May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 7
PROPER: 12B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 30, 2000
TEXT: Mark 6:45-52 - When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, the thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
ISSUE: - Jesus walking on water is something of an embarrassment to some people today. Yet, the story is not so much a strange miracle as it is an epiphany story of who Jesus Christ is. He is divine presence and expression of God’s bountiful grace on both land and sea, at the feeding of the 5,000, the previous story, and of bountiful assistance and aid to a struggling community. Don’t be afraid, it is I, (Ego eimi.) God is with his people.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The story that Mark gives us of Jesus walking on the water is a wonderful and remarkable story. For some people today the fact that Jesus is supposed to have walked on water is something of an embarrassment. It is an event used sarcastically when we say of someone: “He thinks he can walk on water.” Some scholars of the past have mocked the story for have little or know value. It has been thought by some to have no relevant meaning. It is thought of at times as little more than a folk tale about Jesus, perhaps invented and told by superstitious people. It does have a sort of ghost story appeal. Jesus appears in the darkness, walking on the fog laden waters, and the disciples are terrified, and scream. For saome it is a misplaced post-resurrection story. Whatever, the story is recounted several times in the Christian Scriptures. Mark tells two stories of Jesus calming the storm, one in the boat we heard several weeks ago; one today of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm. Matthew has both stories. Luke has Jesus calming the storm in the boat, and even John’s Gospel has the story of Jesus walking on the water. The story obviously had some special meaning to the early church that can’t be easily dismissed.
As mark tells the story it follows the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus had been with his disciples feeding a multitude in some profound way. People’s bodies and spirits were fed. After that even Jesus takes time for prayer alone, and send his disciples off. In the middle of the night, the disciples experience one of those terrible storms which come up quickly on the Sea of Galilee. The sea was a place of chaos and danger for these people. It was a place of the dwellings of evil spirits. The disciples are attempting to row the craft against an evil blowing breath or spirit. In the raging storm they see Jesus walking on the water. (Some scholars believe the translation could be walking by the sea , but such a translation greatly diminishes the power and impact of the story.) Jesus speaks to the disciples saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” He steps into the boat, the storm is calmed. The disciples whose hearts are hardened are astounded. What seems to be the key point of the story is Jesus’ saying “It is I.” The Greek translation of “It is I,” or “I am.” The Hebrew name for God is I AM (Yaweh). They story of Jesus walking on the water is not so much a miracle story as it is an epiphany. It is a story that is meant to be a manifestation of Jesus as a divine being who has the power to calm the storm, who has power over the evil spirits and who can bring calm and hope to God’s people. God is with them in the danger and the chaos, and the evil spiritedness of the world.
There are many related Hebrew Scripture passages that infiltrate this passage. Jesus is said to be walking on the sea, and He intended to pass them (the disciples) by. In Exodus, Moses is asking to see the dazzling light of God’s presence, and God replies: “I will let my splendor pass by you.” Jesus is seen as the dazzling presence of God passing by his disciples in their boat on the sea.
What’s more is the fact that the early church, and certainly Mark saw Jesus as a powerful leader and shepherd of his people in ways very similar to Moses and Elijah. Moses, as a man of God, had the ability to raise his staff and part the sea, in order that God’s people could be delivered from the oppression of the evil spirited pharaoh of Egypt. In the Elijah/Elisha story that we read as the Hebrew Scripture reading today, Elijah has the power of God, and by striking the Jordan River with his cloak, the river parts so that the prophets may cross. Once the power of Elijah is transferred to Elisha, he is given the same power to cross the Jordan River.
Psalm 77 is a song intended to give comfort to those whose lives were in distress. The psalmist writes of God’s presence to a people in distress: “When the waters saw you, O God, they were afraid, and the depths of the sea trembled. (vs. 16) . . . . You walked through the waves; you crossed the deep sea, but your footprints could not be seen. You led your people like a shepherd . . . (vs. 19-20) It is interested that the shepherding of God, or Jesus as well extends beyond the dry land into the seas of danger and chaos.
What I believe is one of the most revealing Hebrew Scripture passages which is related to Jesus’ walking on the water is from Isaiah 43:16f. Isaiah writes to God’s people who were about to escape from their bondage in Babylon: “Long ago the Lord made a road through the sea, a path through the swirling waters. . . . . . . Watch for the new thing that I am going to do.” Undoubtedly the early church, Mark, saw Jesus as walking the road through the sea, walking the path of the swirling tempestuous seas and was doing the new thing of bringing peace to his people, of reassuring them that God was with them. There was victory over the evil spiritedness and the world’s chaos. God was in Christ restoring peace and calm to his people. For the people who first heard this story of Jesus walking on the water, it was not merely a superstitious ghost story. It was the reassurance that God had indeed built a road across the sea, a path through the swirling waters. And God in Christ Jesus had come to reclaim his people and save them from the evil spiritedness, from the chaos, from the injustices, from their degradation, and from the oppressions of their time.
What does this passage mean for us today? What is it’s relevance to us in the modern scientific world where the wonders of technology of our age really seems to greatly diminish the so called miracles of an age gone by? What’s important to us in a religious sense is not the miraculous aspect of the story, but what the story means. The issue of Jesus walking on the water, is not the miraculous, by the epiphany, the manifestation of the meaning of Christ coming to his disciples. They are in the dark. Human beings today, in spite of all the technology know what it feels like to be depressed, to feel blue, to be in the darkness of uncertainty, and unassured of the direction our lives should be taking. To have someone we love become sick, and to live in a world where there are diseases we cannot conquer. To lose a loved one. To lose a job, to go through a divorce. These are some of the bleak times of our lives, the dark hours of our lives.
We too live in times of chaos, times of danger. We’ve hardly ever known a time when we as a country have not been at war or subject to some possibility of terrorism. We live constantly with dangers and uncertainties that can be dramatized as being as wobbly and unstable as being on a boat in a storm. We are subject to powers and circumstances that are often far beyond our control. We sure do cherish those times when life feels firm, when we feel like we are on solid ground. But inevitably there of those times of anxiety, uncertainty, when we are totally out of control and feel as if we are in a small boat on a great sea in a whirlwind of a storm. What becomes our strength, our peace, our calm, our hope and assurance is the faith and confident belief that Long ago the Lord made a road through the sea, and a path through the swirling waters. Christ is the Lord, the very presence of God who is walking the road of calm beside us, and ready to step into our lives to bring us peace. Jesus Christ is the presence of God ready to be the hope and the stability for troubled uncertain lives, that enables us to carry on with what we must do and what we must face. God is with us. God’s grace abounds both in the stability of our lives as well as in the troubled uncertain times. God reveals his glory in Christ who is the great epiphany, the manifestation of God. Into the uncertainty, feebleness, into the instability, the vacillation, the waves of doubt in all of lives, Christ brings the calmness of his loving and forgiving presence.
Sunday, July 30, 2000
Sunday, July 16, 2000
Pentecost 5
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 5
PROPER: 10B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 16, 2000
TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 - Mission of the Disciples
“He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . . . . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
ISSUE: - Jesus the itinerant beggar sends out his disciples after leaving Nazareth behind. Their specific mission is to go to the people, unlike the present effort of the church to get people to come to us. It is a venture in permeating the villages with the hope that the Kingdom or Empire of God has come. They cast out demons, healing, and restoring the lost, the least, and the last. They come to the sinners, i.e. the disenfranchised to give them hope that God is come among them, and they are loved. The story calls the church today to a mission beyond itself to being in relationship with others in the world, bearing witness to hope and love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Mark follows Jesus’ rejection by his own community in Nazareth. Rejected by his own and saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own and by his own relatives and his family,” Jesus continues his ministry with his disciples undaunted. He simply move on to other villages to do his work of preaching the message that the Kingdom, Realm, or Empire of God is imminent. In Mark’s account for this morning, he now sends his disciples out to the world with a specific mission that continues the mission of proclamation that the Empire of God is happening. The preaching and the healing are sure signs of that hope. It is one of the first accounts of the evangelistic efforts of the early Christian community, and is somewhat different from the evangelistic effort of the church today. Today we sort of reach out, the familiar evangelistic term is “outreach.” Jesus’ brand of evangelism wasn’t reaching out, but a more specific going out to be with those in need.
Jesus sends his disciples out two by two, and they are ordered not to take with them any food, bags, or money. According to Mark they may wear sandals and carry a staff. They are to go where they are welcomed and assured hospitality. They are to stay there for a period. If they are not welcomed, they are to promptly move on shaking the dust of that unwelcoming place off of their feet. Where they do settle, they are to preach repentance, that is preparation for change, and taking on a new life. They are to heal and annoint with oil. They have been given authority to cast out, to eliminate demons.
It appears that Jesus is sending out his disciples, The Twelve, thought maybe to be a code word for the church by Mark, to begin the reign of God. It is a deliberate effort to proclaim that the Realm of God or Empire of God has begun. The disciples are sent two by two. This arrangement was primarily for safety reasons. Traveling in this time was extremely dangerous. Bandits were prevalent on lonely roads as the Parable of the Good Samaritan bears witness. In the missionary endeavor it also gave needed companionship in the effort.
Sending the disciples out without bags, food, or money gives a real impression of the urgency of the mission. Whether this urgency comes from Jesus or the Mark’s early church we can’t be too sure, but the belief that the Kingdom, Realm, Empire of God was a hand was a significant belief of the time. They were to have sandal and a staff would also imply that they were sent out over some very rough and dangerous terrain.
What is of unique significance is the fact that the disciples are given authority over demonic forces and unclean spirits. In the Greek community demonic forces could be disease or evil spirits. In the more Jewish communities, the demons were things that made a person impure or unclean. The giving of the disciples power and authority over unclean and demonic spirits was a very special authority. We need to understand the hierarchical structure in the beliefs of the period. In that structure there was God at the top. Then, other gods, archangels, sons of God. At the third level were angels, spirits, good and bad demons. Humans were at the fourth level, and below that creatures lower than humans. Thus, to have power and authority over the spirit and demon world, you had to be a being from a higher realm. Mark and the early church believed Jesus to be a Son of God, and therefore had the ability to heal and to cast out demons. The disciples in this passage are having their status elevated to share in with the authority of Jesus over the demons, unclean spirits. Their status, according to Mark, is a significantly elevated status. That’s fascinating.
The disciples are sent out to the surrounding villages, as if they themselves are sons of God, to bring healing and hope to peasant peoples with a power over the fact that they are sinners, sick, and demon possessed with unclean spirits. Where they are welcomed they have power and authority. Where they are rejected, they simply move on, shaking the dust off of their feet. Whenever a journeying Jew returned from Gentile, pagan, territory and re-entered the Holy Land they would shake the dust, that is the impurities of pagan territory, off of their feet so as not to pollute Palestine. The disciples in this story are to shake dust off their sandals when they are rejected and move on. Where the disciples were received, they were to accept the hospitality, which was expected and a part of the culture of this period.
Notice what is going on in this passage. It’s really fascinating, and eye opening. You have Jesus portrayed as little more than a mendicant homeless beggar proclaiming that the Reign of God is coming. People need to change (repent) to be prepared to receive it. He sends out his disciples two by two, also as homeless beggars, to infiltrate the villages and the homes of the surrounding territory with the same message, and with an authority to heal and cast out evil spirits. Get the picture, these men are going to peasants, who are marginalized, expendable, no accounts. They are going to a people who are shamed, without honor, hungry, lonely, and often people who are defiled. They are sent to sinners. Mind you, sinners were not necessarily bad, evil, or even immoral people. Sinners were simply the poor, and those who could not keep all the purity rules of the many Jewish laws. They were the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb. They were the lepers and disenfranchised. They were the unclean and the impure. They were the retarded, the mentally disturbed, and the impoverished, the landless. They disciples are sent to mingle, to eat with, and make a home with, to create an “at-home-ness” with the least, the last, and the lost. They were to assure them that the Realm of God was with them, be prepared to accept it. They cast out the sense that these people are unworthy, unclean, unacceptable in the sight of a loving, forgiving embracing God who calls them into his bosom.
The disciples, The Twelve, the early church (?), is seen as in partnership with the homeless wandering beggar like Jesus, who is Christ, and Son of God. They share in also being sons of God, sent to an alienate forlorn folk to bring them hope, love, forgiveness, and a raising up, a resurrection experience. The disciples live with them, eat with them, share with them, the bring a a cleansing, a hope, a love, a presence of God who will be their salvation. They are giving meaning and purpose, an honor, and a sense of salvation from worthlessness, from uselessness, from being expendable and unimportant. The sons of God bring the very God to the lost, the least, the last. That was their mission.
It is interesting that the disciples are sent out. They, like Jesus are wanderers. They are those who passersby who have an incredible sense of calling as sons of God, related and in relationship with God, to establish relationship with others that raises them up into the presence of God’s Realm. In the 1940’s an ancient manuscript was found that was called The Gospel of Thomas. It contains a number of sayings, and parables that were attributed to Jesus. In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus’ shortest saying is “Be a wanderer.” Fascinating! The earliest mission was that of Jesus and the Twelve as “wanderers” in a world that was perceived as polluted and unclean. Where the band wanders, cleansing, healing, hope, love, forgiveness, honor, is given. That was the mission of the early church community.
When we think of mission today or the calling of the church it is often seen in terms of sending money and resources to some far off land. I remember the excitement as a child in our Sunday School of putting coins in our Lenten Mite Boxes, to send money to Bishop Gordon of Alaska so that he could buy an airplane to travel to distant Alaskan villages to proclaim the Gospel to the poor native Americans. They church was big into sending help to Africa. Times have changed. The African nations and churches are quite strong today, and really have a thing to two to assist and advise the American Church. Today our mission is little closer as we think of the poor and disenfranchised in our own cities. But notice that we still seem to distance ourselves from the need. The mission is often perceived as somewhere else. We talk about mission as “outreach.” The image I have of outreach is often a kind of handout ministry. We sit in our own comfortable cars and homes, and reach out to the poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, and then move on. We are more often than not in a position of keeping our distance from the impoverished or needy, the polluted, sick, infirm.
The other side or aspect of how we often perceive of mission is in getting the people we are trying to reach to come to us. In discussions of the church’s mission, it is often seen as an all out attempt to get the other person, the sinner, to come to church. “LET’S MEET AT GOD’S HOUSE THIS SUNDAY,” as the proverbial church sign says. Lots and lots of energy goes into programs designed to get people to come to church, primarily the “Boomers,” the “Xer’s,” and “Gen NeXt.” These movements aren’t all bad I suppose. I sure know that a full church says more to the community and world, than an empty one does. Yet note well that the mission of the Twelve was not to get people to go to synagogue so far as we know. Jesus sure used the synagogue as a place to teach; he did get run off a time or two. Yet when Jesus teaches the crowds, it is often done as a wanderer. He goes to the broken and the lost. He eats with them, and enters into their space. He comes into their proximity.
Do we need the church, the temple, the synagogue? Sure we do. It’s our place of worship, and our place of instruction and learning. It’s our contact place with God. It’s a place very different from and unlike the other service organizations of the world and community. But the God who loves and teaches us, and makes us Sons and Daughters sends us out not as distanced “reachers-outers,” but as sent, wanderers, passersby. We are sent to the sinner, that is, people different from ourselves and who don’t share our lifestyles. We are sent to have relationship and to eat with those different from ourselves. We are sent to gays and lesbians, to Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Hispanics, to the poverty stricken, to the depressed, to the lonely in the nursing home, to the AIDs victims, to the divorced, to the orphaned, to the relative we find hard to take and just accept them. We are sent like disciples with a minimal baggage, with just ourselves and the love of God in us to wonder in a crooked world that is irrevocably warped and can’t stand up straight to the plumb line and be in all of our own brokenness, the sons and daughters of a loving caring, merciful, and compassionate God.
Do we really know the poor, the sinner, the disenfranchised of our time? Do we dare to shed all that protects us to have and enter into relationships with others different from ourselves with the shear purpose of loving and accepting, and daring to wipe away what for us seems polluting and unclean? Do we dare to sit at the table with them and feast in simple love? This love right here in our midst is the first step in enter the Realm of our compassionate God.
SEASON: Pentecost 5
PROPER: 10B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 16, 2000
TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 - Mission of the Disciples
“He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . . . . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
ISSUE: - Jesus the itinerant beggar sends out his disciples after leaving Nazareth behind. Their specific mission is to go to the people, unlike the present effort of the church to get people to come to us. It is a venture in permeating the villages with the hope that the Kingdom or Empire of God has come. They cast out demons, healing, and restoring the lost, the least, and the last. They come to the sinners, i.e. the disenfranchised to give them hope that God is come among them, and they are loved. The story calls the church today to a mission beyond itself to being in relationship with others in the world, bearing witness to hope and love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Mark follows Jesus’ rejection by his own community in Nazareth. Rejected by his own and saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own and by his own relatives and his family,” Jesus continues his ministry with his disciples undaunted. He simply move on to other villages to do his work of preaching the message that the Kingdom, Realm, or Empire of God is imminent. In Mark’s account for this morning, he now sends his disciples out to the world with a specific mission that continues the mission of proclamation that the Empire of God is happening. The preaching and the healing are sure signs of that hope. It is one of the first accounts of the evangelistic efforts of the early Christian community, and is somewhat different from the evangelistic effort of the church today. Today we sort of reach out, the familiar evangelistic term is “outreach.” Jesus’ brand of evangelism wasn’t reaching out, but a more specific going out to be with those in need.
Jesus sends his disciples out two by two, and they are ordered not to take with them any food, bags, or money. According to Mark they may wear sandals and carry a staff. They are to go where they are welcomed and assured hospitality. They are to stay there for a period. If they are not welcomed, they are to promptly move on shaking the dust of that unwelcoming place off of their feet. Where they do settle, they are to preach repentance, that is preparation for change, and taking on a new life. They are to heal and annoint with oil. They have been given authority to cast out, to eliminate demons.
It appears that Jesus is sending out his disciples, The Twelve, thought maybe to be a code word for the church by Mark, to begin the reign of God. It is a deliberate effort to proclaim that the Realm of God or Empire of God has begun. The disciples are sent two by two. This arrangement was primarily for safety reasons. Traveling in this time was extremely dangerous. Bandits were prevalent on lonely roads as the Parable of the Good Samaritan bears witness. In the missionary endeavor it also gave needed companionship in the effort.
Sending the disciples out without bags, food, or money gives a real impression of the urgency of the mission. Whether this urgency comes from Jesus or the Mark’s early church we can’t be too sure, but the belief that the Kingdom, Realm, Empire of God was a hand was a significant belief of the time. They were to have sandal and a staff would also imply that they were sent out over some very rough and dangerous terrain.
What is of unique significance is the fact that the disciples are given authority over demonic forces and unclean spirits. In the Greek community demonic forces could be disease or evil spirits. In the more Jewish communities, the demons were things that made a person impure or unclean. The giving of the disciples power and authority over unclean and demonic spirits was a very special authority. We need to understand the hierarchical structure in the beliefs of the period. In that structure there was God at the top. Then, other gods, archangels, sons of God. At the third level were angels, spirits, good and bad demons. Humans were at the fourth level, and below that creatures lower than humans. Thus, to have power and authority over the spirit and demon world, you had to be a being from a higher realm. Mark and the early church believed Jesus to be a Son of God, and therefore had the ability to heal and to cast out demons. The disciples in this passage are having their status elevated to share in with the authority of Jesus over the demons, unclean spirits. Their status, according to Mark, is a significantly elevated status. That’s fascinating.
The disciples are sent out to the surrounding villages, as if they themselves are sons of God, to bring healing and hope to peasant peoples with a power over the fact that they are sinners, sick, and demon possessed with unclean spirits. Where they are welcomed they have power and authority. Where they are rejected, they simply move on, shaking the dust off of their feet. Whenever a journeying Jew returned from Gentile, pagan, territory and re-entered the Holy Land they would shake the dust, that is the impurities of pagan territory, off of their feet so as not to pollute Palestine. The disciples in this story are to shake dust off their sandals when they are rejected and move on. Where the disciples were received, they were to accept the hospitality, which was expected and a part of the culture of this period.
Notice what is going on in this passage. It’s really fascinating, and eye opening. You have Jesus portrayed as little more than a mendicant homeless beggar proclaiming that the Reign of God is coming. People need to change (repent) to be prepared to receive it. He sends out his disciples two by two, also as homeless beggars, to infiltrate the villages and the homes of the surrounding territory with the same message, and with an authority to heal and cast out evil spirits. Get the picture, these men are going to peasants, who are marginalized, expendable, no accounts. They are going to a people who are shamed, without honor, hungry, lonely, and often people who are defiled. They are sent to sinners. Mind you, sinners were not necessarily bad, evil, or even immoral people. Sinners were simply the poor, and those who could not keep all the purity rules of the many Jewish laws. They were the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb. They were the lepers and disenfranchised. They were the unclean and the impure. They were the retarded, the mentally disturbed, and the impoverished, the landless. They disciples are sent to mingle, to eat with, and make a home with, to create an “at-home-ness” with the least, the last, and the lost. They were to assure them that the Realm of God was with them, be prepared to accept it. They cast out the sense that these people are unworthy, unclean, unacceptable in the sight of a loving, forgiving embracing God who calls them into his bosom.
The disciples, The Twelve, the early church (?), is seen as in partnership with the homeless wandering beggar like Jesus, who is Christ, and Son of God. They share in also being sons of God, sent to an alienate forlorn folk to bring them hope, love, forgiveness, and a raising up, a resurrection experience. The disciples live with them, eat with them, share with them, the bring a a cleansing, a hope, a love, a presence of God who will be their salvation. They are giving meaning and purpose, an honor, and a sense of salvation from worthlessness, from uselessness, from being expendable and unimportant. The sons of God bring the very God to the lost, the least, the last. That was their mission.
It is interesting that the disciples are sent out. They, like Jesus are wanderers. They are those who passersby who have an incredible sense of calling as sons of God, related and in relationship with God, to establish relationship with others that raises them up into the presence of God’s Realm. In the 1940’s an ancient manuscript was found that was called The Gospel of Thomas. It contains a number of sayings, and parables that were attributed to Jesus. In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus’ shortest saying is “Be a wanderer.” Fascinating! The earliest mission was that of Jesus and the Twelve as “wanderers” in a world that was perceived as polluted and unclean. Where the band wanders, cleansing, healing, hope, love, forgiveness, honor, is given. That was the mission of the early church community.
When we think of mission today or the calling of the church it is often seen in terms of sending money and resources to some far off land. I remember the excitement as a child in our Sunday School of putting coins in our Lenten Mite Boxes, to send money to Bishop Gordon of Alaska so that he could buy an airplane to travel to distant Alaskan villages to proclaim the Gospel to the poor native Americans. They church was big into sending help to Africa. Times have changed. The African nations and churches are quite strong today, and really have a thing to two to assist and advise the American Church. Today our mission is little closer as we think of the poor and disenfranchised in our own cities. But notice that we still seem to distance ourselves from the need. The mission is often perceived as somewhere else. We talk about mission as “outreach.” The image I have of outreach is often a kind of handout ministry. We sit in our own comfortable cars and homes, and reach out to the poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, and then move on. We are more often than not in a position of keeping our distance from the impoverished or needy, the polluted, sick, infirm.
The other side or aspect of how we often perceive of mission is in getting the people we are trying to reach to come to us. In discussions of the church’s mission, it is often seen as an all out attempt to get the other person, the sinner, to come to church. “LET’S MEET AT GOD’S HOUSE THIS SUNDAY,” as the proverbial church sign says. Lots and lots of energy goes into programs designed to get people to come to church, primarily the “Boomers,” the “Xer’s,” and “Gen NeXt.” These movements aren’t all bad I suppose. I sure know that a full church says more to the community and world, than an empty one does. Yet note well that the mission of the Twelve was not to get people to go to synagogue so far as we know. Jesus sure used the synagogue as a place to teach; he did get run off a time or two. Yet when Jesus teaches the crowds, it is often done as a wanderer. He goes to the broken and the lost. He eats with them, and enters into their space. He comes into their proximity.
Do we need the church, the temple, the synagogue? Sure we do. It’s our place of worship, and our place of instruction and learning. It’s our contact place with God. It’s a place very different from and unlike the other service organizations of the world and community. But the God who loves and teaches us, and makes us Sons and Daughters sends us out not as distanced “reachers-outers,” but as sent, wanderers, passersby. We are sent to the sinner, that is, people different from ourselves and who don’t share our lifestyles. We are sent to have relationship and to eat with those different from ourselves. We are sent to gays and lesbians, to Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Hispanics, to the poverty stricken, to the depressed, to the lonely in the nursing home, to the AIDs victims, to the divorced, to the orphaned, to the relative we find hard to take and just accept them. We are sent like disciples with a minimal baggage, with just ourselves and the love of God in us to wonder in a crooked world that is irrevocably warped and can’t stand up straight to the plumb line and be in all of our own brokenness, the sons and daughters of a loving caring, merciful, and compassionate God.
Do we really know the poor, the sinner, the disenfranchised of our time? Do we dare to shed all that protects us to have and enter into relationships with others different from ourselves with the shear purpose of loving and accepting, and daring to wipe away what for us seems polluting and unclean? Do we dare to sit at the table with them and feast in simple love? This love right here in our midst is the first step in enter the Realm of our compassionate God.
Sunday, July 9, 2000
Pentecost 4
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 4
PROPER: 9 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 9,2000
TEXT: Mark 6:1-6 The Rejection of Jesus in his Homeland
“And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to the, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ And he could do no deed of power there . . . .”
ISSUE: Jesus is rejected in his hometown. He is seen as claiming undeserved honor. While in our time we have no honor system like that of the first century, Christian people long established in the faith may well become so familiar with the life, teachings, and presence of Christ, that we fail to appreciate its power. As result we become ineffective as a Christian influence. The passage challenges us to be more prophetic in our stance, to be set back up on our feet (Ezekiel 2:1-7), and to revitalize our mission.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Mark today tells something of how difficult it was for Jesus and his followers to sometimes provide an effective ministry, and at the same time it addresses how certain communities themselves become ineffective, if not deadly boring, as they attempt to maintain their comfortable status.
Mark’s Gospel account is the oldest canonical account of the ministry of Jesus that we have available to us. Mark tells in today’s passage about Jesus making a return to Nazareth, Jesus’ own hometown to do some teaching in the synagogue. His efforts are apparently significant, but the results of his efforts are quite minimal. He surely gets the attention of the Nazarean community but they become ultimately offended and reject his teachings. He’s able to cure only a few, and is forced to move on to more fertile ground.
At the very core of the cultural system of Jesus’ time was a system of honor. Essentially, you honor came from the family into which you were born. It came from birth. You could achieve a higher honorable status over time, but that was very hard to do. In Jesus’ time, so unlike ours, you did not attempt to change you status in life, or to get ahead. The honorable person maintained his place in the society.
Jesus we believe was a carpenter, an artisan by trade. He was an artisan by trade, because supposedly that’s what is father was. While there is some debate about the place of artisans in the 1st century world, they were largely a dispossed people with very little status or honor. Artisans became artisans to make a living because they had lost their claim to any land. In the biblical apocryphal book of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, 38:24-39:11, artisans could have no place as judges, to be on councils, or to attain any positions of great importance. They were just too busy and too uneducated to be wisemen.
What’s more, the artisan, especially the carpenters, moved from place to place looking for work, especially in a land where wood was quite scare, leaving their families behind and unprotected. Again, it was not honorable to do this kind of thing.
Jesus returns on this occasion to his hometown of Nazareth, little more than an mendicant beggar. He gets the attention of the hometown folk when he speaks and teaches in the local synagogue, or religious center. The people are amazed at his wisdom and his teaching, his insights, and hints of his curative powers. But then again, he is only an artisan without honor. They know his family and its minimal status. The fascinating remark is made, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” It was unusual for a man to be identified by his mother rather than his father. Jesus’ very legitimacy may be what is being challenged. They take offense at him. He is stepping out his assigned place, and is a confusing character that the community can no longer define. Their taking offense is insulting to him. Jesus returns the insult with the proverb: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and in their own house.”
Without community support, faith, open acceptance of Jesus, little of any power or effect can take place. He can only heal just a few, and must move on. It is thought be some that what Mark is doing in telling this story is revealing what was behind the early church’s move away from Judaism to becoming more readily accepted by the Gentile community. Outsiders are more able to determine the honor rating of the prophet rather than the insiders who should have known him best. Without emotion filled loyalty, commitment, solidarity is missing. Jesus could perform no mighty works as he had done for others.
Today, we must be careful not to over simplify what is going on in this account of Jesus’ rejection. It is comfortable and often anti-Semitic to say that the Jews rejected Jesus, and we Gentiles are the good guys who have made him our own. No doubt there was rejection of Jesus by some of his own in his time. Yet, it was not the overall Jewish population that had anything to do with Jesus’ crucifixion and death, but the Romans, who were incidentally Gentiles. Today we do not have an honor system and code like that of the 1st century Mediterranean culture. However, we do not always honor or give credibility to that which is familiar to us. “Familiarity breeds contempt,” is the proverb common to our time. You remember when you were children, especially in our teen years and early adulthood, how dumb we often thought our parents were. We saw their wisdom as outdated. Only in our own later more mature years did we appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers and mothers.
As matter of fact the Christian community today needs to be regularly asking itself, if it is still honoring the presence of Christ Jesus in our world. We today may be too overly familiar with the Christian movement and penetrating power of Christ and miss our calling to handle it effectively. There is a constant struggle as to how the Christ of Christianity fits into the business activities, the politics, and the international affairs of the modern world. We often have heard people say that the church must stay out of politics. My good people, why do you think Jesus was crucified? . . . . because he was a nice guy. Hardly. Jesus’ politics, his challenging prophetic stand with the poor was very daring and threatening. Jesus’ risk taking, his challenge of the culture, his daring stance that the religion of the time was stuffy and so regulation oriented and legally stifled that it prevented access to the presence of God is what got Jesus crucified. God demands justice for all people. Justice for all is sometimes very threatening to the rich and powerful. He had a firm commitment, like the prophetic stance in the Ezekiel 2:1-7 reading today, to standing for God and speaking the words to them, whether they heard them or not, for they were a rebellious house.
We often say the church should not mix politics with religion or the church. Somehow we think of ourselves as called to stand aloft from the world. Quite the contrary of what Jesus did. What’s more, sometimes I think we fall into the trap of keeping Christianity out of the church as well! We often see church members and vestry members taking a very guarded stance. We become like, or at least very similar to all other organizations. Did you ever wonder how the church is really different from The Boy Scouts of America. (We don’t want any gay or lesbian leadership either.) How are we different from the Kiwanis, the Rotary, or The Masonic Order? All of these organizations, like the church, are committed to doing good deeds and keeping themselves morally straight. It’s no wonder that the demands of other service organizations and Recreation Council Activities with baseball and lacrosse games often take precedence over church activities. They promote good health, community spirit like all good community organizations should. When you stand the church up next to our service organizations, the church does not especially stand out. In fact it may well appear as bland, if not downright boring. Thus, little happens. Oh, a few get cured, but the unbelief, the lack of faith and dynamic commitment is amazing.
Even today Jesus is constantly challenged. You can’t just turn the other cheek, or walk the extra mile, or people will just walk all over you. You can’t just consider the lilies of the field and how they neither toil nor spin, or you’ll end up with nothing. You can’t just pay the same guy who came first the same wage you pay the man who comes last. People will just use you. You can’t give all your wealth to the poor and follow, or you’ll be broke. You have to have possessions and wealth or you become a meaningless entity in this world. You can’t eat with sinners and prostitutes, tax collectors, gays and lesbians, or you’ll become just like them. You can’t sell everything you have and give it to the poor, or you’ll end up with nothing. You can’t leave the 99 sheep and go in search of the one lost sheep; you’ll lose the whole damn flock. Just give a little here, and a little there and assuage your guilt and try to look as good and moral as the next guy or organization. We Episcopalians pride ourselves in the fact that we began ordaining women, when was it?, in the 1960’s. Jesus ordained them sometime around 30 A.D. We fuss a lot over gays and lesbians completely forgetting that the early church let them in long ago as Gentiles. (It was possible that the centurion’s slave was a sex partner, i.e. David Buttrick Lecture) Let’s keep the status quo for that’s good enough. Just keep things the way they are. It may be boring but it sure is comfortable. . . . it sure is bland but it ain’t Christian! It ain’t of Christ!
People just love all that stuff about how Jesus saves, but we’re not always sure he saves somebody else different from us. Jesus saves me and isn’t that wonderful. We perpetuate it teaching it to the kids. We love to wallow in grace, in the saving grace of God. “Jesus loves me. Yes, I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Does God in Christ love us. You bet. But my good people, we also stand under judgment as well. All those Nazareans were good people, good as you’ll find anywhere. Were they loved of God, probably so. But Christ moved and moves on to more fertile territory and they were left behind in their complacency and in their stagnant mediocrity. Poor souls. But Christ went on bearing the message and to those who heard it, they became the children of God, the new saints, the heirs of the Kingdom of God entering into a new Promised Land among those where true honor, inclusiveness, and meaning, vitality, and real meaningful life with God is found.
SEASON: Pentecost 4
PROPER: 9 B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 9,2000
TEXT: Mark 6:1-6 The Rejection of Jesus in his Homeland
“And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to the, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ And he could do no deed of power there . . . .”
ISSUE: Jesus is rejected in his hometown. He is seen as claiming undeserved honor. While in our time we have no honor system like that of the first century, Christian people long established in the faith may well become so familiar with the life, teachings, and presence of Christ, that we fail to appreciate its power. As result we become ineffective as a Christian influence. The passage challenges us to be more prophetic in our stance, to be set back up on our feet (Ezekiel 2:1-7), and to revitalize our mission.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The passage from Mark today tells something of how difficult it was for Jesus and his followers to sometimes provide an effective ministry, and at the same time it addresses how certain communities themselves become ineffective, if not deadly boring, as they attempt to maintain their comfortable status.
Mark’s Gospel account is the oldest canonical account of the ministry of Jesus that we have available to us. Mark tells in today’s passage about Jesus making a return to Nazareth, Jesus’ own hometown to do some teaching in the synagogue. His efforts are apparently significant, but the results of his efforts are quite minimal. He surely gets the attention of the Nazarean community but they become ultimately offended and reject his teachings. He’s able to cure only a few, and is forced to move on to more fertile ground.
At the very core of the cultural system of Jesus’ time was a system of honor. Essentially, you honor came from the family into which you were born. It came from birth. You could achieve a higher honorable status over time, but that was very hard to do. In Jesus’ time, so unlike ours, you did not attempt to change you status in life, or to get ahead. The honorable person maintained his place in the society.
Jesus we believe was a carpenter, an artisan by trade. He was an artisan by trade, because supposedly that’s what is father was. While there is some debate about the place of artisans in the 1st century world, they were largely a dispossed people with very little status or honor. Artisans became artisans to make a living because they had lost their claim to any land. In the biblical apocryphal book of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, 38:24-39:11, artisans could have no place as judges, to be on councils, or to attain any positions of great importance. They were just too busy and too uneducated to be wisemen.
What’s more, the artisan, especially the carpenters, moved from place to place looking for work, especially in a land where wood was quite scare, leaving their families behind and unprotected. Again, it was not honorable to do this kind of thing.
Jesus returns on this occasion to his hometown of Nazareth, little more than an mendicant beggar. He gets the attention of the hometown folk when he speaks and teaches in the local synagogue, or religious center. The people are amazed at his wisdom and his teaching, his insights, and hints of his curative powers. But then again, he is only an artisan without honor. They know his family and its minimal status. The fascinating remark is made, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” It was unusual for a man to be identified by his mother rather than his father. Jesus’ very legitimacy may be what is being challenged. They take offense at him. He is stepping out his assigned place, and is a confusing character that the community can no longer define. Their taking offense is insulting to him. Jesus returns the insult with the proverb: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and in their own house.”
Without community support, faith, open acceptance of Jesus, little of any power or effect can take place. He can only heal just a few, and must move on. It is thought be some that what Mark is doing in telling this story is revealing what was behind the early church’s move away from Judaism to becoming more readily accepted by the Gentile community. Outsiders are more able to determine the honor rating of the prophet rather than the insiders who should have known him best. Without emotion filled loyalty, commitment, solidarity is missing. Jesus could perform no mighty works as he had done for others.
Today, we must be careful not to over simplify what is going on in this account of Jesus’ rejection. It is comfortable and often anti-Semitic to say that the Jews rejected Jesus, and we Gentiles are the good guys who have made him our own. No doubt there was rejection of Jesus by some of his own in his time. Yet, it was not the overall Jewish population that had anything to do with Jesus’ crucifixion and death, but the Romans, who were incidentally Gentiles. Today we do not have an honor system and code like that of the 1st century Mediterranean culture. However, we do not always honor or give credibility to that which is familiar to us. “Familiarity breeds contempt,” is the proverb common to our time. You remember when you were children, especially in our teen years and early adulthood, how dumb we often thought our parents were. We saw their wisdom as outdated. Only in our own later more mature years did we appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers and mothers.
As matter of fact the Christian community today needs to be regularly asking itself, if it is still honoring the presence of Christ Jesus in our world. We today may be too overly familiar with the Christian movement and penetrating power of Christ and miss our calling to handle it effectively. There is a constant struggle as to how the Christ of Christianity fits into the business activities, the politics, and the international affairs of the modern world. We often have heard people say that the church must stay out of politics. My good people, why do you think Jesus was crucified? . . . . because he was a nice guy. Hardly. Jesus’ politics, his challenging prophetic stand with the poor was very daring and threatening. Jesus’ risk taking, his challenge of the culture, his daring stance that the religion of the time was stuffy and so regulation oriented and legally stifled that it prevented access to the presence of God is what got Jesus crucified. God demands justice for all people. Justice for all is sometimes very threatening to the rich and powerful. He had a firm commitment, like the prophetic stance in the Ezekiel 2:1-7 reading today, to standing for God and speaking the words to them, whether they heard them or not, for they were a rebellious house.
We often say the church should not mix politics with religion or the church. Somehow we think of ourselves as called to stand aloft from the world. Quite the contrary of what Jesus did. What’s more, sometimes I think we fall into the trap of keeping Christianity out of the church as well! We often see church members and vestry members taking a very guarded stance. We become like, or at least very similar to all other organizations. Did you ever wonder how the church is really different from The Boy Scouts of America. (We don’t want any gay or lesbian leadership either.) How are we different from the Kiwanis, the Rotary, or The Masonic Order? All of these organizations, like the church, are committed to doing good deeds and keeping themselves morally straight. It’s no wonder that the demands of other service organizations and Recreation Council Activities with baseball and lacrosse games often take precedence over church activities. They promote good health, community spirit like all good community organizations should. When you stand the church up next to our service organizations, the church does not especially stand out. In fact it may well appear as bland, if not downright boring. Thus, little happens. Oh, a few get cured, but the unbelief, the lack of faith and dynamic commitment is amazing.
Even today Jesus is constantly challenged. You can’t just turn the other cheek, or walk the extra mile, or people will just walk all over you. You can’t just consider the lilies of the field and how they neither toil nor spin, or you’ll end up with nothing. You can’t just pay the same guy who came first the same wage you pay the man who comes last. People will just use you. You can’t give all your wealth to the poor and follow, or you’ll be broke. You have to have possessions and wealth or you become a meaningless entity in this world. You can’t eat with sinners and prostitutes, tax collectors, gays and lesbians, or you’ll become just like them. You can’t sell everything you have and give it to the poor, or you’ll end up with nothing. You can’t leave the 99 sheep and go in search of the one lost sheep; you’ll lose the whole damn flock. Just give a little here, and a little there and assuage your guilt and try to look as good and moral as the next guy or organization. We Episcopalians pride ourselves in the fact that we began ordaining women, when was it?, in the 1960’s. Jesus ordained them sometime around 30 A.D. We fuss a lot over gays and lesbians completely forgetting that the early church let them in long ago as Gentiles. (It was possible that the centurion’s slave was a sex partner, i.e. David Buttrick Lecture) Let’s keep the status quo for that’s good enough. Just keep things the way they are. It may be boring but it sure is comfortable. . . . it sure is bland but it ain’t Christian! It ain’t of Christ!
People just love all that stuff about how Jesus saves, but we’re not always sure he saves somebody else different from us. Jesus saves me and isn’t that wonderful. We perpetuate it teaching it to the kids. We love to wallow in grace, in the saving grace of God. “Jesus loves me. Yes, I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Does God in Christ love us. You bet. But my good people, we also stand under judgment as well. All those Nazareans were good people, good as you’ll find anywhere. Were they loved of God, probably so. But Christ moved and moves on to more fertile territory and they were left behind in their complacency and in their stagnant mediocrity. Poor souls. But Christ went on bearing the message and to those who heard it, they became the children of God, the new saints, the heirs of the Kingdom of God entering into a new Promised Land among those where true honor, inclusiveness, and meaning, vitality, and real meaningful life with God is found.
Sunday, July 2, 2000
Pentecost 3
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 3
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 2, 2000
Note: The Gospel Scripture reading is expanded to include the full story of both Jarius’ daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. The Episcopal Lectionary calls only for the Jarius’ daughter portion of the story.
TEXT: Mark 5:22-43 - Jarius’ Daughter & The Woman
Who Touched Jesus’ Cloak
‘If I touch even his clothes, I shall be cured.’ And there and then the source of her haemorrhages dried up, and she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble. . . . . He said to her, “ ‘My daughter, your faith has cured you. God in peace, free for ever from this trouble.’
‘Your daughter is dead; why trouble the Rabbi further?’ But Jesus, overhearing the message as it was delivered, said to the president of the synagogue, ‘Do not be afraid; only have faith.’ . . . Then taking hold of her hand, he said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Get up, my child.’ Immediately the girl got up and walked about - she was twelve years old.
ISSUE: - Here’s a couple of entwined miracle stories in which there is a parade which leads to restoration, hope, and resurrection of the childless woman with the hemorrhage, and the dying little girl come of age. Grace just happens in the parade with Christ and undeserving folk who have faith find healing and peace, as it is said of the woman: ‘she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble.” We live in a culture of death concern. Trust and loyalty in following Christ was seen as a way of resurrection, life, and hope.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark continues his stories of Jesus as a miracle worker. Last week, it was the calming of the storm and the healing of the crazy man, the demoniac. Mark continues highlight the miraculous power of Jesus Christ as a folk healer. Today we are told of two intertwined healings, that of a twelve year old child, and that of a woman with a twelve year illness. These intertwined stories also appear in Luke and Matthew.
Today Jesus has sailed back to familiar territory. Once arrived, a Rabbi, or president of a synagogue comes to Jesus in desperation. He has heard of Jesus as a folk healer. The man who is named as Jarius falls down before Jesus humiliating himself as a sign of his acknowledging the honorable status of Jesus. He pleads in desperation for his sick child’s healing. Remember that the death rate of children in Jesus time was extremely high. Some sixty percent of children born died by the time they were teenagers. This child is twelve years old, just pre-teen. She is just coming of age, and would probably be soon able to be married. But, in this grave sickness, her future to be productive and a mother is a great risk. Jarius begs Jesus to come to his home to effect a cure of the child, which he agrees to do.
As Jesus begins the journey to Jarius’ home, a significantly large number of people follow them. It is a crowd large enough that people are bumping into one another and rubbing shoulders so to speak. You have something of an image of rather significant parade of people moving toward Jarius’ home. Along the way, the story is interrupted by another incident. A woman who is hemorrhaging, and has had a menstrual flow for some twelve years sort of sneaks up on Jesus assured that if only to touch him, she will be healed.
Some background here is helpful to an understanding of the story. First women in this time did not touch strange men in public. It wasn’t done. Women rarely appeared with strange in public. Perhaps she feels she has some anonymity in the parading crowd. What’s more the woman with the flow of blood is considered unclean and impure. During a woman’s cycle they could not approach the altar in the Temple and were considered unclean. They were not to be touched nor to touch anyone else. This woman has had the hemorrhage for twelve years. The woman is essentially socially dead. She is an outcast from the society, impure and unclean. This may sound somewhat strange to men, but my guess is that many woman can be sympathetic with what is going on in this story. The woman has spent her fortune on physicians of the time, who have done nothing for her. Physicians of the time were more like philosophers and never laid hands on anyone. Thus, she resorts to a folk healer, Jesus who has some renown.
In any event, the woman sneaks up on Jesus. She believes, trusts, that all she has to do is to touch his garments, and she’ll be made well. Immediately she is healed. How, who knows. She simply knows within herself she is healed. That’s a curios phrase isn’t it. She knows from within she’s healed.
Though the woman has tried to be sneaky about what she’s done, Jesus feels that healing power has been released. He senses something, and demands to know who touched him in this hopeful way. His colleagues note that in this crowd everyone has been touching him, or bumping into him. But Jesus knows someone has evoked healing power from him. He senses the great faith of the person. The woman is frightened. She feels she is in for a great scolding. After all, in touching Jesus, she has made him impure and unclean. Much to her great surprise, she is not scolded, but is in fact commended for her great faith, and is assured that she will never suffer from this illness again. Now she is healed, now she is restored to the community, and she may even be fertile and productive after twelve years.
In contrast to the woman’s healing, messengers come and tell Jarius while the parade continues, that the little girl child of twelve years is dead. No need to trouble the Teacher, Jesus, any further. The parade can stop right here. But Jesus tells Jarius, ‘Do not be afraid, only have faith.’ Arriving at the home, the mourners have already assembled, and they laugh, dishonoring Jesus, when he tells them the child is not dead, but only sleeping. Casting aside all of the doubters, that is, all those who have no faith, he takes only close disciples and the parents to the child’s bedside, and says in the Aramaic, Jesus’ native language, “Talitha, cum.” Which means, “Little girl, rise up.” Simply and to the point she does, and walks around! “Give her something to eat.” The little girl who was dead, rises up. She eats. She begins a productive fruitful life.
What’s the message in all these stories? What’s Mark (also Matthew and Luke) trying to convey in these healing stories? It’s not really too mysterious actually. It tells us that in Jesus Christ there was a presence and power of God. It is a bountiful grace. A non-deserving woman, and a meaningless child receive the grace and healing of God through the mediation of Jesus Christ. They do have value in the sight of God, they are worthy of restoration, and they can be raised up. The woman is socially dead, and the little girl is apparently physically dead. Both are raised to new life. “Talitha cum” resurrected, raised, and fed. That’s what happened to Jesus when he was raised. He ate with this disciples. He carried on.
What is Mark and the gospel writers proclaiming? They call the world to faith, to trust, to confidence that God in Jesus Christ can restore the lost and broken, the despairing, and raise up that which is fallen. Join the parade of faithfulness that lead to resurrection and new life. Join the community of faith in Christ that brings love, hope, forgiveness, restoration, and healing to the world. It is a message of the great bountiful love, power, and grace that streams from Christ. The message is the call to join the parade of hope, wherein the abused, the disenfranchised get a new lease on life.
Notice too that the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures for today, and the reading from St. Paul’s 2nd Letter to the Corinthians are all about giving, about giving liberally, in the way that Christ Jesus poured himself out. He pours himself out that others may be made rich, rich in healing and hopefulness and knowledge of being loved. It is a call to join the parade that touches Christ that reaches out to him, and that allows the world to be touched by him for the purpose of new and bountiful life. The church today calls for a forgiving of debts to third world nations, and for a bountiful generosity that helps the world to know renewal, healing, and health.
This is the season for parades, 4th of July Parades. It’s important that Christians who are people of faith know what they are marching for. They can be parades of pride and accomplishment, reveling in American success and wealth. They can be parades that ostentatiously display our power of destructive weapons and displays of our power over the other nations of the world. They can be parades that ostentatiously display our pride and ability and witness to how we drain the other nations of the world of resources and let them see our ability and ingenuity at impoverishing the world. They can be displays of how proud we are of ourselves and how we trust in ourselves as opposed to the power of God. Jesus knew, and we all should know in our hearts that great political powers of the world come and go, they rise and they fall. They eventually Peter out.
The parades of the nations, whether it’s the Romans of long ago, the Great British Empire, the U.S.A, or Russia, or Iraq are often parades of death. They often rejoice in destructive weaponry, and deadly force. They often symbolize a cultures of suspicion, fear, threat. Today our newscasts are often an on going parade of a culture where people die frequently from drugs and violence. They tell of constant feuding among the nations and among peoples.
The Gospel and teaching of Christ speak of joining in another kind of parade, and a community of faith. The parade of Jesus Christ, the Christian parade, takes all that is broken, unworthy, faltering, dying, cast out and thrown down, and asks only for trust in God, faithfulness. And in response to faith, there comes the outpouring of love and healing that renews, restores, lifts up, and holds up to the light of God. There comes resurrection and hope. Join the parade, that parade, and feast with Christ. Arise, be resurrected, and have something to eat. At the end of the parade is the feast of the Kingdom of God.
SEASON: Pentecost 3
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 2, 2000
Note: The Gospel Scripture reading is expanded to include the full story of both Jarius’ daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. The Episcopal Lectionary calls only for the Jarius’ daughter portion of the story.
TEXT: Mark 5:22-43 - Jarius’ Daughter & The Woman
Who Touched Jesus’ Cloak
‘If I touch even his clothes, I shall be cured.’ And there and then the source of her haemorrhages dried up, and she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble. . . . . He said to her, “ ‘My daughter, your faith has cured you. God in peace, free for ever from this trouble.’
‘Your daughter is dead; why trouble the Rabbi further?’ But Jesus, overhearing the message as it was delivered, said to the president of the synagogue, ‘Do not be afraid; only have faith.’ . . . Then taking hold of her hand, he said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Get up, my child.’ Immediately the girl got up and walked about - she was twelve years old.
ISSUE: - Here’s a couple of entwined miracle stories in which there is a parade which leads to restoration, hope, and resurrection of the childless woman with the hemorrhage, and the dying little girl come of age. Grace just happens in the parade with Christ and undeserving folk who have faith find healing and peace, as it is said of the woman: ‘she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble.” We live in a culture of death concern. Trust and loyalty in following Christ was seen as a way of resurrection, life, and hope.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark continues his stories of Jesus as a miracle worker. Last week, it was the calming of the storm and the healing of the crazy man, the demoniac. Mark continues highlight the miraculous power of Jesus Christ as a folk healer. Today we are told of two intertwined healings, that of a twelve year old child, and that of a woman with a twelve year illness. These intertwined stories also appear in Luke and Matthew.
Today Jesus has sailed back to familiar territory. Once arrived, a Rabbi, or president of a synagogue comes to Jesus in desperation. He has heard of Jesus as a folk healer. The man who is named as Jarius falls down before Jesus humiliating himself as a sign of his acknowledging the honorable status of Jesus. He pleads in desperation for his sick child’s healing. Remember that the death rate of children in Jesus time was extremely high. Some sixty percent of children born died by the time they were teenagers. This child is twelve years old, just pre-teen. She is just coming of age, and would probably be soon able to be married. But, in this grave sickness, her future to be productive and a mother is a great risk. Jarius begs Jesus to come to his home to effect a cure of the child, which he agrees to do.
As Jesus begins the journey to Jarius’ home, a significantly large number of people follow them. It is a crowd large enough that people are bumping into one another and rubbing shoulders so to speak. You have something of an image of rather significant parade of people moving toward Jarius’ home. Along the way, the story is interrupted by another incident. A woman who is hemorrhaging, and has had a menstrual flow for some twelve years sort of sneaks up on Jesus assured that if only to touch him, she will be healed.
Some background here is helpful to an understanding of the story. First women in this time did not touch strange men in public. It wasn’t done. Women rarely appeared with strange in public. Perhaps she feels she has some anonymity in the parading crowd. What’s more the woman with the flow of blood is considered unclean and impure. During a woman’s cycle they could not approach the altar in the Temple and were considered unclean. They were not to be touched nor to touch anyone else. This woman has had the hemorrhage for twelve years. The woman is essentially socially dead. She is an outcast from the society, impure and unclean. This may sound somewhat strange to men, but my guess is that many woman can be sympathetic with what is going on in this story. The woman has spent her fortune on physicians of the time, who have done nothing for her. Physicians of the time were more like philosophers and never laid hands on anyone. Thus, she resorts to a folk healer, Jesus who has some renown.
In any event, the woman sneaks up on Jesus. She believes, trusts, that all she has to do is to touch his garments, and she’ll be made well. Immediately she is healed. How, who knows. She simply knows within herself she is healed. That’s a curios phrase isn’t it. She knows from within she’s healed.
Though the woman has tried to be sneaky about what she’s done, Jesus feels that healing power has been released. He senses something, and demands to know who touched him in this hopeful way. His colleagues note that in this crowd everyone has been touching him, or bumping into him. But Jesus knows someone has evoked healing power from him. He senses the great faith of the person. The woman is frightened. She feels she is in for a great scolding. After all, in touching Jesus, she has made him impure and unclean. Much to her great surprise, she is not scolded, but is in fact commended for her great faith, and is assured that she will never suffer from this illness again. Now she is healed, now she is restored to the community, and she may even be fertile and productive after twelve years.
In contrast to the woman’s healing, messengers come and tell Jarius while the parade continues, that the little girl child of twelve years is dead. No need to trouble the Teacher, Jesus, any further. The parade can stop right here. But Jesus tells Jarius, ‘Do not be afraid, only have faith.’ Arriving at the home, the mourners have already assembled, and they laugh, dishonoring Jesus, when he tells them the child is not dead, but only sleeping. Casting aside all of the doubters, that is, all those who have no faith, he takes only close disciples and the parents to the child’s bedside, and says in the Aramaic, Jesus’ native language, “Talitha, cum.” Which means, “Little girl, rise up.” Simply and to the point she does, and walks around! “Give her something to eat.” The little girl who was dead, rises up. She eats. She begins a productive fruitful life.
What’s the message in all these stories? What’s Mark (also Matthew and Luke) trying to convey in these healing stories? It’s not really too mysterious actually. It tells us that in Jesus Christ there was a presence and power of God. It is a bountiful grace. A non-deserving woman, and a meaningless child receive the grace and healing of God through the mediation of Jesus Christ. They do have value in the sight of God, they are worthy of restoration, and they can be raised up. The woman is socially dead, and the little girl is apparently physically dead. Both are raised to new life. “Talitha cum” resurrected, raised, and fed. That’s what happened to Jesus when he was raised. He ate with this disciples. He carried on.
What is Mark and the gospel writers proclaiming? They call the world to faith, to trust, to confidence that God in Jesus Christ can restore the lost and broken, the despairing, and raise up that which is fallen. Join the parade of faithfulness that lead to resurrection and new life. Join the community of faith in Christ that brings love, hope, forgiveness, restoration, and healing to the world. It is a message of the great bountiful love, power, and grace that streams from Christ. The message is the call to join the parade of hope, wherein the abused, the disenfranchised get a new lease on life.
Notice too that the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures for today, and the reading from St. Paul’s 2nd Letter to the Corinthians are all about giving, about giving liberally, in the way that Christ Jesus poured himself out. He pours himself out that others may be made rich, rich in healing and hopefulness and knowledge of being loved. It is a call to join the parade that touches Christ that reaches out to him, and that allows the world to be touched by him for the purpose of new and bountiful life. The church today calls for a forgiving of debts to third world nations, and for a bountiful generosity that helps the world to know renewal, healing, and health.
This is the season for parades, 4th of July Parades. It’s important that Christians who are people of faith know what they are marching for. They can be parades of pride and accomplishment, reveling in American success and wealth. They can be parades that ostentatiously display our power of destructive weapons and displays of our power over the other nations of the world. They can be parades that ostentatiously display our pride and ability and witness to how we drain the other nations of the world of resources and let them see our ability and ingenuity at impoverishing the world. They can be displays of how proud we are of ourselves and how we trust in ourselves as opposed to the power of God. Jesus knew, and we all should know in our hearts that great political powers of the world come and go, they rise and they fall. They eventually Peter out.
The parades of the nations, whether it’s the Romans of long ago, the Great British Empire, the U.S.A, or Russia, or Iraq are often parades of death. They often rejoice in destructive weaponry, and deadly force. They often symbolize a cultures of suspicion, fear, threat. Today our newscasts are often an on going parade of a culture where people die frequently from drugs and violence. They tell of constant feuding among the nations and among peoples.
The Gospel and teaching of Christ speak of joining in another kind of parade, and a community of faith. The parade of Jesus Christ, the Christian parade, takes all that is broken, unworthy, faltering, dying, cast out and thrown down, and asks only for trust in God, faithfulness. And in response to faith, there comes the outpouring of love and healing that renews, restores, lifts up, and holds up to the light of God. There comes resurrection and hope. Join the parade, that parade, and feast with Christ. Arise, be resurrected, and have something to eat. At the end of the parade is the feast of the Kingdom of God.
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