling me in on how Alex was behaving and how he was ruining everyone's trip. I began thinking about Biblical healing stories. I remembered that depending on the translation of the Bible, healing can involve illness, disease, or suffering. In fact, in today's passage the woman's disease has often been translated as illness, affliction, or suffering. Think about Jesus telling you "your faith has ended your suffering" or "your faith has ended your affliction." It connotes that something more than just the physical has been healed.

I believed Alex was suffering. Now there were probably many things that contributed to Alex's challenges, all of which we weren't going to reverse, but I asked the kids if they thought they could contribute to his healing. Imagine what would happen if instead of politely walking by and only saying hello to him, you asked him to sit with you at breakfast. Or, you played some pick up basketball or walked with him to worship? They agreed to give it a try. And as you probably guessed, a bit of transformation took place, and then, it gained momentum making it a transformational trip for us all. I believe that we are both healers and in need of healing. When we are healers we are the hands of the risen Christ and yet, in our humanity every one of us is need of some sort of healing.

When my mother was in the hospital with a terminal illness I remember a time when a nurse found out I was a seminarian. With a look of concern she said to me, "Please don't pressure your mother about her faith. It can be detrimental to her care." If we look around, there are still people who suffer and die under the weight of cancer, quadriplegics who still can't walk or move their arms, babies in third world countries dying of AIDS. Do they not have enough faith? We are on shaky ground when we simply tell people to have faith.

Now before I step over the line of heresy, let me say that I do believe in the power of God in Christ to perform miracles. I believe that I have experienced miracles first hand and I have heard many miracle accounts. Yet, I also believe that we need to expand our concept of healing -- as well as differentiating healing from curing. We often think of cures as the reversal of a disease or illness; complete recovery. Have you ever noticed, most alcoholics don't refer to themselves as 'cured.' They usually refer to themselves as 'recovering,' being healed.

Often miracles and cures lead us toward the conception of healing as the reversal of natural laws. Healing is not necessarily the reversal of nature. Instead I like to think of healing as an art. Jesus says to the woman, "Your faith has made you well." This phrase has also been rendered, "Your faith has healed you." The Greek root of the word healed is also the root word for salvation and wholeness. Being made well and being healed involves restoration of a peaceful spirit; it is restoring the fullness of life in relationships, confidence of spirit and being brought into closer relationship with the God who designs wholeness for all creation.

Healing eludes us, however, at every level of the personal and the political spectrum (Joan Chittister, There is a Season, 1995, p. 48) People die and we ache. Old hurts hang around like ghosts. Our world erupts in sores of violence and brutality while we watch our television screens, helpless to what we see. Inside we feel the pain but on the outside we go numb. In Ecclesiastes we're told there is a time to heal. But how? According to Benedictine sister Joan Chittister, "Healing depends on our own resolve to go out of our way to do what we would not, under any circumstances, choose to do (Joan Chittister, There is a Season, 1995, p. 49). Healing requires that we reach out, not necessarily to those who have hurt us, but at least to something that gives us new life, new hope, a peaceful spirit.

The message of I take from our gospel reading this morning is that in reaching out to God, whom we know in Christ, we are reaching to be healed - made well - saved - to live in the moment, in the fullness of life together. In that fullness there is freedom, true freedom to be who God intends for us to be.

There is so much to despair in our world, and we can become either bitter or better when life happens. In the core of my being, I know that when I've been most desperate and in despair and ready to give up, when a situation or a relationship has seemed hopeless, I've turned to God. God has never failed to heal in ways I never expected. Amen

© Copyright, 2006, Rev. Lisa Rzepka
All Rights Reserved.
Providence Presbyterian Church
Fairfax, Virginia