Year B
Mark 5:21-34
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Hope and Thankfulness in All Circumstances
Most of us here this morning have experienced the loss of something or the death of someone that we love. Loss and grief along with fear are frequent experiences and each of our texts today imagines a different kind of loss or fear. In the OT lesson, David laments the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, the psalmist voices the haunting words, “I cry to you from the depths, Lord,” Paul appeals to the Corinthians to help the Jerusalem church in their struggle and in the gospel from Mark, we are given two reminders of our most common fears-that we will lose a child and that our health will fail and we will find no cure.
We all join the psalmist in crying out. And yet, each of the texts today also tell of a loving God who understands and is present with us in every situation we face in life. The scriptures often speak of God as “God with us” and also as a God of “steadfast love” who is profoundly moved by the plight of the people of God, enabling us to trust and live in hope and gratitude. God hears David’s cry of grief or lament over the death of his friend Jonathan and over King Saul, the man with whom he kept hoping he could have a good relationship.
David’s lament today is one of earliest pieces of Hebrew poetry that has been preserved. Many of the psalms are created to David and even though not every psalm may have come from his own hand, there is enough evidence that David was a gifted poet and that it was his chosen way for expressing his feelings, from grief and pain to high joy and praise. The psalmists cry out and complain to God with as much regularity as they praise God. This is why we can find help in our own desperate or joyous times when reading the psalms. Today text is the cry of a grief-stricken heart.
Over the past few weeks we have been reading from 1 & 2 Samuel. Between last week and this week’s text, David has played an increasing role in bringing stability to the nation, the intense jealousy of King Saul toward David becomes apparent, David repeatedly attempts to be reconciled with Saul and we hear of the deep friendship between David and Jonathan, Saul’s son. The scene for today is set after Saul’s death when David’s army had just defeated the Amelekites. Informed by a messenger, David laments, cries out over the deaths of Saul and his son Jonathan and expresses deep love and gratitude in his poem for them.
David is the father of our faith in several ways and not just because Jesus is in his lineage. Even though he is a flawed human being just like us, he teaches us how to believe, and also to have gratitude. In the text today, that gratitude involves more than just saying thank you to God for success. David’s thankfulness comes from reflecting on the contributions of Saul, his friendship with Jonathan, and with those he encountered along the way. David like gratitude, the gratitude of the faithful, includes being grateful for everything that gets you there.
And this way of giving thanks, seeing God in all the events of our lives, will make us happier, more content, and more inclined to act on that gratitude, because this way of expressing gratitude helps to release some of those good-feeling, brain chemicals called oxytocin or serotonin in the mind. Gratitude or happiness is linked with higher immunity and lower disease rates, better sleep and a longer life. David’s gratitude, even in the face of extreme grief, is a model for looking at our own lives, helping us to feel joy and gratitude in all times.
Paul has much to be thankful for and we hear his thankfulness and joy throughout his letters. In today’s text his second letter to the Corinthian church, he is writing to address serious problems that had developed in the church at Corinth. In the past couple of Sunday’s, we’ve heard a lengthy discussion of his apostleship and an appeal for love and unity in the congregation, today Paul moves directly into a discussion of the need for the Corinthian believers to share their material abundance with poor sisters and brothers who are suffering in Jerusalem. He stresses that his asking is not a command. Such offerings are to be given freely but he goes on to say that the sharing of material blessings is very much a part of being a child of God.
It is because of “the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ” that we should give. Good giving derives from Good News – that, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” There is no need for Paul to demand an offering. The example of Christ’s life, and death, where God felt the suffering of Jesus on the cross, and the resurrection, is sufficient to replace fear with trust. And given the tension there was at that time between the communities of Jewish and Gentile believers this offering was more than a matter of sharing with the needy. This was a way for them to help bridge the gap which can separate cultures and to show unity as one people of God. It was a desperate time for the church in Jerusalem and desperate situations call for extreme responses.
I read about a paratrooper once who was speaking to a group of young recruits. When he had finished his prepared talk and called for questions, one young fellow raised his hand and said, “What made you decide to make your first jump”? The paratrooper’s answer was quick and to the point “An airplane at 20,000 feet with three dead engines.” That makes sense. You sometimes have to do what you have to do. This is what we see also in the familiar text today from Mark’s gospel where he interweaves together two stories that remind us of our most common fears and how Jesus helps us in our times of need and loss.
The way Mark has weaved these stories together, the healing of the women with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus’s daughter, sets the stage for a comparison of the two figures and their situations. The similarities are obvious. Both characters take the initiative in dealing with Jesus and both do so out of a desperate and hopeless situation. Both are told by the experts that their situations are beyond help. And in spite of their circumstances, both come to Jesus in faith and have confidence that Jesus can heal them. And, there are also differences. Jarius is a leader of the synagogue, a respected religious official, who approaches Jesus in public, in the face of large crowd. The nameless woman with the unmentionable problem, whether out of embarrassment or shyness, decides to make her move in secret, anticipating that the pressing crowd will prevent her from being exposed. Not meaning to, she gains Jesus’ attention.
The picture we get depicts Jesus hurrying to Jairus’s house, when time is of the essence, yet stopping to search for and converse with the unclean woman without a name. She is of no less importance to Jesus than the child of this prominent religious leader. She becomes a reminder to us that God cares for those on the margins socially and religiously and that they have a place in God’s kingdom. Jesus went out of his way to give his help to those who asked for it. He touched, he lifted up, and he arranged to feed a hungry child. He was a healer, a giver of hope and new life. He cared and was open to the needs and pain of others all to open people’s eyes to the reality of God, to unheard-of possibilities made possible through faith and trust in Jesus.
God’s presence in every situation of our lives can be transforming. That doesn’t mean that things will always work out well; although, some circumstances do. What it means is that we are never alone. God understands and is with us and calls us to work to change as many of the circumstances that create loss as can be changed. Some things, of course will not change. Each one of us will one day die to this side of eternity and survivors will continue to feel grief. But in the face of the mystery of life and death, we can be assured that God is not only powerful but good. So reach out, touch Jesus, have faith, then with thankfulness and joy reach out and touch someone else with your abundance so they can know life, healing, and hope.