Rev. Dr. Anne Bain Epling First Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018 Mark 5: A Small God

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1 Rev. Dr. Anne Bain Epling First Presbyterian Church June 17, 2018 Mark 5:21-43 A Small God I think today s story within a story from Mark is one of the best told in the gospels. It s not often that we get to hear stories about women; but it s really not all that often that we get to hear stories about girls. So as the mother of 2 girls, I was immediately intrigued. But as I read the stories again and again, I also noted that within these two stories, there is room for much heartache. After all, the stories of the bleeding woman and the dead girl have a happy ending -- the woman is healed and the girl is brought back to life. Yet we know that in real life, this isn t always true. People aren t always healed and for sure, people aren t brought back to life. Almost all of us can name some ailment, whether it s physical, spiritual, psychological, or personal, that aches for healing but goes untreated. And so we need to be honest when reading this story and recognize that while some people are healed, but many are not. The desperate woman plagued by years of hemorrhaging was healed, but many men and woman are not. The synagogue leader s daughter was brought back to life, but other children die. Not everyone who prays for a miracle gets one. Barbara Brown Taylor, a well known author and preacher, wrote a book titled Bread of Angels: The Problem with Miracles. In it she writes: The trouble with miracles is that it is hard to witness to them without wanting one of your own. Everyone one of us knows someone who is suffering. Everyone one of us knows someone who could use a miracle, but miracles are hard to come by. Not everyone who prays for one gets one, and meanwhile some get them without asking. Taylor thinks that religious people can t stand the apparent randomness, so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the formula. Sometimes we even make the situation worse by saying or implying that if the person

2 believed enough or had enough faith, a healing miracle would happen. And so when it doesn t, it must be the sick person s fault. When Jairus and the bleeding woman meet Jesus, they re desperate to be healed. They fall at his feet. They beg. Please, come and lay your hands on my little girl so that she may live, Jairus begs. And Jesus goes to meet her. But no sooner does he go with Jairus than the woman approaches him quietly and sneakily. Mark says that she has endured much under many physicians. Doctors keep taking her money for unsuccessful remedies. She lives on a roller coaster of renewed hope and crushing disappointment as the specialists keep writing new prescriptions. The Jewish Talmud describes eleven different cures for this woman s disease. Some were tonics that may have actually worked. But others were superstitious remedies. One was to drink a goblet of wine containing a powder made from rubber, alum, and garden crocuses. Another was to carry the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen bag all throughout the summer. But even with these creative remedies, she didn t get better. In fact, with the doctors help she got worse. From the Jewish point of view, no disease could have been more humiliating than a constant menstrual cycle. According to Leviticus this woman is permanently unclean which means she can t worship in the temple and everyone with whom she comes in contact will also be unclean. She shouldn t have been in the crowd. She is as untouchable as a leper, but she is also desperate. So desperate, that in a last ditch effort to be healed she reaches out to touch Jesus. And miraculously, she s healed. But notice what has just happened -- it s so subtle that many readers miss it: when the unclean woman reached out to touch Jesus, she made him unclean. Simply by virtue of touching him, Jesus is now as unclean as the woman.

3 Now, at this point the law is clear that Jesus needs to stop everything he s doing, wash his clothes, and not go anywhere until sundown. The law is clear! But what does Jesus do? He proceeds on to Jairus house. Do you see what is happening here? Jesus puts love above his own religion s law! Jesus religion tells him he should stop everything he s doing and go and bathe. But Jesus heart tells him he needs to move on to Jairus house and help that little girl. In this story religion could have gotten in the way of healing and helping. And unfortunately, religion can still get in the way of healing and helping. You might recall many years ago when the Gardasil vaccine came out, a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer, some religious organizations opposed it for religious reasons. But we don t need to go back that far to see religious people opposing certain measures or laws for religious reasons. Why just a few days ago, the Attorney General was in our very own city and cited a Bible passage to support the current administration s immigration policy. Sessions quotes from Romans 13, which, As Sessions interprets it, says we need to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Now, as you may know, his statement created quite the stir among religious leaders, including the UMC of which Sessions is a member. The Stated Clerk of our own demonization also issued a statement speaking against Sessions interpretation by quoting just a verses later on Romans 13 when the Apostle Paul says: that love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10). So even today, we re disagreeing on how to interpret the law in light of our religious beliefs. What would Jesus do? I used to sit on the board of Doorways, an organization that provides housing to people living with AIDS and HIV. Doorways was founded because the religious groups in St. Louis wanted to do something to help people with AIDS, but they couldn t agree on preventative measures or education about AIDS because their churches have different beliefs about

4 what is acceptable and what is not. So, they decided that the one area they could agree on was to provide housing. Doorways likes to remind people that housing is healthcare, and that if someone with AIDS has housing they are more likely to remain on their medication and lessen the spread of AIDS. But there are still some religious groups that are opposed to Doorways because of the stigma attached to AIDS. I think their opposition would sadden Jesus. But then again, we all put parameters around what or whom we think Jesus would accept and what he would not. Around how far the law extends, and how far love reaches. Back in 1961, JB Phillips wrote a book titled Your God Is Too Small. Phillips message was on target for his context and ours. Phillips says that we adults too often worship a concept of God we learned as children in Sunday School. Some worship a god just a little larger than their own projected image--a magnification of their own good qualities, their own worship, and their own boundaries for love and what s acceptable and what is not. The problem with this thinking is that we begin to think that our image of God is the only image or the best image. Liberals, evangelicals, conservatives, biblical literalists, fundamentalists-all of us-tend to assume we have the inside track on our understanding of God. The Jehovah s Witnesses think they re right; the Southern Baptists think they re right; Presbyterians are predestined to be right; the Jesus Seminar thinks it is right; Catholics think they re right. We all run the risk of reducing God to a size that fits comfortably into our lives and our beliefs. The religious leaders at Jairus house had reduced God to a manageable size: Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? They asked because it was impossible for them to believe Jesus could ever bring life to the dead girl. But Jesus said to them, Do not fear. Only believe. And when he asked the people gathered at the girl s bedside why they were crying, they laughed at him. Because their God was too small to heal that little girl.

5 It s impossible to read this story without getting the sense that Jesus really does want us to take God out of the box we ve constructed because God is far too big to be contained in any box. Sometimes it bears reminding people that at the heart of our faith is an acknowledgement that we do not know everything there is to know about God. And From that acknowledgment there comes a willingness to listen to what other people have to say, as well as a respect for other cultural and religious traditions, and even a deep respect for people of other faiths. And this respect doesn t mean we re soft about what we believe. Our respect stems from the belief that God is never completely known by anyone and believing that sometimes We don t know the answer to that question, is the most faithful answer to give. Now this in no way means we should stop thinking about God or using our minds and intellects to ask the most difficult questions and struggle with the most vexing challenges. To the contrary, we need to lift up, acknowledge and celebrate the good Christian tradition of intellectual inquiry. I truly believe God wants us to think, inquire, and doubt. It s OK to struggle with what the Bible says, and to allow it to stretch us and mold us, rather than the other way around. And there also comes a time, after all the proof-texting is done, to realize that the Bible s message is one of love that Jesus will always error on the side of love. Now can we disagree on how to implement love but starting with love as the foundation is a faithful place to start. For you see, Just like Jesus commanded the dying girl to stand up, Jesus commands all of us to stand up; to stand up to old prejudices, to exclusionary practices, to self righteousness, to judgment and to criticism and to say enough. Jesus commands us to stand with inclusiveness, humility, praise and acceptance. Jesus calls the church to new places, to new obedience, to new mission activity of compassion and healing and reconciliation and rebuilding the

6 world; to take risks as to how it loves and who it includes rather than living on the side of protecting its own purity and who it excludes. Jesus calls all of us to stand up and: To let go of old securities and hold tightly to him. To summon the courage to be open to his openness, to be as inclusive as he was. To come out from behind our barriers and boundaries and live in the glorious freedom of his love. TALitha koom, little girl stand up. And so she does. And so can you and so can I. Amen.