John 6:1-21
Beginning today and continuing all through August, the gospel is from John, chapter six, what is known as the Bread of Life discourse, and the New Testament readings will continue to march through Ephesians, one of the Pauline letters. For the next five weeks, I will be preaching on these texts and connecting them with the congregation values we have named at Ascension: outreach, calling others to service, affirmation, pointing to Jesus and prayer.
While the gospel points to Jesus and who we are as believers, living in relationship with God, the letter emphasizes that we are reconciled to God and called to live together in unity and with purpose.
In today’s gospel, we hear the only miracle story that all four gospel writers include in their accounts of Jesus’ ministry. Traveling across Judea and Samaria, Jesus and the disciples have drawn large crowds and now they are on a mountainside on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus asks his disciples how will they feed the people who have gathered there to watch him heal the sick and listen to him teach.
And the disciples — the very same ones who have been traveling with him as he has turned water into wine at Cana, healed the official’s son in Galilee and also healed the blind man at Bethesda — respond anxiously, focused only on the scarcity of what is in plain sight and what they can hold in their hands. There is nothing in their words or actions that witnesses to what they have seen Jesus do or who they believe Jesus is.
In a world where headlines barrage us 24/7, there is no shortage of situations that evoke despair, and when we look at the immense need that exists, it’s easy for us to shake our heads dismissively and shrug our shoulders helplessly,
moved, not to action, but to inertia.
So, we turn off the news, silencing the stories of people in countries like Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen and Somalia who perennially face the threat of severe famine. It’s just too big a problem.
But sometimes, disease, violence or other evil corrupts our very own neighborhood or community and stares us in the face like those people standing with Jesus and the disciples on the mountainside.
How do we respond when that happens?
Well, often, like the disciples, we look at the resources we have in hand and we scoff, quick to identify why something is impossible, why it can’t work and why it’s pointless to try. Maybe we even dismiss the notion of miracles as obsolete because we haven’t witnessed one ourselves. We bring our skepticism and our knowledge of the world and its facts and numbers to the table. And like the disciples, we discount what we know about who God is and what God promises.
Thankfully, God works in unexplained ways, then and now. Jesus instructed the disciples to have the people sit down and he took the five barley loaves and the two fish out into the crowd and he fed them.
Jesus knew what the disciples didn’t: knowledge is truth, but knowledge is more than an accumulation of data. In John’s gospel, especially, knowledge is about relationship.
Relationship with a God who sees the hunger that exists in this world: hunger for real bread to fill empty tummies, and hunger for hope and healing to fill ravaged hearts. And this God is the same one who meets us in those overcrowded places where the need is overwhelming and satisfies our hunger.
Indeed, the text says the crowds had as much as they wanted and were satisfied, and when the disciples gathered up the left overs, they filled twelve baskets. Love multiplies. [i] And it recreates and renews in places of suffering and need, but it doesn’t happen by magic. Each of us is called to follow Jesus out into the world and live among God’s people, sharing the Good News of what God makes possible.
Our participation in God’s continuing work in the world sustains us. Looking at the immense need that exists in the world, we do not despair, but claim the hope that we have in God’s power and reconciling love, remembering the victorious power of Jesus who overcame death and the grave to bring new life to each of us.
As the Church, our ministries are opportunities for us to reveal God’s power in our words and actions. Here at Ascension one way we have done that for the last thirteen years is by providing a hot meal to those who were hungry. In 2005, volunteers began preparing and serving a meal on the first Wednesday of each month. Monthly, as many as fifty people would come into the fellowship hall to eat lunch. A few years later, more congregations became involved in feeding ministries and now hungry people can find a meal every day of the week in the city of Shelby. Our volunteers continued to feed hungry people, preparing a meal for the men’s shelter when it was in the building behind our property, and after the Rescue Mission opened its new facility on Buffalo Street. Throughout these 13 years, donors have contributed money and groceries to sustain the ministry and provide a place “for God’s glory and mercy to break forth in the world.”[ii]
Later this morning we will close this specific outreach ministry with prayers of thanksgiving for its volunteers and donors, and while we end this season of outreach ministry, may we always look and listen to see where God has come to meet us, remembering that, often, it is the seemingly foolish ideas, absurd odds, and even inadequate resources, that lead to miracles.[iii]
Let us pray…[iv]
Loving God,
Thank you for the surprising gift of Your Son who is the bread of life for us all.
You nurture and strengthen all who look to Your hand.
May we offer ourselves to the world that all may know Your abundant mercy.
We pray in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Locations 10248-10249). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Feasting on the Word, Kindle Locations 10126-10127.
[iii] Pulpit Fiction, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost.
[iv] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources, http://laughingbird.net/
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Sunday, July 22, 2018
9th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
As I studied the gospel this week I remembered hearing Pastor Mary Caniff-Kuhn, one of the camp directors at Lutheridge, tell a story that she calls “Grandmother’s Love.”
It’s her own version of a story that is a folktale that’s told all around the world, and I’d like to tell it to you.
Here is video of Pastor Mary telling her story; her telling begins at 16:02.
Here’s the Good News: we have a God who loves us more than any grandmother and that is a lot of love.
Sometimes we think we need a lot of stuff to tell the story of God’s love; we need to have special words or training, beautiful churches and stained glass windows, but when it comes right down to it, all we need is the story.
When the crowds ran ahead of Jesus and the disciples, that’s all they had —
stories of teaching and healing that had happened when the disciples were sent out.
stories of a divine love that is present in the smallest and most ordinary parts of our lives.
stories that helped them feel God’s love.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
As I studied the gospel this week I remembered hearing Pastor Mary Caniff-Kuhn, one of the camp directors at Lutheridge, tell a story that she calls “Grandmother’s Love.”
It’s her own version of a story that is a folktale that’s told all around the world, and I’d like to tell it to you.
Here is video of Pastor Mary telling her story; her telling begins at 16:02.
Here’s the Good News: we have a God who loves us more than any grandmother and that is a lot of love.
Sometimes we think we need a lot of stuff to tell the story of God’s love; we need to have special words or training, beautiful churches and stained glass windows, but when it comes right down to it, all we need is the story.
When the crowds ran ahead of Jesus and the disciples, that’s all they had —
stories of teaching and healing that had happened when the disciples were sent out.
stories of a divine love that is present in the smallest and most ordinary parts of our lives.
stories that helped them feel God’s love.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
8th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 6:14-29
Often when I am teaching a Bible study, I explain the different kinds of writing that we find in the Bible and I describe the gospels as the stories that tell us about Jesus’ life and ministry. But today’s gospel isn’t a healing or feeding story and it isn’t a parable when Jesus is teaching his disciples. In fact, this isn’t a Jesus story at all, so we are left wondering, “Why is it here?”
Instead of Jesus, this story’s main characters are Herod and John the Baptist. This Herod isn’t the same man who sent the magi out to find Jesus when he heard about the Messiah’s birth and then ordered the deaths of all the infant boys in Israel. That was his father, Herod the Great; this is Herod Antipas, and while Mark calls him “king” he is actually a Roman official, a political appointee, given authority to rule in the territory.
And John, the cousin of Jesus, is the son of a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Before Jesus began his ministry, John went before him into Jerusalem and Judea “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4) By the time we hear this story, John who was jailed by Herod Antipas, is already dead.
So what we have here is a flashback — a flashback to an episode of rejection sandwiched between the sending of the disciples and their return.
The text begins, “When Herod heard” but it never tells us what Herod heard. Because Mark puts the story between the sending of Jesus’ disciples and the account of them returning, we can reasonably guess that what Herod heard was reports about the mission of the disciples.
After all, the Romans and the religious leaders had noticed Jesus drawing large crowds, and people were talking; they didn’t know what to think about this teacher or his followers. Some people thought one of the ancient prophets of Israel had returned, but Herod believed that John the baptizer, whom he had executed, had been raised from the dead.
The gospel account tells the story of a banquet where Herod made a careless promise, and, instead of admitting his mistake or speaking up to correct the injustice of arresting and binding a righteous and holy man, Herod ordered John’s execution. And the baptizer was beheaded.
John the baptizer had come from the priestly tradition. As Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes,
The Very Reverend Michael Battle who teaches at General Theological Seminary in New York says that John’s message was to stay awake to what God is doing. We hear this theme in Advent when we are in a time of anticipation and waiting for the birth of Jesus, but then we celebrate Christmas and thinking we know the rest of the story, we become complacent and comfortable. Encountering the details of John’s death here forces us to recall his purpose and recognize the significance of his witness even after Jesus is on the scene.
John called on people to wake up and pay attention to God’s activity all around them. He demanded accountability for their actions and called them to repent and turn to God. It was neither a popular nor a sentimental message.
The gospel says that Herod was perplexed by John, but, evidently, instead of trying to understand him or awaken to God’s presence and activity, Herod indulged himself, sated his appetites, and ultimately, made impulsive decisions that ended John’s life.
Herod’s story teaches us that “life and death are involved in all that we do.” Like Herod, when we are captive to our own impulses or to our fears, we resist or even reject those things that are life-giving and choose death in order to preserve what is comfortable and familiar.
Perhaps we have this story so that we will ask, “What are those impulses and fears that keep us from staying awake to what God is doing?”
Instead of falling captive to the siren’s call of power, control and approval, John’s call to us is to awaken to God’s presence all around us, opening our eyes to see that God is doing something new and freeing us to rejoice in God’s abiding love for us and enjoy new life in Christ.
Let us pray…[ii]
Life-giving God,
Though tyrants have opposed your truth,
cutting down your prophets,
and crucifying your Son, Jesus Christ,
you have not left us to death's powers.
Strengthened by your Holy Spirit,
may we stand up for the truth and rejoice in the Lord always.
Amen.
[i] https://cac.org/liberation-2017-09-13/, accessed 7/14/2018.
[ii] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html
Often when I am teaching a Bible study, I explain the different kinds of writing that we find in the Bible and I describe the gospels as the stories that tell us about Jesus’ life and ministry. But today’s gospel isn’t a healing or feeding story and it isn’t a parable when Jesus is teaching his disciples. In fact, this isn’t a Jesus story at all, so we are left wondering, “Why is it here?”
Instead of Jesus, this story’s main characters are Herod and John the Baptist. This Herod isn’t the same man who sent the magi out to find Jesus when he heard about the Messiah’s birth and then ordered the deaths of all the infant boys in Israel. That was his father, Herod the Great; this is Herod Antipas, and while Mark calls him “king” he is actually a Roman official, a political appointee, given authority to rule in the territory.
And John, the cousin of Jesus, is the son of a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Before Jesus began his ministry, John went before him into Jerusalem and Judea “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4) By the time we hear this story, John who was jailed by Herod Antipas, is already dead.
So what we have here is a flashback — a flashback to an episode of rejection sandwiched between the sending of the disciples and their return.
The text begins, “When Herod heard” but it never tells us what Herod heard. Because Mark puts the story between the sending of Jesus’ disciples and the account of them returning, we can reasonably guess that what Herod heard was reports about the mission of the disciples.
After all, the Romans and the religious leaders had noticed Jesus drawing large crowds, and people were talking; they didn’t know what to think about this teacher or his followers. Some people thought one of the ancient prophets of Israel had returned, but Herod believed that John the baptizer, whom he had executed, had been raised from the dead.
The gospel account tells the story of a banquet where Herod made a careless promise, and, instead of admitting his mistake or speaking up to correct the injustice of arresting and binding a righteous and holy man, Herod ordered John’s execution. And the baptizer was beheaded.
John the baptizer had come from the priestly tradition. As Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes,
The priestly class invariably makes God less accessible instead of more so, …[with the message]: “You can only come to God through us, by doing the right rituals,obeying the rules, and believing the right doctrines.” [i]But John defied tradition and preached a very different path to God.
The Very Reverend Michael Battle who teaches at General Theological Seminary in New York says that John’s message was to stay awake to what God is doing. We hear this theme in Advent when we are in a time of anticipation and waiting for the birth of Jesus, but then we celebrate Christmas and thinking we know the rest of the story, we become complacent and comfortable. Encountering the details of John’s death here forces us to recall his purpose and recognize the significance of his witness even after Jesus is on the scene.
John called on people to wake up and pay attention to God’s activity all around them. He demanded accountability for their actions and called them to repent and turn to God. It was neither a popular nor a sentimental message.
The gospel says that Herod was perplexed by John, but, evidently, instead of trying to understand him or awaken to God’s presence and activity, Herod indulged himself, sated his appetites, and ultimately, made impulsive decisions that ended John’s life.
Herod’s story teaches us that “life and death are involved in all that we do.” Like Herod, when we are captive to our own impulses or to our fears, we resist or even reject those things that are life-giving and choose death in order to preserve what is comfortable and familiar.
Perhaps we have this story so that we will ask, “What are those impulses and fears that keep us from staying awake to what God is doing?”
Instead of falling captive to the siren’s call of power, control and approval, John’s call to us is to awaken to God’s presence all around us, opening our eyes to see that God is doing something new and freeing us to rejoice in God’s abiding love for us and enjoy new life in Christ.
Let us pray…[ii]
Life-giving God,
Though tyrants have opposed your truth,
cutting down your prophets,
and crucifying your Son, Jesus Christ,
you have not left us to death's powers.
Strengthened by your Holy Spirit,
may we stand up for the truth and rejoice in the Lord always.
Amen.
[i] https://cac.org/liberation-2017-09-13/, accessed 7/14/2018.
[ii] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html
Sunday, July 8, 2018
7th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 6:1-13
At Christ School, the all-boys Episcopal boarding school where Jamie teaches and where I worked for five years, one of the now-retired teachers is remembered well for advising students at the beginning of each school year, “Show up on time and ready to work.” Similarly, a pastoral counselor and chaplain distilled his advice to students in clinical pastoral education –where seminary students serve as chaplains to patients in a hospital setting – to four guiding principles: “1. Show up. 2. Listen. 3. Speak the truth. 4. [Don’t] take responsibility for the outcome.”[i]
In today’s gospel, Jesus, likewise, instructs his disciples, equipping them to go out into the world where he is sending them.
Today’s reading begins with an account of Jesus being rejected and ridiculed by people at the synagogue. First, his critics question his authority to teach; then they mock his legitimacy; and finally, they shame him, because he is not fulfilling the traditional role of the eldest son and supporting his mother and sisters.
Mark tells us “[Jesus] was amazed at their unbelief” (6:6a) but immediately, then he “went [out into] the villages teaching.” (6:6b) Their personal insults and their lack of faith did not deter him. Like the disciples after him, he shook the dust off his feet and carried on.
The very first thing that discipleship requires is that we show up. Jesus doesn’t ask the disciples to do anything he hasn’t already done. Whether it is at the river Jordan or the shoreline of the sea of Galilee, in the temple courtyard or at the synagogue, Jesus showed up and was present with those who had questions, or were hungry, and with those who knew God’s law but had not yet experienced God’s love.
The second thing that discipleship requires is that we listen. Jesus instructs his disciples to take nothing with them. Unencumbered, they are freed to respond to the people around them. Jesus’ instructions make me wonder, what are those things that we need to leave behind so that we can better accompany people we meet? Perhaps, today, that looks like turning off notifications and chimes on your phone, closing the lid on your laptop, and muting the television. But it can also mean surrendering our assumptions about who can teach us, and what we know and don’t know.
The third thing that discipleship requires is that we speak the truth. It is that simple, and that difficult. Disciples of Jesus — that’s all of us — tell the story of what God is doing in our lives and why God means so much to us. Sometimes we tell the story of God’s activity through our actions; the disciples demonstrated their dependence on others and their belief in their mission by relying on the generosity of strangers. When we provide toothbrushes to hospice patients or stock the little free pantry cupboard, we are sharing what God has first given us. Sometimes, like the woman who met Jesus at the well, we tell the story of God’s grace when we share the story of an encounter with the holy or a time when God’s handiwork was obvious and visible in our lives. As reluctant as many of us are to be evangelists, “telling [God’s] story with words is part of the claim that Christ lays upon his disciples.”[ii]
The last instruction Jesus gives the disciples is that “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet….” (6:11) Discipleship means we don’t take responsibility for the outcome. “We are responsible [only] for our own obedience.”[iii] While “shaking off the dust” can be interpreted as a means of cursing those who will not listen, it can also be understood as “dust yourself off.” Jesus has just endured episodes of ridicule and rejection — what some may see as failure — and yet he persists in teaching about the kingdom of God and God’s love for the whole world. Discipleship includes learning how to fall and get back up. The disciples are instructed to follow Him and do the same, and they cannot carry resentment, cynicism or fear with them when they go.
The heart of our faith is the cross where Jesus went when he was rejected by religious authorities and scorned by his peers. God’s love compelled him to testify to the world on God’s behalf. In Mark’s Gospel, discipleship is about believing and following.
As we prepare to follow Jesus into the world this week may we hear the Good News in Mark’s gospel for us. May we show up alert to what God is doing in our lives and those around us; confident in God’s love for us and for the whole world, may we listen to those we meet; may we tell the story of how much God loves us and may we surrender our desire for control and approval and acceptance, trusting that God is present and alive with us.
Let us pray…[iv]
Almighty God, source of power and strength,
thank you for the witness of your Son Jesus,
who testifies to Your life-changing love.
Encourage us as we follow Jesus to show up unafraid, to listen well and to speak truth in love that the world would see the gospel lived out in our words and actions.
May the Holy Spirit be our guide forever.
Amen.
[i] Feasting on the Gospels--Mark: A Feasting on the Word Commentary (Kindle Locations 6129-6130). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Locations 7650-7651). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[iii] Lamar Williamson, Jr. The Gospel of Mark. 121.
[iv] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html
At Christ School, the all-boys Episcopal boarding school where Jamie teaches and where I worked for five years, one of the now-retired teachers is remembered well for advising students at the beginning of each school year, “Show up on time and ready to work.” Similarly, a pastoral counselor and chaplain distilled his advice to students in clinical pastoral education –where seminary students serve as chaplains to patients in a hospital setting – to four guiding principles: “1. Show up. 2. Listen. 3. Speak the truth. 4. [Don’t] take responsibility for the outcome.”[i]
In today’s gospel, Jesus, likewise, instructs his disciples, equipping them to go out into the world where he is sending them.
Today’s reading begins with an account of Jesus being rejected and ridiculed by people at the synagogue. First, his critics question his authority to teach; then they mock his legitimacy; and finally, they shame him, because he is not fulfilling the traditional role of the eldest son and supporting his mother and sisters.
Mark tells us “[Jesus] was amazed at their unbelief” (6:6a) but immediately, then he “went [out into] the villages teaching.” (6:6b) Their personal insults and their lack of faith did not deter him. Like the disciples after him, he shook the dust off his feet and carried on.
The very first thing that discipleship requires is that we show up. Jesus doesn’t ask the disciples to do anything he hasn’t already done. Whether it is at the river Jordan or the shoreline of the sea of Galilee, in the temple courtyard or at the synagogue, Jesus showed up and was present with those who had questions, or were hungry, and with those who knew God’s law but had not yet experienced God’s love.
The second thing that discipleship requires is that we listen. Jesus instructs his disciples to take nothing with them. Unencumbered, they are freed to respond to the people around them. Jesus’ instructions make me wonder, what are those things that we need to leave behind so that we can better accompany people we meet? Perhaps, today, that looks like turning off notifications and chimes on your phone, closing the lid on your laptop, and muting the television. But it can also mean surrendering our assumptions about who can teach us, and what we know and don’t know.
The third thing that discipleship requires is that we speak the truth. It is that simple, and that difficult. Disciples of Jesus — that’s all of us — tell the story of what God is doing in our lives and why God means so much to us. Sometimes we tell the story of God’s activity through our actions; the disciples demonstrated their dependence on others and their belief in their mission by relying on the generosity of strangers. When we provide toothbrushes to hospice patients or stock the little free pantry cupboard, we are sharing what God has first given us. Sometimes, like the woman who met Jesus at the well, we tell the story of God’s grace when we share the story of an encounter with the holy or a time when God’s handiwork was obvious and visible in our lives. As reluctant as many of us are to be evangelists, “telling [God’s] story with words is part of the claim that Christ lays upon his disciples.”[ii]
The last instruction Jesus gives the disciples is that “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet….” (6:11) Discipleship means we don’t take responsibility for the outcome. “We are responsible [only] for our own obedience.”[iii] While “shaking off the dust” can be interpreted as a means of cursing those who will not listen, it can also be understood as “dust yourself off.” Jesus has just endured episodes of ridicule and rejection — what some may see as failure — and yet he persists in teaching about the kingdom of God and God’s love for the whole world. Discipleship includes learning how to fall and get back up. The disciples are instructed to follow Him and do the same, and they cannot carry resentment, cynicism or fear with them when they go.
The heart of our faith is the cross where Jesus went when he was rejected by religious authorities and scorned by his peers. God’s love compelled him to testify to the world on God’s behalf. In Mark’s Gospel, discipleship is about believing and following.
As we prepare to follow Jesus into the world this week may we hear the Good News in Mark’s gospel for us. May we show up alert to what God is doing in our lives and those around us; confident in God’s love for us and for the whole world, may we listen to those we meet; may we tell the story of how much God loves us and may we surrender our desire for control and approval and acceptance, trusting that God is present and alive with us.
Let us pray…[iv]
Almighty God, source of power and strength,
thank you for the witness of your Son Jesus,
who testifies to Your life-changing love.
Encourage us as we follow Jesus to show up unafraid, to listen well and to speak truth in love that the world would see the gospel lived out in our words and actions.
May the Holy Spirit be our guide forever.
Amen.
[i] Feasting on the Gospels--Mark: A Feasting on the Word Commentary (Kindle Locations 6129-6130). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Feasting on the Word: Year B volume) (Kindle Locations 7650-7651). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[iii] Lamar Williamson, Jr. The Gospel of Mark. 121.
[iv] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html
Sunday, July 1, 2018
6th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 5:21-43
In the first half of Mark’s gospel, Jesus is a healer. He heals a leper, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, and in today’s reading, a bleeding woman and a dead girl. Three-quarters of the people Jesus heals in this gospel are social outcasts. Afflicted by conditions that make them ritually unclean, they were banned from society, excluded from relationship and isolated from community.[i]
In today’s gospel, the writer employs what’s known as a Markan sandwich, where he begins telling one story and then interrupts to tell another story before returning to conclude the original story. This structure is used at least nine times in Mark’s gospel, and when we encounter it, we must identify the toothpick, that is, the idea that holds the “sandwich” together. Here the story of a wealthy, influential leader and his dying daughter “sandwiches” that of the bleeding woman hiding in plain sight, yearning for healing. “The [older] woman’s faith forms the center of the sandwich and is the key to its interpretation. Through her Mark shows how faith in Jesus can transform fear and despair into hope and salvation.”[ii]
More than 20 years ago, Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest in Nashville, Tennessee, founded Thistle Farms, a place of sanctuary for women who have experienced trafficking, violence and addiction. Women are in residence for two years and receive housing, medical care, therapy, education and job training at no cost to them. Through Thistle Farms, the women experience life giving relationships and a healing community where they learn that God’s love is unfolding in their lives.[iii]
Just as Stevens has met hundreds of women whose “first memories are trauma and [whose] horror stories never seem to end,” in Mark’s gospel, “Jesus encounters human crisis upon crisis.”[iv]
With their stories set side by side, we can see how different the characters in this story are:
Last week we witnessed Jesus’ power over creation when he subdued the waves and the wind on the Sea of Galilee, and now we see that He is also Lord of Law and Life.[vi] By law, the ritually unclean and the dead were out of bounds and off-limits, but Jesus prioritizes relationships over rules to restore life to both the woman and the girl.
Even as we celebrate these healing stories, it’s important to say that there are no adequate answers to the unanswered questions this gospel provokes: “Why is there suffering in the world?” and “What does healing look like when it doesn’t come in the way, or at the time, that we think it should?” and all the other questions that are cried out in anguished tears at bedsides and gravesides.
Powerfully, these stories link the healing power of Jesus and the saving power of faith. Not in the way that the connection between faith and healing has been corrupted over centuries — where illness and even death were mis-understood as a shameful editorial on the morality or worth of a person or their family.
But here, the word used throughout this passage for “being made well” and “being healed” is the same word for “salvation” which we understand as being “from something bad… for something good, and … accomplished by God.” We are not only saved from death – separation from God – but we are saved for abundant life with God and with each other, for the sake of the world.[vii] As Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
Again and again in Mark’s healing stories, Jesus saves people from death, healing them physically and restoring them to their roles and relationships within their communities. In Jesus, they experience the incarnational love of God that manifests itself as “God’s commitment to be present with us in the world.”[viii]
Present with us at those bedsides and gravesides,
Present with us when we are cast out or disregarded by others,
Present with us when we are hopeless and hurting,
And desperate for healing.
Healed and restored, the woman is now called “Daughter” by Jesus, and the girl, on the cusp of adulthood in the first century, takes her place in the gathered community, too. In joining their stories, Mark demonstrates the social and communal nature of healing; this is what it looks like to be God’s children and live in relationship with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
For the last four nights, I have been watching the livestream of the ELCA Youth Gathering that has been happening in Houston since Wednesday. More than 30,000 youth from across the country, including more than 800 from North Carolina, are gathered there for worship, learning and service and every night they are all together in a stadium where they are hearing transformative stories of how people have experienced God’s call, love, grace and hope in their lives.
One common thread that is woven through all of their stories is that our faith is rooted in relationship, with God and with each other, and even with our enemies.
Because when we believe that,
then we can share our suffering,
confess our brokenness and our inability to fix ourselves, and
surrender the foolish and false ideas that masquerade as truth about who we are and who God is,
and, like the bleeding woman,
we can realize that
we are seen and known by God, and we are loved.
And that is only the beginning; we learn like one of the speakers said Friday night, that in sharing our [brokenness], we find healing in the grace that finds us. Every one of us is recovering from something, carrying some burden too weighty for us alone, and in community, we find we are freed from those burdens and, in turn, we can offer healing and reconciliation to the people we encounter, confident that “God uses us when we touch the wounds of others in Christlike ways.”[ix]
Let us pray…[x]
Holy God,
We give thanks for your Son, Jesus,
for no matter how deep we sink in despair,
or how broken we are,
he comes to us and at the touch of his hand
the outcasts are healed and reconciled
and we awake to fullness of life.
Lift us up to new life each day as we experience your healing mercy, and by your Spirit,
help us to love others as we are loved by You.
Amen.
[i] Matthew S. Rindge. “Mark’s Gospel, Social Outcasts, and Modern Slavery.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics. Vol. 10, Issue 6. June 2010.
[ii] James R. Edwards. “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives.” Novum Testamentum XXXI, 3 (1989) 193-216.
[iii] Becca Stevens. Snake Oil. 7.
[iv] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Location 5524.
[v] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Location 5842.
[vi] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 6725-6726.
[vii] Crazy Talk. Rolf A. Jacobson, Ed. 154-155.
[viii] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 5537-5539.
[ix] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 5548-5549.
[x] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html.
In the first half of Mark’s gospel, Jesus is a healer. He heals a leper, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, and in today’s reading, a bleeding woman and a dead girl. Three-quarters of the people Jesus heals in this gospel are social outcasts. Afflicted by conditions that make them ritually unclean, they were banned from society, excluded from relationship and isolated from community.[i]
In today’s gospel, the writer employs what’s known as a Markan sandwich, where he begins telling one story and then interrupts to tell another story before returning to conclude the original story. This structure is used at least nine times in Mark’s gospel, and when we encounter it, we must identify the toothpick, that is, the idea that holds the “sandwich” together. Here the story of a wealthy, influential leader and his dying daughter “sandwiches” that of the bleeding woman hiding in plain sight, yearning for healing. “The [older] woman’s faith forms the center of the sandwich and is the key to its interpretation. Through her Mark shows how faith in Jesus can transform fear and despair into hope and salvation.”[ii]
More than 20 years ago, Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest in Nashville, Tennessee, founded Thistle Farms, a place of sanctuary for women who have experienced trafficking, violence and addiction. Women are in residence for two years and receive housing, medical care, therapy, education and job training at no cost to them. Through Thistle Farms, the women experience life giving relationships and a healing community where they learn that God’s love is unfolding in their lives.[iii]
Just as Stevens has met hundreds of women whose “first memories are trauma and [whose] horror stories never seem to end,” in Mark’s gospel, “Jesus encounters human crisis upon crisis.”[iv]
With their stories set side by side, we can see how different the characters in this story are:
The man named Jairus is a synagogue leader who has wealth and influence and publicly approaches Jesus to advocate for his twelve-year old daughter.But then their stories converge because both Jairus and the woman “share a common desperate need” for healing.[v] And because they are both children of God, neither his privilege nor her status matter to Jesus.
The woman, whose name we never learn, has been hemorrhaging for as long as the girl has been alive. She doesn’t have anyone there to speak on her behalf. Alone and cast out from religious life and living in poverty because she has spent all of her money searching for a cure, she reaches out to Jesus from the obscurity of the crowd.
Last week we witnessed Jesus’ power over creation when he subdued the waves and the wind on the Sea of Galilee, and now we see that He is also Lord of Law and Life.[vi] By law, the ritually unclean and the dead were out of bounds and off-limits, but Jesus prioritizes relationships over rules to restore life to both the woman and the girl.
Even as we celebrate these healing stories, it’s important to say that there are no adequate answers to the unanswered questions this gospel provokes: “Why is there suffering in the world?” and “What does healing look like when it doesn’t come in the way, or at the time, that we think it should?” and all the other questions that are cried out in anguished tears at bedsides and gravesides.
Powerfully, these stories link the healing power of Jesus and the saving power of faith. Not in the way that the connection between faith and healing has been corrupted over centuries — where illness and even death were mis-understood as a shameful editorial on the morality or worth of a person or their family.
But here, the word used throughout this passage for “being made well” and “being healed” is the same word for “salvation” which we understand as being “from something bad… for something good, and … accomplished by God.” We are not only saved from death – separation from God – but we are saved for abundant life with God and with each other, for the sake of the world.[vii] As Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
Again and again in Mark’s healing stories, Jesus saves people from death, healing them physically and restoring them to their roles and relationships within their communities. In Jesus, they experience the incarnational love of God that manifests itself as “God’s commitment to be present with us in the world.”[viii]
Present with us at those bedsides and gravesides,
Present with us when we are cast out or disregarded by others,
Present with us when we are hopeless and hurting,
And desperate for healing.
Healed and restored, the woman is now called “Daughter” by Jesus, and the girl, on the cusp of adulthood in the first century, takes her place in the gathered community, too. In joining their stories, Mark demonstrates the social and communal nature of healing; this is what it looks like to be God’s children and live in relationship with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
For the last four nights, I have been watching the livestream of the ELCA Youth Gathering that has been happening in Houston since Wednesday. More than 30,000 youth from across the country, including more than 800 from North Carolina, are gathered there for worship, learning and service and every night they are all together in a stadium where they are hearing transformative stories of how people have experienced God’s call, love, grace and hope in their lives.
One common thread that is woven through all of their stories is that our faith is rooted in relationship, with God and with each other, and even with our enemies.
Because when we believe that,
then we can share our suffering,
confess our brokenness and our inability to fix ourselves, and
surrender the foolish and false ideas that masquerade as truth about who we are and who God is,
and, like the bleeding woman,
we can realize that
we are seen and known by God, and we are loved.
And that is only the beginning; we learn like one of the speakers said Friday night, that in sharing our [brokenness], we find healing in the grace that finds us. Every one of us is recovering from something, carrying some burden too weighty for us alone, and in community, we find we are freed from those burdens and, in turn, we can offer healing and reconciliation to the people we encounter, confident that “God uses us when we touch the wounds of others in Christlike ways.”[ix]
Let us pray…[x]
Holy God,
We give thanks for your Son, Jesus,
for no matter how deep we sink in despair,
or how broken we are,
he comes to us and at the touch of his hand
the outcasts are healed and reconciled
and we awake to fullness of life.
Lift us up to new life each day as we experience your healing mercy, and by your Spirit,
help us to love others as we are loved by You.
Amen.
[i] Matthew S. Rindge. “Mark’s Gospel, Social Outcasts, and Modern Slavery.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics. Vol. 10, Issue 6. June 2010.
[ii] James R. Edwards. “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives.” Novum Testamentum XXXI, 3 (1989) 193-216.
[iii] Becca Stevens. Snake Oil. 7.
[iv] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Location 5524.
[v] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Location 5842.
[vi] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 6725-6726.
[vii] Crazy Talk. Rolf A. Jacobson, Ed. 154-155.
[viii] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 5537-5539.
[ix] Feasting on the Gospels—Mark, Locations 5548-5549.
[x] Adapted from Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)