Fearless Faith

Mark 5:21-43

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.

Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."

So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.

She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."

Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"

And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"

He looked all around to see who had done it.

But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe."

He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."

And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.

He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"

And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.

He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

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We are reading today about two very different “Come to Jesus” types of moments.

They are wound together into one Jesus story in the gospel according to Mark.

The second story seems like an interruption of the first. Almost as if they are disconnected, one from another.

In the first story, Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, a powerful and influential man, is in a state of desperation. His 12-year-old daughter is dying. Who wouldn’t feel desperate, hopeless even, in a situation like that? But rather than keeping vigil by her bedside, waiting for the inevitable to happen, he runs to find Jesus. He comes to Jesus, and falls down before him, begging him to save his young daughter.

This is his Come to Jesus moment, setting aside his reputation with the Pharisees and those who are already separating themselves from this radical Jesus and the things he says and does, and stepping forward in fearless faith because of his child’s suffering, because of the suffering it creates in him, trusting that if he just comes to Jesus, Jesus will somehow bring healing to his little daughter.

But on the way, there is an interruption. Somewhere in the crowd, someone has touched Jesus, causing him to recognize that power is going out of him. Causing him to stop, and look around, and say, “Who touched me just now?”

Now the disciples recognize this question as ridiculous, since there are so many people all pressing closely in around Jesus, all moving quickly along with him to see what will happen in response to Jairus’ plea to save his daughter. How could Jesus possibly be focusing in on one person who touched him, whom he says somehow drew power from him?

The scripture tells us that the woman who touched him had been bleeding continually, hemorrhaging, for 12 years. Her name is not told to us, so for purposes of this story I am going to call her Julia, just because it seems so distant and cold to keep referring to her as “the woman in the story” or “the woman who was bleeding”. So, this woman we’ll call Julia had gone to every doctor and had spent every dollar she had, and still there was no cure. Because of her bleeding and the cultural customs of that time she was always unclean, an outcast in society, a second class citizen. Like Jairus, she too was feeling desperate, hopeless. And so she decided to come to Jesus. But her Come to Jesus moment was not a public plea, like that of Jairus.

No, Julia resolves to approach Jesus quietly, secretly. And for her, the best, really the only way to do this was in a crowd. She expects that she won’t ever be noticed if she just touches him, just touches his clothing, while the crowd presses in around him. And so when the crowd goes along with him as he heads toward Jairus’ house, she sees her chance. Setting aside her knowledge that she is violating a law by even being in the crowd, much less deliberately touching Jesus, for she is untouchable, she steps forward in fearless faith, draws close to Jesus, and just touches the hem of his cloak. And immediately she feels in her body that she is healed, that her relentless bleeding has finally stopped altogether.

It’s just at this point that Jesus senses the power of this healing go out of him, and he stops, turns around, and begins to seek out who it was that touched him, that received healing from him. It’s not enough for healing to be anonymous. Jesus wants to know just whom he has encountered, whom he has healed. He wants to know the circumstances of our lives and our suffering.

And so Julia comes forward, falls at his feet in fear, and tells him everything. And then he sends her off in peace, reassuring her that her faith has healed her. It was not, apparently, her touch of his cloak that brought about the healing, but her faith, the faith that drove her to fearlessly take this action in the first place. Do not be afraid, only believe.

Well, Jesus has clearly delayed Jairus’ intention to get him there as quickly as possible. If I imagine myself as Jairus, I would be getting incredibly frustrated by now that this teacher wasn’t taking my problem seriously enough, wasn’t forsaking all interruptions to get to my daughter and heal her before it’s too late.

But Jesus does not seem to see one person’s problem as bigger than another, or as one of these people as a higher priority than the other. He does not recognize Jairus as more important or significant than Julia. He sees, in each case, a person who is suffering, and who has come to Jesus, come to the light, come to seek healing, even though they are very different people and they come to him in very different ways.

And now it appears that it actually is too late, for other people come to meet Jairus and tell him that his daughter has died. But now Jesus reassures Jairus, and says to him, “Do not fear, only believe”.  In essence he is telling him the same thing he told the woman, that it’s his faith that brings about healing. But in this case Jairus has not yet received the healing he seeks, which is the restoration of health to his daughter.

So Jesus moves right past the news of the child’s demise, and he arrives at Jairus’ house and goes inside, allowing only Jairus and the child’s mother and his three disciples, Peter, John, and James, to come in with him. And again, he goes beyond simple, basic healing. He is not calling to her from the door of the room, “Little girl, get up!”. No, just like Julia in the crowd, it’s the touch that matters. And so he goes to her, and takes her by the hand, and speaks these miraculous words to her. And up she gets. And then he looks around at the astonished parents and reminds them that she is probably hungry, perhaps they should give her something to eat. Here is your daughter, and you can now care for her as you did before. Go in peace, live your life. Your faith has made you well. Do not be afraid, only believe.

We have here two unique stories of healing. Two stories equally miraculous, and just as miraculous as we heard last week, when Jesus woke up in the boat, with his disciples in great fear, and calmed the storm that surrounded them. And what he said to the disciples in the boat was almost the same thing as he said to Jairus – why are you afraid? Do you have no faith?

Do not fear, only believe.

We need to hear these words again today, don’t we?

We have many things to be afraid of, or so it seems.

We are afraid that someone will come and hurt us.

We are afraid that we won’t have enough money to last the rest of our lives and keep us comfortable.

We are afraid of diseases that can come and cause pain, can shorten our life span.

We are afraid that the country is going to ruin.

We are afraid of international terrorists.

We are afraid of domestic terrorists.

We are afraid that the church is going to die.

We are afraid of the other – and we have many others who we perceive as different from ourselves and therefore worthy of our fear.

Jesus says to us -  do not fear, only believe.

But Jesus, you just don’t understand: we have lots of reasons to fear, lots of things to fear!

We add to the list every day, it seems, as we hear or read in the news about

·      the latest bacteria in the water,

·      the latest threat to our cholesterol levels,

·      the latest impacts of climate change,

·      the latest deaths in a church during a prayer meeting,

·      the latest rulings about health care or same sex marriage that clearly can bring us all to ruin.

Jesus says do not fear, only believe.

You know, fear is something we have in common across the human race. We fear different things, but we all face fear every day. Often when we disagree about things, when we find ourselves on different sides of an issue, we strongly oppose something, if we poke around beneath what’s going on, we can see that both sides are afraid of something, afraid that something will happen, afraid of the suffering that may result for them or for others, whether real or imagined.  Both sides are made up of human beings who are all operating out of some foundation of fear, some sense of suffering that will result if things don’t go their way.

But hope is something we also have in common. We all have some element of hope, some basis of hope for the future, something we hope for. Again, many different things that we hope for, but hope is something we have in common.

And fear and hope have something in common too, surprising as it may seem.

In his book, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, Jurgen Moltmann writes:

"What anxiety [or fear] and hope actually have in common is a sense of what is possible. In anxiety we anticipate possible danger. In hope we anticipate possible deliverance.”

The common thread between anxiety or fear and hope is a sense of what is possible. An eye toward the future. Does that eye focus on possible danger? or is it focusing on possible deliverance?

And so we have the option, we have the choice to stay stuck in our fears, our anxieties, our anticipation of danger. Or we can hope, we can anticipate possible deliverance. We can set our eyes on a future of danger or of deliverance, of fear or of hope.

And we can work for that deliverance. We can Come to Jesus with our suffering, with our fears, and we can turn our eyes toward the light that is Christ, toward the hope that comes from following him. And we can trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to put us to work on the things that matter, the things that express Christ’s love in the world, the things that bring people together rather than separate them, the things that reflect our hope and our faith and our love, and the grace that has been freely given to us, so that we can show grace to all others. Without fear.

Are we spending our energy, our sense of what is possible, on those things that bring deliverance to us and to those around us? Or are we wasting our energy on those things that might bring danger, even as we know that we will not get out of this world without suffering, without risk. Without death.

But, every day of our lives, we can step aside from our fear, if we can focus on God’s love for us and for others, if we can live our lives for others. If we can do this, recognizing that we all fear, we all suffer, and Christ is ready to heal us all, so that we can go on together in our common hope of deliverance, regardless of our differences.

Do not fear, only believe.

Both Jairus and Julia stepped away from their fear, stepped out in faith and hope, had their “Come to Jesus” moment, and Jesus did not disappoint. Jesus does not disappoint. Jesus is our common hope of deliverance.

Perhaps theologian Frederick Buechner said it best when he wrote:

 “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.” [Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Frederick Buechner]

We have no need to fear. If we only believe, if we only reach out and take the gift of grace, that free gift, that gift we cannot earn, that gift we do not deserve  - if we only believe, we don’t have to be afraid, for God is with us, always and forever, come what may.

Amen.

Emanuel - This Changes Everything

Samuel 17: 32-49

17:32 David said to Saul, "Let no one's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine."

17:33 Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth."

17:34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock,

17:35 I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it.

17:36 Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God."

17:37 David said, "The LORD, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine." So Saul said to David, "Go, and may the LORD be with you!"

17:38 Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail.

17:39 David strapped Saul's sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, "I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them." So David removed them.

17:40 Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd's bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

17:41 The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him.

17:42 When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.

17:43 The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

17:44 The Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field."

17:45 But David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

17:46 This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,

17:47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand."

17:48 When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

17:49 David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.

Mark 4:35-41

4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."

4:36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.

4:37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

4:38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

4:39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

4:40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"

4:41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

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The word Emanuel means God is with us. It is derived from the Hebrew, and the way it is used in the book of the prophet Isaiah, where it says “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”, Christians believe this is pointing to Jesus Christ, God with us. Jesus didn’t say that was his name, but through the Gospel stories we have come to trust and believe, that a name for Jesus the Christ is Emanuel, God with us.

And the act of trusting and believing this – that God is with us – this  should strengthen us, should bolster our faith, should make us feel strong and courageous and capable of saying and doing things that show us to be faithful disciples of Christ, right? Knowing that God is with us is a pretty big deal. If God is with us, we do not need to be afraid.

It certainly made a big difference to David. As he first volunteered and then prepared to face the great huge Philistine warrior Goliath, the former King Saul tried to prepare him for battle in the way he knew best – the tried and true way - by loading him up with his own suit of armor, his helmet, and his sword. David was not able to even walk, much less fight, under the weight and the bulk of all that.

So he went into battle just as he was, proclaiming the goodness of the Lord, who had saved him all along from the lions and the bears he had fought in order to protect his sheep, for all of his experience to that point was as a young shepherd.

He had just been chosen and anointed by God as the next king, to succeed Saul, who was the first King of Israel. Saul had been named as king when the people of Israel insisted that God was not enough, but he had failed miserably and so God identified David out of all the sons of Jesse, and named him as the next king of Israel. 

And now here is David, ready to fight the Philistine with no armor, no helmet, no sword. He took only his shepherd’s staff, and his sling, and five smooth stones from the dried out riverbed. And off he went, not cowering in fear, but knowing and trusting that God was with him, even saying to the Philistine, “I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, and this very day this whole assembly may know that God does not save by sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.

And with that sling, and the first stone, David conquered Goliath. And having seen what the Lord had done, the Philistines turned and ran.  

This was a turning point for David. It changed everything. He found himself transformed. Having faced Goliath, wearing no armor, no protection whatsoever, having gone to the line of battle with his slingshot and five smooth stones, and with the gifts he had been given by God, and with his trust and faith in the Lord God Almighty, and his intent to do good by God, this young man, full of hope and promise, faced and took down a giant who was held down by his very armor and protection and swords and weapons, to the point where he could not move, he could not see well, he had no chance against this newness of life.

David knew that he would win, no matter what happened, because he was sure and confident that God was with him, and that God would not leave him nor forsake him, no matter what happened to him.

In the storm that the disciples and Jesus faced out in that boat that night, the disciples were afraid, scared to death. And Jesus slept. He slept in the stern of the boat, peacefully, deeply, totally beyond the understanding of the disciples. He must have been seriously worn out to have slept through such a storm. The disciples could not deal with the fact that he was sleeping while they were freaking out.

And so in their increasing panic and fear they woke him, and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”

You know, they didn’t ask him to fix it. Perhaps it hadn’t even occurred to them that he could stop the storm. They wanted him to share in their fear. They could not understand why he would not be awake and panicking at that moment along with them. And so he did awaken to their shouts.  Then he turned away from them, and faced the storm, and said, “peace, be still”, and with that he calmed the waters, in a way that only God Almighty could have done. 

I have to believe that for the disciples this was also an incredible turning point. Because they may have been afraid of the storm before, but what new sort of chill of fear they must have felt at that moment, realizing just who it was that was in this boat with them.

God was truly with them. And as Jesus said to them, what did they have to fear? Where was their trust and their faith?

Knowing that God was with them truly changed everything.

On Thursday morning I sat in the Crossroaders room during our regular noonday prayer time, with a white man and a black man from this congregation. And we talked, and we prayed, and we wept. We spoke about the events in Charleston, South Carolina, at a church, a place of worship, a church named Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.  A church where, during another similar prayer meeting to ours, ten people, all black welcomed a stranger, a white man they had never seen before, into their prayer circle, and an hour later, nine of them were violently shot to death by that stranger.

And I thought about how each one of us that day, each of the three of us, had come to this church at some point in time as strangers, just like so many of us here today, and just like that stranger, we were welcomed in. Because that’s what churches do – they welcome strangers in the name of Christ. Because churches live into the trust that God is with us everywhere and at all times, and that we ought not to be afraid of whatever this life will bring.

And so I have no doubt that those nine beautiful souls –

·      Cynthia Hurd, age 43;

·      Susie Jackson, age 87;

·      Ethel Lance, age 70;

·      the Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, age 49;

·      The Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney, age 41;

·      Tywanza Sanders, age 26;

·      The Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., age 74;

·      the Rev. Sharonda Singleton, age 41;

·      and Myra Thompson, age 50 - 

I have no doubt that they  found themselves immediately in the loving arms of Jesus. Not because they’d earned it, although they certainly seem like people who would. But because we have been saved by grace, and it is not our own doing – it is the work of Christ.

And we have the clearest example that God is with the people of Emanuel AME Church, when we see how just days later, they spoke , one by one, to the man who did this unspeakable thing, and they spoke forgiveness.

Here’s just one example:

 “I just want everybody to know, to you, I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, a daughter of Ethel Lance, said to him at the hearing. 

“You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again, I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me, you hurt a lot of people. But God forgives you, and I forgive you.”

Forgiveness in the name of Christ. It is what we are also called to do, as Christ’s followers. Unconditionally. Just as these family members have done.

We welcome strangers here at New Life Presbyterian Church, in much the same way as Emanuel AME Church does. It is being church to welcome strangers. It is what we do, because it’s what Jesus told us to do.  And of course this is directly connected to Jesus telling us not to be afraid. And I think Jesus must say that – do not be afraid - because we have a strong instinct to fear one another.

But he knows that in him we have already died and been born again to new life, in our baptism. And so death can do nothing to us anymore.

So what is to be done? Clearly fearing the stranger is not what this is calling us to begin doing. Acting out of fear to protect ourselves is not what this life of following Christ is about. It’s about we who are Christians, who are followers of Christ, recommitting and rededicating ourselves to loving one another. It’s about waking up every morning and promising not ourselves, but God, that we will love one another. We will love the Lord God with everything we have. We will love our neighbors as ourselves. We will not involve ourselves in anything that does not promote love for God and for one another. We will work to rid ourselves of our thoughts of hate, and our objects that perpetuate hate, and our systems that institutionalize hate.

And we will involve ourselves only in those things that work for good, as God calls us to do so – in our homes, in our hearts, in our daily actions, in our lives, in our nation.

Today marks a commencement, a turning point, for seven beautiful people – six of them are here today – all of them connected with this congregation, who are graduating from high school or college or graduate school, and in each one of these turning points they are being changed, going forward as new people, in a new way, their lives transformed by the milestone they have just achieved. And we celebrate them.  We give thanks to God for them. And we pray for them, that they will always know and will always act out of the knowledge that God is with them, and they do not need to be afraid.

God is with us all, here and now. The Holy Spirit lives with us, comforts us, challenges us – God is always with us. And so for our new graduates, for those who were not so long ago strangers in this place, for those who have been part of this congregation for many years: know that God is with us. God is with us in all our turning points, when we need guidance for the next step. God is with us in our big momentous events, in our joys and sorrows, in the storms of our lives. God is with us when we are consumed by grief, whether it is personal grief, or shared grief, such as this national grief we felt upon hearing the news about Charleston.

God is always with us. God will never leave us or forsake us, no matter what evil comes to us from this world. No matter how many times we turn from God, God never turns from us.

But this knowledge calls us to action, not complacency. We are called to give all of ourselves, in service to one another. We are called to love without question, without judgment, without conditions.

We are called to speak out as people of faith, without fear, calling others to a change of heart when we hear them say things that are racist, or hateful, or not of God. We must speak out as God’s people against hatred, without letting fear stop us. We must stand up to it like David to Goliath, trusting in God to give us the words and to work in us.

Writer Thom Shuman put it this way:

“Clad in the garments of bitterness,

carrying weapons loaded with bigotry and perceived slights,

stalking every place we are

(even sacred places like churches and schools),

hate stands before us, taunting us, challenging us,

hoping that we might become its twin.

How do we stand up to such a giant in our midst?

It would be easy to put on that heavy armor of anger,

 to slip our feet into the shoes of vengeance,

to pick up our own weapons, and rush into battle. 

But we are called to a more difficult task.

To set aside the armor, to lay down the weapons,

to reach deep down inside our hearts and our souls

where they have been placed so long ago

and pull out those five smooth stones –

compassion, inclusion, love, goodness, and forgiveness.

For no matter how strong it seems in this moment,

no matter how many weapons it has at its disposal,

no matter how it seems to control our lives,

hate cannot and hate will not be able to withstand

these gifts from God.”

 Our children learned this week in VBS that God calls us to Move and to Act and to Care and to Follow and to Share – Let’s Go! We can do this, because we have no reason to fear. Come what may, God is with us. And this changes everything.