Healing and Grace

21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat^* to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. ²²Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³and 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.’ ²⁴So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. ²⁶She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ ²⁹Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ³¹And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ ³²He looked all round to see who had done it. ³³But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ 35 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?’ ³⁶But overhearing^* what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ ³⁷He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ ⁴⁰And 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. ⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ ⁴²And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

           

Mark 5:21-43

                                   

This is one of those rich passages with so many different images, with so many different ways to preach about it. Since I’ve spent the last week at the beach, I turned my bulletin info in last Wednesday a week ago, intending to go a completely different way with this sermon. But when I got in bed that night, I turned on my television to discover that it had happened again—another mass shooting where many lives were taken way too early in such a violent and horrific manner, that many husbands and wives, children and parents, nieces and nephews, friends were left mourning someone they dearly loved, and so sadly that a congregation was left without its pastor. Just like many of you, I’m sure, I tossed and turned all night, not being able to get it out of my head, not being able to wrap my head around it all, not being able to make any sense out of it. I’ve thought about it ever sense in so many different ways.

Although I sat on my living room floor after Newtown and wept as the details came out that 20 5 and 6 year olds were gunned down, this shooting has hit me differently, perhaps even harder. The more I’ve thought about it over the past 10 days, I think I’ve discovered the reasons it has hit me so hard. I have to confess to you (if you haven’t already figured it out) that I’m deeply troubled by the proliferation of guns and the violence that often comes with them in our country, by the deeply troubled folks who use them to terrorize and create chaos—by how easily these folks use them to create chaos because, in so many cases, they don’t even have to stop to reload. I’m saddened by our glorification of guns and other violent weapons in video games, tv shows, movies, and so much more.

When I was in 6^th grade, my classmates and I came back from Christmas break to discover that our classmate Darrien had been killed on accident by his brother who found their dad’s handgun in a closet. When I was in college, my friend Carl shot himself in his bed with a gun his dad owned. And then there was Bonkey—a young African-American teenager whose family was taken in by a Presbyterian church in Birmingham, taken in so they could get out of a life of violence. Bonkey had flourished in this situation, finding a home in the church youth group and among the youth of our presbytery, making good grades in a new school, playing football for the high school. After their football game one Friday night, Bonkey and his friends were walking into a Pizza Hut to celebrate their win—and he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting by a stranger who had gotten ahold of a semi-automatic weapon. All of these situations, each one different in it’s own right, changed me as a person. I hope you can sense that my hatred of guns, that my disgust of the violence we see every day because of them, is not a political statement—but an honest expression of faith for me. Because I believe in God, I believe that God has created each one of us out of great love. And because of that belief, I believe God grieves deeply when we are so easily able to take life away from each other. Anytime I hear of shooting—no matter whether a single life or many is taken away, I grieve deeply.

As a woman raised in Birmingham, I grew up hearing the stories of segregation, the tales of racism. I grew up with a mom who was raised in Birmingham in the 1960s, shielded by her parents with what was really going on only 5 miles from their home. I love the city of Birmingham, so it is hard for me to imagine what took place there over so many years before I was born. I’ve been in the 16^th Street Baptist Church many times, and it never ceases to sadden me to think of the 4 little girls who were blown to pieces in that building. The stories of segregation and racism grieve me deeply, knowing that police dogs attacked black children, knowing that slurs were hurled at women as they were tackled to the ground, knowing that so many were thrown in prison for no other reason than the color of their skin. So, to discover that this latest act of sheer violence happened because a white man couldn’t see past the color of a person’s skin, believing that we aren’t all created equally in God’s eyes—whose racist hatred ran so deep in his bones that he took nine lives—it’s just overwhelming.

And to think that it all happened in a church, a sanctuary where folks gather to be welcomed in the name of Christ, to spend time in fellowship together, to learn and discover more about God together, wow. To know that the minister who was gunned down was my age, with so much more ministry ahead of him just like me, wow. To think of the Bible studies and worship services that happen in this place, to think of the way Mother Emmanuel opened its doors to everyone just like we do, wow. Pretty overwhelming. Deep, deep grief.

In our Gospel story today, Mark sets another overwhelming scene for us, telling us a story about deep, deep grief. A synagogue leader runs up to Jesus—he has heard the miraculous stories of healing that Jesus has been doing. The leader’s daughter is at the point of death, so he runs to Jesus, falling on his knees before him, begging him repeatedly to come heal his daughter: “’My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well.’” Jesus feels the desperation and immediately turns to go with Jairus to find the little girl. As they are on the way, Jesus soon feels someone else beside him, feels another moment of desperation and grief. A woman who has been bleeding profusely, hemorrhaging for 12 years, a woman who has tried everything to find some healing, falls behind Jesus and touches his cloak. Jesus feels it, feels the woman reaching out to him: “’Who touched me?’” he asks, calling the broken woman to open up. She comes to him, opens her life up once again, and tells the truth. “’Daughter,’” Jesus says, “’your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.’” Finally, Jesus makes his way to the little girl, raising her from death. In these moments of desperation and deep grief, Jesus gives new life to them all—to Jairus and his little girl, to the bleeding woman whom he has healed.

Mark paints a scene for us of chaos and desperation, of folks who are struggling for healing and experiencing deep, profound grief. In different ways, they reach out to Christ, yearning for healing, praying for wholeness. And they leave Christ as folks who are made whole, folks who have been given the gift of transformation, of incredible grace. And we are not so far from the people in our Gospel story—we are folks who struggle with violence, people who sin every day even in the times we can recognize it and in the times we can’t, folks who are broken by racism and sexism and the other isms of our world, people who are called to fall on our knees and reach out and touch Christ’s cloak to beg for healing and wholeness, to ask for redemption and forgiveness, to experience GRACE.

The good news of this passage today, the amazing news for Jairus and his daughter, the overwhelming news for the bleeding woman, is found in Christ’s gracious act of healing, of acceptance, of welcome, of wholeness. It is also wonderful news for all of us who are searching for understanding in the midst of sin, in the midst of brokenness, in the midst of the darkness of this world. One of the things I love most about this passage is that Jesus feels these folks coming up to him, begging for his grace, begging for his healing. He senses them there, and he listens to their pleas, but he doesn’t waste any time asking them how they got there—it simply doesn’t matter to Christ what circumstance brought them there. Jesus doesn’t ask them to stop first and confess their sin, doesn’t ask them to give a list of the good things they have done, doesn’t ask them whether they belong there or whether they’re worthy of healing. Christ simply extends his healing, welcoming them and giving them the wholeness of grace, giving new life to all of them, proclaiming that their faith has made them well, telling them to go in peace.

And Christ calls us to do the same for each other, as folks who identify ourselves as his followers. In the worst way, the loss of life at Emanuel Church has been overwhelming. But in the best way, it has also been overwhelming—the way all of those folks, the ones who died, and the ones who were left mourning, reflected and extended God’s grace over and over and over again. In the same moment, my heart broke again—and my heart rejoiced—when I heard the killer say that he almost didn’t go through with the shooting because the folks at Mother Emanuel were so welcoming to him when he walked into the Bible study, as he sat for an hour listening. Those folks were doing what they were supposed to do in God’s sanctuary. They were living out Christ’s call to welcome in his name. And, again, Christ’s grace was extended through the forgiveness that the relatives of the slaughtered church members offered the shooter at his initial hearing: I am mourning, but I forgive you. I am devastated, but I forgive you. I am lost, but I forgive you. They extended Christ’s healing to him even though he might not ever be able to recognize or celebrate it.

Just as Christ extended such incredible grace as healed the folks in our passage, we are called to do the same for each other. The fact that the shooting happened in a church named “Emanuel” shouldn’t elude any of us—because Emanuel means “God is with us.” God, in Christ, is with us in the way he senses our brokenness, in the way he offers forgiveness, in the way he heals, in the way he graces us with love.

I was so struck Friday by our President’s eulogy for the Reverend Pinckney, by his definition of grace. If you’re a fan of our President, or if you’re not, I hope you take some time to listen to his eulogy. He said, and he sang:

[The killer] didn’t know he was being used by God. Blinded by hatred, the…killer could not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group -- the light of love that shone as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in their prayer circle.  The…killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court -- in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness.  He couldn’t imagine that…Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood -- the power of God’s grace.  This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. The grace of the families who lost loved ones.  The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons.  The grace described in one of my favorite hymns -- the one we all know:  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.   I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see.  According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned.  Grace is not merited.  It’s not something we deserve.  Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace.  As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves.  We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other -- but we got it all the same.  He gave it to us anyway.  He’s once more given us grace.  But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.

Wholeness. Healing. Forgiveness. Peace. It is Christ’s gift, and it is indeed up to us to make the most of it, to share it with others, to prove ourselves worthy.