Push your way through . . .

 It is in the time of darkness and trial

                        when the purpose and meaning in life are tested

            that we find our spiritual grounding and discover faith.

 

The Gospel reading for today is about such a crisis moment

            for a family suffering for 12 long years of brokenness and grief.

I am going to tell you something today about this story

            that you probably haven’t heard before.

It may or may not be true,

            but I think it is not only probable, but implicit in the passage.

 

First, Jesus, as the Gospels give witness about him, was in his earthly life 

            a most powerful spiritual master,

and now in the Resurrection he is even more powerful for us

                        who have been baptized into his death and resurrection

                        and have been filled with his Spirit.

 

But we often miss that because we are just too ignorant 

                        in this western, post modern, highly secular culture 

            to know what to look for or how to name our spiritual experiences.

 

Today’s Gospel story is about a crisis moment;

            it’s a familiar story: Jairus, leader of the local synagogue,

                        has come to Jesus and is asking – begging – 

                        for Jesus to come heal his daughter,

            and the story within the story:

                        the woman in the crowd who touches Jesus’ robe, sleeve,  his clothing.

 

In this Gospel story

            this huge spiritual Presence of Jesus is already drawing the woman

                        and she is trying to make it through the thick crowd.

But how to get near enough to him…

She must have been both bold and stealthy, 

hiding her face so as not to be recognized 

in the close and jostling crowd, 

since if she were detected what an outcry there would be 

among all those who would be wondering 

how many of them she had touched and made unclean

by pushing her way through the crowd to Jesus.

But in a sense, the way is opened for her.

                                                The way is opened for her.

                        Such mercy and love from our Lord…

 

Then Jesus calls attention to her, affirming both her healing and her faith.

“Your faith has saved you.”  “Your faith has healed you,”

            The Greek word here is the same for saved and healed.

 

What is not obvious in the English translation 

and has been often overlooked by the translators 

is the implicit connection 

between the woman who had the flow of blood for 12 years 

and the 12 year-old girl.

Didn’t you ever wonder why the text made a point 

of mentioning the 12 years?

And in these necessarily brief and sparse ancient documents 

every little word is there on purpose.

 

The woman is quite possibly the girl’s mother.

And the word for woman and wife being one and the same in Greek, 

this shifts the whole way in which we can look at this story.

 

This story appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels, 

                        Matthew, Mark and Luke,

            and the three accounts are very similar.

 

In fact, they concur on all the important points that support what I am saying,

            that this woman was the child’s mother.

Again the Greek is clearer than the English translation

            because of syntax as well as vocabulary.

 

Now this becomes a story about Jesus healing, restoring and reconciling a family.

And this has application for us even in this contemporary setting,

in which this woman’s flow of blood – a post partum hemorrhaging –

could have been readily handled medically today as opposed to then;

a story about Jesus healing, restoring and reconciling a family 

            that it still has application for us as a parish family 

as we relate with one another.

 

First to understand why the mother of the dying child 

was sneaking up behind Jesus to touch him, 

and why she was so afraid of detection, 

why she was acting in this way, 

recall the significance of blood in that time and culture.

 

There were a lot of laws around matters involving blood,

and they had to do with ritual purity.  

Women who were menstruating were “excused” from social contact 

so as not to make others ritually unclean, 

since merely the touch of a woman during that time of the month 

            was considered as polluting all that she touched.

 

And her husband, Jairus, was a leader of the synagogue,

            so this meant that he and his family had greater obligation 

to uphold the customs of their religion and society.

 

Quite possibly this flow of blood had originated 

at the birth of their first and only child, 

and so for 12 years the girl’s mother, Jairus’ wife, 

had had to be excluded not only from society and the synagogue, 

but also from the marriage bed.

Here was a family that had been living with a severe disruption all these years, 

and now their only child was dying.

But the woman’s faith is greatly encouraged by the Presence of Jesus, 

and perhaps she reasons with herself 

that if Jesus is coming to heal their daughter, 

then she too has the opportunity to receive the overflow of that healing.

 

Jesus knows that she has touched him and that she is healed, 

and he calls attention to it, affirming both her healing and her faith,

            and thus restoring her to her family and to the whole community.

 

This is very important to note.

This is the center point of the whole story.

This is crucial for what follows.

 

A powerful spiritual connection has been made here.

This woman’s need was great.

            For the entire life of her child she had been separated from society,

                        excluded not on the basis of moral consideration

                        but because of ritual impurity from no fault of her own.

 

And now the child was dying.

One might wonder that she had any faith at all,

            that she hadn’t railed against a God who seemed deaf to her prayers,

                        a God whom she could blame for the unfairness of it all.

 

But her need was so enormous for her daughter, her family, herself

            that she would do what she had to in order to reach Jesus.

 

So the need draws her to Jesus, calls her to Jesus.

This is often how the disciple gets called to the spiritual master.

 

It is right then at the moment of her own healing

            that the word comes that the girl has died.

But Jesus continues to their home despite the news of death,

            bringing both the father, and the mother now, into the home with him,

            and only 3 of the 12, the ones closet to him – Peter, James and John.

Those without faith, all those standing outside the house wailing,

                        they stay out.

And then Jesus touches the dead body – another taboo;

            taking the child by the hand would also make him unclean,

but disregarding all that he raises her to life again.

 

And the family is completely restored and reconciled,

            all flying in the face of what seemed to be proper religious mores.

 

And Jesus orders them that no one should know about this,

                        what with all the rules having been broken,

            and because people will end up attaching to Jesus their own ideas

                                    about the Messiah

            and miss the point about faith and responding to the call of Jesus.

 

But most importantly this family was restored again, 

                                                                                    brought back together.

The family was far more important than either 

religious rules or culturally accepted norms,

            and rules were broken here for the sake of basic human relationships.

Thank God!

 

And so what do we take for ourselves from this Gospel story,

            both individually and as a parish family?

 

What might be the ways in which you and I as brothers and sisters in faith,

            might bridge cultural norms and societal ideas

                        in order to bring healing, reconciliation, and restored relationships?

 

Even though we are not all of us here related by blood, 

we can still call each other brother and sister.

 

We can think about this on a global level 

 

 

We can think about this on the local level

            in terms of how we here in this congregation 

            follow our Lord in discipleship and faith, and relate to one another.

 

What might impel you to reach out your hand to touch Jesus?

            to seek his love, mercy, healing, reconciliation, peace?

 

Would that we were as impelled as that woman in the Gospel

            that we would push our way 

                                                through whatever is blocking the way to Jesus!

                        push our way through whatever in ourselves is blocking the way.

 

Here is the Good News:

The healing Presence of Jesus is just as much here 

as it was in the streets of Jairus’ town.

You can, if you want, reach out your hand to touch the robe of Jesus.

 

Consider this: you can actually physically touch Jesus today,

                        this very morning.

His physical Presence is with us powerfully,

            albeit hidden in bread and wine.

 

You could push your way through the crowd to the altar rail

            and grab hold of the very Body of Jesus

and claim the faith that brings healing and reconciliation.

 

The healing Presence of Jesus is just as much here 

as it was in the streets of Jairus’ town.

You can, if you want, reach out and touch Jesus.

 

In his great love and mercy 

there is reconciliation and restoration and healing 

for the whole family of God.

Now is the day of salvation

 Let’s look at what today’s scripture readings have for us,

and I’ll start with the reading from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth.

 

Paul writes:

            “See, now is the acceptable time;

            see, now is the day of salvation!”

NOW is the acceptable time, the opportune moment, high time, 

NOW is the day of salvation.

 

Paul is really insistent about this.

Don’t keep waiting for some time in the future

            when everything seems right, 

            when you’ve got your act together, or you finally see a need for it.

Salvation is a NOW sort of thing,

            not what happens when you die and get to go to heaven.

Salvation is meant for the here and now.

 

So - what is salvation?

Salvation is more than being forgiven of your sins.

Salvation is what the name Jesus means – in the Hebrew original: Yeshua.

 

The root of the word in Hebrew means opening the space

            and the removal of constriction.

It means victory.

In this Old Testament sense of the word salvation 

            the saving power of God is exercised through God’s dominion over nature,

                        such as the parting of the Red Sea

            opening the way for the Children of Israel 

                                    to be freed from the bondage of slavery

                                    and to come out into the open space of a land of freedom.

 

In the New Testament the Greek word for salvation and the verb to save

            includes healing, restoring to wholeness.

The savior is a healer.

 

Salvation, as a spiritual process at work in us through the grace of God,             

    involves the death and transformation of the self.

Salvation brings one into the state of agaph love,            

            which in its fullness is the realization of being at one with God.

This is achieved by Jesus and in Jesus,

            by being taken into his death and being taken into the heart of God.

 

Jesus is what his name means.

He is the embodiment of salvation.  Can we see that?

 

Back to 2 Corinthians – 

Paul wrote, “…we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.”

He made a huge effort on his part 

            to bring the message of salvation and God’s grace 

                        to whoever would hear him out.

He went through incredible 

            hardships, trials, afflictions, misunderstandings, and personal losses,

                        on behalf of those he was addressing.

 

He spoke out of what had changed his own life 

            from that of a religious terrorist condoning death in the name of his beliefs

            to someone who had such love for others

                        that he gladly suffered on their behalf.

 

He advised the faithful in Corinth, that just as he and the other apostles had done, 

            “open wide your hearts also.”

 

Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.

Open wide your hearts.

 

Open to whom?

 

            To the One who can save you, the One who brings salvation now, Jesus,

                        and who also can be revealed 

                                    in everyone you open your heart to.

 

Now, I’m big on Jesus.  I hope you know that.

That’s my main focus in preaching, in teaching, in meditation, in personal prayer, 

            in how I relate to others, in the values and priorities in my life.

It’s Jesus.

 

What I understand about Jesus and how I have experienced him,

            and especially how I experience his Presence here and now,

is something that has grown and evolved over the years as faith matures.

The seed of faith planted in me at baptism (at the tender are of 6 weeks),

            faith nurtured by scripture and the Holy Communion,

                        tried and tested through life challenges, crises, and losses,

has, through the grace of God, expanded and proved strong and true.

 

So who is Jesus, and why do we all, myself included, have times of being afraid             – afraid of him! ?

 

The gospel reading for today certainly can give us a good reason for that fear.

 

The disciples are in a boat with Jesus,

            just having left another huge crowd of people 

            to whom he had been relating one parable after another.

Now they were off across the Sea of Galilee for a night of travel

            before encountering new crowds on the other shore.

The wind comes up – okay so far – put up the sail,

            but the wind becomes a storm.

The storm intensifies and whips up the waves

            so much so that the boat is getting filled with water and is endangered.

Everyone is bailing like crazy,

            everyone but Jesus, who is in the stern asleep on a cushion.

Either he is so tired out from the crowds, OR

            he is so unconcerned about the wind and waves 

                        that they don’t disturb his sleep.

 

That would seem to be the case,

            because when the disciples wake Jesus, they say,

            “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

Perishing was not part of Jesus’ perception of the situation apparently!

 

Then Jesus did something that I don’t think any of us has ever seen done.

He spoke a word, “Peace, be still,”

            and there was a dead calm.

Fierce wind and crashing waves to dead calm – with just a word.

Well, that ought to make one’s hair stand up!

Who are we dealing with here?

 

You may belief this story or not.

But it’s related in all four gospels in one form or another.

So obviously it was a significant story for the very earliest Christians.

 

Who is this who is able to have such an influence upon the elements of nature?

            for whom the primal elements of wind and water obey at a word?

Who is this who acts outside of our conventional understanding of reality?

When this sort of power is recognized, power beyond our reality,

                        it leaves people without their usual grounding,

            and the result is fear, understandably and appropriately so.

 

When this sort of power comes up, 

            it is a clue to us that the Kingdom of God is breaking through.

 

Huge storm to dead calm at a word

            ranks right up there with the parting of the Red Sea.

 

Nobody drowned that night on the Sea of Galilee,

            no boat capsized, all hands accounted for.

 

Salvation.                        Now is the day of salvation.

 

Whatever storm threatens in your life,

            outside events or interior storms

                        creating fear, hopelessness, the sense of isolation,

now is the day of salvation.

 

And Jesus is the Way.

 

Continuing in our liturgy after the Creed

            we offer our prayers of intercession.

Can we pray for salvation in all its ramifications for each other?

 

Then comes the Confession.

Can we confess to ourselves and to God 

            the ways in which we need healing salvation?

 

Here today in this liturgy you have the chance 

                                                for you to act on the seed of faith planted in you.

It is not your own faith, you know, but the faith of Jesus.

Let it grow.

Let it grow by exercising it.

Let the combined faith of this community nurtured by Jesus, fed by Jesus,

            be a healing support for one another.

 

NOW is the acceptable time, the opportune moment, high time.

NOW is the day of salvation.

Growing Season

 At my home in Spokane I just received the supplies I needed

            to make two raised garden beds in the back yard,

and I am told that it is not too late in the season to plant the seeds I bought

            and get to see them grow and produce fresh veggies to eat

                        straight from the garden.

That has stimulated my meditations on today’s scriptures,

            the choice of which shows some shrewd wisdom

            timed with the natural cycle of the growing season.

 

First before looking at the readings for today,

            I want to call your attention to this Sunday’s collect:

“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,

That through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness

and minister justice with compassion…”

 

Massey Shepherd, who was

            the great liturgy authority of the last century in the Episcopal Church, 

            is the author of this collect,

and he incorporated within the collect 

                        references from Galatians and Ephesians,

            and linked together twin ideals of truth and justice

                                    with courage and compassion:

            truth with the boldness of courage

            and justice linked with compassion.

 

This, he declared, was the fullness of Christian duty and service.

            If you want a good, solid guidepost for living out your faith,

                        there it is.

 

We have prayed that collect each year on this Sunday for decades.

We ask for God’s help in being steadfast in both faith and love.

That’s good that we keep asking, 

            because it takes God’s help to keep on being steadfast.

And note that in this collect we learn that faith and love go together.

 

With that in mind, let’s now turn to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

                                                            reading for today 

because then God’s help, God’s providence, God’s steadfast nurturing of us 

            is elucidated for us in the passage from the prophet Ezekiel.

An imagery from creation is given to us 

            in a small sprig from the tip of the new growth 

                                                            of a topmost twig of a tall cedar.

All the potential is there in this sprig.

            The entire DNA of a lofty cedar is present in that twig,

and God plants it in order that it may grow and fulfill its destiny 

                                                                                                to become a giant cedar.

            Ultimately the sapling will provide branches for the nests

                        of every winged creature.

Note that it is God who is in control of this growth

            and the Almighty Creator can make the tree flourish or bring it down,

                        make it green or dry it up.

 

The Apostle Paul must have realized all this.

In today’s reading from the second letter to the church in Corinth

            he states that we walk by faith and not by sight.

Things are not always as they appear.

            We can be deceived by appearances.

                        Something that appears so very small 

                        may actually contain something so very huge.

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

 

That great Apostle and missionary Paul wrote this 

            to the faith community in the Greek city of Corinth 2 millennia ago,

                        in a time of turbulence and uncertainty.

He was writing to people who knew the truth of these words,

            who experienced what it was like to enter the unknown

                        and place their faith in this new Savior,

            people who discovered the presence of this Savior 

                        in the Holy Spirit as an intimate encounter with the Divine

                                    in their innermost beings

                                    and in the midst of their fellowship with one another.

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

 

And that is why it is so important to be steadfast in faith and love,

            the two together help provide balance and give us perspective 

                        as we go about navigating a world that is so full of

                                    issues, problems, dangers, and contradictions

                        that loom so large that they can eclipse our seedling faith.

 

Paul continues,

            “For the love of Christ urges us on…”
It’s all there in the huge, loving act of salvation 

                                                through his death and Resurrection.

            That is what brings about a new creation in us.

Just like that sprig from the lofty cedar 

            that has within it all the DNA that makes it possible 

                        to become a new lofty cedar,

so in Christ there is a new creation, a new DNA, so to speak, Christ DNA,

            that makes it possible to actually live a new life.

 

Creation is giving us examples all over the place 

                                                in these scripture reading for today.            

The Gospel reading from Mark restates Ezekiel 

            with the example from the natural world, God’s creation.

You plant your garden with peas and green beans and carrots and cabbage,

                        you water the soil,

            but you can’t make the seeds sprout and grow.

They do that because they are faithful to the way God created them,

            fulfilling the blueprint of the DNA in the tiny seeds 

                        until they are full grown and fruitful,

                                                just as God intended.

 

Jesus said the Kingdom of God that he came to bring us into

            is like God’s Creation, natural, spontaneous, growing, abundant, 

                                    ever expanding.

If we could get that into our vision, that naturally occurring expansion,

            we would see that we are just like tiny mustard seeds,

                        tiny but with huge potential,

            potential beyond appearances, beyond what our eyes see.

 

Steadfast faith and love,

            keep us steadfast in your faith and love, we prayed.

 

That’s our big challenge, 

                        so that we are not just settling for stunted growth, 

            but have the audacity of faith to look beyond what we currently see.

 

The amazing grace that Ray keeps talking about

            is, continuing the gardening metaphor, God’s manure.

Yes, manure.

Jesus told another parable, one of so many about the Kingdom of God

                        in terms of the creation and spontaneous, abundant growth,

            a parable in which a fig tree was not thriving,

                        but it was given another chance.

And the instructions were to dig around it and work manure into the soil.

            Get that amazing grace worked into the soil of our lives.

 

We are not in this whole enterprise of being Church or living a Christian life

            on our own.

We are gifted all along the way

            in ways that sight cannot see, but faith can.

 

This last year has been so devastating to us in so many ways,

            but we are given new life in Christ, we are a new creation,

                        the DNA of the Kingdom of God is there,

but we need to walk by faith and not be distracted by what we see.

 

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

It is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 

and would sleep and rise night and day, 

and the seed would sprout and grow, 

he does not know how. 

The earth produces of itself, 

first the stalk, 

then the head, 

then the full grain in the head.

As sure and as certain as this natural, organic process 

                                                                                    of a seed sprouting and growing,

            so faith is planted by Holy Spirit in us where it sprouts and grows,

                                    and grows and grows 

                        with the same potential as a mustard seed.

 

This statement, “…we walk by faith, not by sight…”, becomes truth for us

            when we experience that Holy Presence in our loves,

                        moving us in that innermost part of our being

                                    that is so hard for us to put into words,

                        but which we know to be as real as anything.

“…we walk by faith, not by sight…”

This faith is putting our trust into that Holy Presence in the innermost being

            which has no tangible dimension to measure empirically.

This faith is a surrendering of the illusion we hold onto 

            about being in control of our lives.

This faith is a letting go, 

            like raising your hands on the roller coaster ride at the amusement park

            as you go over the top of that first big drop.

 

The Collect for today again:

 

“Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,

That through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness

and minister justice with compassion…”

 

So let us allow the Love of Christ to urge us on

            Christ’s love for us, the new creation in us

that we may be equipped to proclaim truth courageously

                        in a world of distrust

            and to minister justice with compassion

                        in all the multitude of situations that cry out for it.