The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Saint James Lutheran Church
Saint James Lutheran Church
Saint Mark 5:21-43
“A Gracious World”
I would have served the woman. I would have baked the cake.
Those non sequiturs from two unrelated news stories almost sum up our national conversation - or lack thereof.
The first happened just one week ago yesterday (Seems longer, doesn’t it?) when the President’s press secretary was refused service in a Virginia restaurant, because of her staunch defence of the policies of her boss, which many find abhorrent.
The United Methodist Church, of whom the Attorney General is a member, the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterians and other Protestants have all echoed the sentiments of the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, Blaze Cupich, who spoke for us all when he wrote: “There is nothing remotely Christian, American, or morally defensible about a policy that takes children away from their parents. This is being carried out in our name and it is a shame upon us all.”1
The Press Secretary apparently felt no shame - even using the Bible to justify her position - until she felt the embarrassment of being asked by the owner of The Little Red Hen restaurant to leave. She did and promptly went home to Tweet about it. Social media lit up with people choosing sides.
If you have been listening, what I am about to say will surprise you. I would have served her.
Were I her waiter, when I finished I would have left a little note on her table saying that she had been cheerfully served by someone who was gay.
And, remembering that I have had a full week to think up what I would have said if I were the owner, I might have taken her aside and said: “How was the meal? Did you have enough to eat? Remember that when you sleep in your soft warm bed, with a full stomach, surrounded by your loved ones. Remember that many children are sleeping this night on mats, covered by Mylar blankets, not knowing where their parents are. Remember that when you close your eyes and say your prayers to the God whom you believe to be just.”
That kind of brilliance only occurs in movies, or sermons after some weeks thought. But I still like to think that I would have served her.
And if I were the Colorado baker, who literally made a federal case out of his beliefs, I would have baked the wedding cake for that gay couple who wanted it because, as George F. Will wrote: “A cake can be a medium for creativity. However, it certainly, and primarily, is food. And the creator's involvement with it ends when he sends it away.”2
The problem, my friends, according to Gary Varvel, in USAToday last Tuesday is: “Politics is the new religion for the left and the right. We've decided to characterize those on the other side who doesn’t agree with us as nonbelievers who don't deserve mercy or grace.”3
And today’s Gospel tells us, indeed, and the whole Gospel tells us, that this idea could not be further from the truth. It is not
Jesus’ way nor should it be ours.
The two people who approach Jesus in today’s Gospel could not be more socially diverse. One, the man, is a respected leader of his community while the other, a woman, is an outcast from society on many levels. `Both risked much when they came to Jesus.
Jairus risked losing the respect of family and friends but the cries of his little girl far overshadowing public opinion. Who isn’t deeply affected by the sound of a child crying? The goal of every parent is to stop the suffering as quickly as possible. Adults who have a heart do not make children cry. They do everything in their power to stop the tears from being shed in the first place.
That is what Jairus does. Forsaking all he approaches Jesus - a travelling rabbi and faith healer - and kneels before him. Don’t miss that act, men and woman, Jairus kneels. That is an act of worship. It is an act that could make the respected man an outcast. That is an act of devotion. That’s an act of bravery.
“My dear daughter is at death’s door. Come and lay hands on her so she will get well and live.”4
Without asking about lineage or legality Jesus goes. This is not a time for the finer points of law this a time to care about a child and not just only this one child but all children. Jesus is showing us the importance of children and the desire in the heart of God that they not be separated from their families by sickness or anything else.
While Jesus is on his way with a large crowd surrounding him, a woman presses her way toward him. Her disease has made her an outcast.
For over a decade she may have been doctoring. She may have tried everything there was to try. From pinpricks to patient medicines nothing seemed to work.
So she sneaks her way through the crowd with only one thought on her mind. “All I need to do is touch him and I will be well.”
You can see her, can’t you, making her way through the crowd. She gets jostled, she gets pushed aside, but still she presses on.
Finally she is with striking distance. She reaches out, touches him and feels some kind of strange and mysterious power rushing through her body. “Can it be? Did it happen? Am I okay?”
Then her joy left her as she heard Jesus say: “Who touched me?”
Jesus is not a fussbudget or a germ-o-phobic he needs to show us something and if we get all caught up in the healing we will miss it.
Jesus wants to show us that God has this thing, this special spot, for anybody in need.
Jairus may have been wondering, “What about my need? Why is he talking to this woman while my daughter is dying?” And with this delay Jesus is also showing us something about God. God’s care, concern, love, is not a zero sum game where some are winners and some are losers, it is for everyone.
Jesus has not forgotten Jairus and neither will he forget us.
When all around it looks like it can’t get any worse. When it looks like the powers of darkness will win the day, Jesus says, “Don’t listen to them; just trust me.”5
What if we acted like we trusted God above everything? What if we trusted God to heal not only us but our land? What if we all followed Jesus’ way and were gracious to one another?
Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens wrote well of what Jesus was all about today and every day. He was gracious to the leaderless and those who have lost everything. He was gracious to those who belonged and didn’t belong. He is gracious to us!
Stevens asked:
If you haven’t made up your mind about immigrant families — families who’ve been separated, families who don’t know when or how they’ll be reunited, families who are being talked about with terms like “infest,” which we usually reserve for insects — I wonder if you can think of a time when you benefited from [from an act of] grace.
When your child wandered off in a store and a fellow shopper, rather than kidnap her, returned her unharmed. When you left your garage door open and a neighbor, rather than ransacking your belongings, closed it for you. When you lost your wallet and a stranger, rather than stealing your cash and your identity, delivered it to you untouched.
A time when you didn’t follow the rules, maybe even committed a crime — drove too fast, drank underage, took something that wasn’t yours, snuck in somewhere without paying — and you skated. Didn’t even get caught. Or got caught and suffered very little in the way of consequences. Didn’t watch your life and your family torn into unrecognizable pieces.
We’ve all had moments, haven’t we, when someone’s grace, someone’s gut instinct, someone’s split-second decision, kept our lives chugging along when they could have unraveled?6Those people, those moments, have been signs of God’s grace which is something all of us are searching desperately for.
I find it more than ironic that there is a sign in the window of the Red Hen restaurant - the same place that asked the Press Secretary and her party to leave - that reads: “Love is the only force that is capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”7
That is what Jesus was always doing. He was always reaching out to touch people and let people touch him.
Maybe if all of us, from the leaders of our nation, to outcasts, and all of us in the middle our really followed Jesus’ example our lives, our neighbourhoods, and our country would be a better place.
Who knows maybe all of us will be able to enjoy our dinner in peace and even be able to have our cake and eat it too? Don’t you think?
Thanks for listening.
____________
1. Archdiocese of Chicago. "Statement by Cardinal Blaze J. Cupich, Archbishiop of Chicago, on the Administrations Family Seperation Policy." News release, June 21, 2018. Accessed June 26, 2018.
2. Will, George F. "Food for Thought." The Washington Post, December 3, 2017. Accessed June 26, 2018. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P4-1971162626.html?refid=easy_hf.
3. Varvel, Gary. "Bible Teaches Us How to Resist Anger, Be Civil." USA Today, June 26, 2018. Accessed June 26, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2018/06/26/bible-uncivil-anger-civility-column/733678002/
4. St. Mark 5:23. (MSG) (MSG=The Message)
5. St. Mark 5:36. (MSG) (MSG=The Message)
6. Stevens, Heidi. "Can You Imagins a World Without Grace." Chicago Tribune, June 26, 2018, Life Style sec.
7. Varvel. loc. cit.
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