4 PENTECOST, PROPER 8, YEAR B
SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE
THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY
28 JUNE 2009
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2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43
There’s something interesting about the way this gospel-teller, Mark, tells some of his stories. And he’s done it again today. Mark takes a story, interrupts it half-way through with a second story, and then goes back to finish the first one. It’s like a sandwich, two slices of bread and some filling in between. Today Mark starts the story of the sick girl, sandwiches in the story of the sick woman, and then back he goes to finish the story of the sick girl.
Interrupting one story with another story is a signature trait of Mark. This happens in other places in the gospel. I invite you to go home and see how many you can find; it’s a good pastime for a rainy day.
Mark is known for these story interruptions. It’s a technique he uses. When you come right down to it, it’s not unlike our lives. Some people don’t experience interruptions routinely, I suppose, people like pathologists who spend all day peering into microscopes in a single-track sort of way. Or assembly-line workers who do repetitive tasks for hours on end. But for others, like on-duty parents of young children, or teachers in elementary schools, or nurses and parish priests----a few examples that come to mind—for them interruptions are the way things are. , the phone, a visitor, a request, another phone call. We who live this way have to “triage” these events---which is the most important right now? What should I do first? What can wait?
As Mark tells it, Jesus is peppered with competing interruptions, too. How does he know which to tend to first?
We’ve heard how, in recent days, Jesus has done some teaching, traveled across the sea to unfamiliar territory, the “other side,” where he healed a demoniac, then returned to the first side, his home turf where, today, Jairus, a prominent leader of the synagogue approaches him and begs him to heal his dying daughter. “Please come to my home, right now, lay your hands on her, oh please, heal her!” And Jesus says yes and goes.
But on the way a very un-prominent woman, with no name that we are told of, a woman desperate for her own healing, made an outcast because of her unpleasant ailment, works her way through the crowd, brushes the back of Jesus’ cloak with her hand. Jesus feels her presence and stops. He sees the woman’s trust in him, and he confirms that she is healed.
Only then does he resume his journey.
I have to tell you that there are some days when I am deeply involved parish business. Sometimes I’m deeply involved with a parishioner. That business or that parishioner is of primary, single-minded importance to me. Then suddenly the door opens and in walks a total stranger, someone I don’t know, and I have the distinct sense that the person is not here to discuss theology or church, but he needs help right now: food, gas, rent, phone, lights turned back on. Sometimes it’s just a place to sit that she needs, and someone to talk to---and I’m the only one around.
So then what do I do? What’s the important thing of that moment? The parish project, the parishioner I care about, the one with a name we all know well? Or the chance encounter with a stranger whose name I don’t know and who doesn’t seem to have a friend in the world?
What did Jesus do that day with the daughter of Jairus, the upscale leader, and the woman of no account? Jesus didn’t waste time evaluating either one. To him they were both “daughters.” None more important than the other. He ministered to them both, he didn’t let the interruption of the bleeding, unclean, ostracized woman put him off. He gave her time and only then did he go on his way to the rich man’s daughter. Two people in need, two people receiving his care. Outcasts as well as members of the in-group.
That’s what we learn about Jesus.
And what do we learn from Jairus and the woman? What do we learn from them?
These two very different souls had one thing in common: their desire for Jesus. Nothing stood in their way, that day---not the crowds, not the opinions of the crowds, not their schedules, not embarrassment, not their pride, not even fear. They went full steam ahead. Jairus didn’t care who heard or saw him. The woman, knowing she was a bleeding beggar, she crossed boundary lines to get to Jesus anyway. For both of them, Jesus was their goal . They were filled with trust, confidence and hope.
Jesus shows us today that nobody is beneath or beyond his own desire to being life. As for Jairus and the woman, may they inspire our churches to be places where seekers can find and be found by Jesus. May they help us know that as with them nothing needs to stand in the way of our quest for Jesus either.