Sermon, July 2, 2006

Mark5:21-43; Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 I got a call from a chaplain not long ago to go visit a woman who is under the care of hospice—a woman who is dying. I went and took communion with me. After communion, I offered to pray for her and asked her if she had any special requests. I waited in the silence, holding her frail hand in mine. She asked me to pray for a friend, who is ill, and for her daughter. That was a holy moment that moment. From the lips of a woman near the end of her own life came prayer requests for others—that their lives might be blessed by God. Our little reading from Wisdom this morning affirms that God created all things that they might exist—have life. It sings the praises of the generative forces—of creativity and tells us that God takes no delight in the death of the living. And, in our gospel reading we come face to face with Jesus the healer, whose energy for healing can be tapped from behind and even by one who is sick unto death. This generative force in Jesus—a sign of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom is in evidence throughout Mark’s Gospel. Jesus goes about his ministry healing all kinds of people—of all kinds of disease. Today’s story interrupted by another story is all about healing and faith. The faith of the woman who reaches out to touch Jesus’ cloak—and the faith of Jairus the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter is ill. Both of them fall down at Jesus feet—they are made one in that. In their need, in their desire for healing, in their turning to Jesus they are united. It gives you a picture really of one way in which we are made one in Christ—this image of the two people—so different, one a leader, highly respected the other a woman who has suffered much and lost all her resources in her frantic search for healing. No matter their differences—in their need for healing they are made one—at the feet of Jesus. In their humility we see their unity. Perhaps you have experienced this kind of unity with others in an emergency room—a place in our society where those in urgent need come together in their hope for healing. In an emergency room you find yourself sitting next to others who may be very different from you. But all are there in their common humanity and need. Not all are healed—not all have their diseases cured. You and I know that. Life is fragile and people get sick and die. And the power of medicine—whether Western or Eastern or any other kind seems to go only so far. And when we look out on our world today if we’re honest I think we’d have to say that there are days when we’re not so sure that God’s power for healing, that generative energy for life—is at work. There are moments when we consider our world and we have to wonder: and its not just the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Palestine, the Sudan or Colombia, or the condition of the environment. . . it comes closer to home than that—when we consider the divisions and sickness in our own lives—our country, our cities, our families, even in our Episcopal church these days—so much in the news. If healing is about wholeness and unity then you have to wonder—you have to wonder. Like the folks who laughed at Jesus when he said that the girl was not dead, just sleeping—we have to laugh. Who is he kidding? We mourners—we know death when we see it. We know death. Whether it’s the death of the little girl or the living death of the woman who had bled for 12 years—we know about death. You and I. We know its ways—and we can see it clearly. We know what it’s like to be the bringers of the sad news: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” How often have you seen death, identified death, and given up hope? Have there been times when all seemed lost? In your own life—in the life of a loved one? Some things just seem intractable and we aren’t at all sure that there is any power on earth that can change them. Most of us have known such times. Known losses that make us wonder if we can go on.. “Why trouble the teacher any more?” These stories about Jesus and the woman and the little girl—one sick for twelve years, the other born just as the woman’s illness began—are not just stories about healings. Surely they are reminders to us about the deepest of all truths—the one the Wisdom passage hints at. They are stories about Jesus—about his suffering, death, and resurrection. Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine says that “Women’s bodies in this story provide a model for the body of Christ.” Their suffering is a model for Christ’s suffering, their healing a model for his resurrection. Like Jesus’ own death, the little girl dies surrounded by commotion and mockery. And at her healing the people are “overcome with amazement.” The word in Greek is ekstasis—the word used only one other time in Mark’s Gospel—at the end --when the women at the tomb are told that Jesus has risen from the dead. And if the stories provide a model for the body of Christ surely they are a model for us as the body of Christ. Here’s where the rubber hits the road. Here on a Sunday morning when we come together in our need to fall at the feet of Jesus—you might say if you were an evangelical. Here on a Sunday morning when we come to kneel at the communion rail to be fed—here we are made one in Christ. And here week in a week out we travel the path on the border between life and death—breath and stillness. Here we bring our deathliness to the source of life—praying, hoping against hope that the generative energy of God will heal us—make us whole and give us a new beginning. This meal first celebrated when Jesus was at the very edge of his own life—facing into the certainty of death—is the meal we turn to for life. It is grounded not only in his dying, but in his rising. That is the ground of our being. The ground of our hope. That dying and that rising. And perhaps you and I find ourselves here because we in some sense—in some part of ourselves—are like the little girl. We are dying or have died. Our losses have overwhelmed us. The breath has been knocked out of us—our hopes have been dashed. We wouldn’t think to bother the teacher, really. In our hearts we might laugh at the notion that life could come out of death. Yet, here we are: you and I. Maybe it’s just habit that brings us, or maybe it’s our longing. Our longing to hear those words, “Talitha cumi.” “Little girl get up!” Czelaw Milosz, the Nobel prize poet once wrote a poem after attending mass on this very day in the liturgical year. A reading this Sunday from the Book of Wisdom About how God has not made death And does not rejoice in the annihilation of the living. A reading from the Gospel according to Mark About a little girl to whom He said: Talitha cumi! This is for me. To make me rise from the dead And repeat the hope of those who lived before me. Like the woman I visited who is dying—you and I live at the edge of life and yet we live into hope—that precious life-giving hope of resurrection. This is who we are. AMEN