O LORD my God, I cried out to you, *
and you restored me to health. (Psalm 30 verse 2)
A week ago, last Wednesday night, a group of Christians gathered after what had been a very long day to study scripture. The Rev. Clementa Pinckney had driven a little more than 2 hours to travel back from Columbia, South Carolina where he served as a state senator in order to be present as three members of his church were officially received as new preachers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The gathering to celebrate these new preachers had begun as a crowd of about 50 but had dwindled to 12—a meaningful number that is echoed today in our Gospel reading from Mark—12 of the most devout members would stay for the weekly Wednesday Night Bible Study, when a young man appeared at the door asking to see the minister. It was unusual to have a new person join their Bible Study—in particular a young white man. But he was welcomed in, as was their custom, while they discussed the parable in Mark 4:1-6 about the sower who broadly sows seeds and where the seeds land results in how they grow. After more than an hour praying and sharing scripture, the young man’s heart remained hardened and so he stood, uttering words of hate and ignorance, to take the lives of 9 brilliant sons and daughters of God—9 faithful people who died with Jesus Christ on their lips, in their hearts, and lived out in their lives.
The story could have ended here, more lives lost to hate and violence. But the story did not end with this hateful act. Rather two days later, when the man was caught, returned to South Carolina and brought before the court in a hearing to determine his bond, the families of those who were so brutally murdered were invited to speak to him, via a video connection. Two days after their loved ones were killed, one by one they stood and through tear choked voices told the man how he had taken away their lives, their heroes, the ones who were most important to them—and then each one forgave him. Alana Simmons, whose grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Simmons who was killed at Mother Emanuel Church, said that she was not prepared to stand up and talk, but simply wanted to be present. And then she heard Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, say in a moment of anguish and grace, “I forgive you and have mercy on your soul.” Others stood and told him that they forgave him and knew that if he asked for forgiveness from God, that God would hear him. Jamila Gadsden, sister in law of Myra Thompson, said that she saw the killer as a child of God. “Emanuel does not harbor hate in her heart. That’s not the God we serve. It’s important for us to know that the young man is a mother’s son, a father’s son. If he can earnestly repent, God will hear him.” Bethane Middleton Brown, sister of DePayne Middleton Doctor, said, “she is a work in progress” acknowledging the anger she feels. And yet in court she told the killer that the Middletons were the family that “love built.” “Forgiveness is the only way. Others may not agree with me but that’s the way it has to be.”[1] By seeing this man as a child of God, by placing their complete faith in God’s eternal grace, healing has begun through these acts of forgiveness.
Another story of healing through relationship happened just day before yesterday when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a close vote that all citizens of our country can marry the person they love and enjoy both the benefits and the responsibilities of such a relationship. This healing could not have happened without many courageous people telling their stories of being gay or lesbian to families and friends. And families and friends silently working behind the scenes or boldly standing alongside them in support. It was through relationship that so many people were able to recognize that they were deeply affected by this decision because they knew someone who was gay, that they loved someone who was gay, that they depended upon someone who was gay. For people who have suffered a long time, healing has begun because people were willing to reach out in relationship.
In our Gospel reading today we have two stories intertwined with each other. We have the story of Jesus returning from the other side of the sea of Galilee to face a huge crowd who has gathered to see him, to ask his healing, to listen to him preach. And out of the crowd comes a man who has great authority. He is a leader of the synagogue, whose name is Jairus. He is one of the rare characters in Mark’s Gospel who is named. He approaches and throws himself at Jesus’ feet. He begs him to come with him because his daughter is seriously ill. Without a moment of hesitation, Jesus hurriedly follows the man. The second story within this story happens as Jesus is passing through the crowd on the way to Jairus’ home. An unnamed woman sees her perhaps only opportunity to be healed. She is the complete opposite of the man who has asked for Jesus’ help by the seaside. This woman has been suffering for 12 years with a condition that has left her isolated and completely impoverished.
She has spent all that she had on doctors who have taken her money, but have failed to bring her any relief. But in this man, Jesus, she sees hope. And so pressing against the teeming crowd, she reaches out and is able to just touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. In the Gospel of Mark a crowd is often a referent for “the poor.” In the time of Jesus the majority of the population would have been poor. And so this woman finds her place among them, but because of her illness, she would have been even more desperate. And yet she has faith. She believes that healing will come from this man. When she touches Jesus’s garment, she immediately feels her health being returned to her. Jesus also senses something. In our translation this morning we hear that Jesus immediately is aware that “power” or “energy” dunamis has gone out of his body and so he turns asking who touched him?
The disciples look at each other and in both amazement and a bit of frustration over the crush of the crowd say essentially, “You’ve got to be kidding. Everyone has been touching you!” But Jesus knows that healing has happened and so he wants to know—he wants to meet—the one who has touched him and received this healing. You see Jesus, even in this maelstrom of people and events—wants to know the person—wants to enter into relationship with this person. So he waits and finally the unnamed woman steps forward and “in fear and trembling, falls down before him and tells him the whole truth.” Jesus responds to her with tenderness, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
In taking time to embrace this woman, precious time seems to have passed. People come running from Jairus’ home telling him his daughter has died and so Jesus’ presence is no longer needed. Jesus brushes this aside and says, “Do not fear, only believe.” We are told in the story that Jesus continues to Jairus’ house where people are loudly mourning the daughter’s death. But Jesus tells them that she is not dead, “only sleeping.” The ones who laugh are thrown out of the room and in the presence of the child’s mother and father and three of Jesus’ inner circle—Peter, James and John—Jesus touches the child and says, “Talitha cum” or “Little one, get up.” The child wakes and gets off the bed. Jesus tells her family to give her something to eat. We are told that the daughter is 12 years old. She has lived as long as the unnamed woman had suffered from her illness.
Mark has wrapped these two stories in each other so we can learn something larger. We know that even the winds and the waves respond to Jesus’s simple words, “Peace be still.” This is certainly a story about Jesus’ power to heal—even raising someone from the dead. This is who Jesus is to the writer of Mark’s Gospel—God’s son—the one through whom God’s power flows.
But this story is also about relationship. Jesus’s touch—not merely his words—are what heal. And Jesus goes beyond just touching—he desires to see and restore the person—he desires to connect on an intimate level with the people in this story. He responds to the powerful leader, Jairus who speaks on behalf of his daughter—and he responds to the unnamed woman who grabs his cloak in a crowd—the unnamed woman who has no one to speak for her. In this story you hear a presence of precious intimacy between people who are socially very distant from each other. The touch that normally would have caused certain scandal instead brings wholeness, healing, and peace.
And Jesus teaches in this story that nothing is impossible with God. It is never too late, no situation is too dire, no person unworthy of healing, nothing can come between the healing power of God for us and our restoration to wholeness.
This healing through faith in God and relationship with God’s children is available to all of us. In the courtroom in Charleston, South Carolina, the family members of the nine Christians killed at Mother Emanuel church were able through Gods’ grace to courageously see the man who had committed a horrible crime as someone who God will hear. They did not deny his sins or ignore their own pain. But they were able to reach out, offering forgiveness to a stranger because they felt God’s call to respond to “hate-filled actions with love-filled actions.”
They followed God’s call to avoid being captured by fear, but instead to believe—to trust in God who casts out hate and fear through perfect love (1 John 4:18). They followed and placed their trust in God who “created all things so that they might live and the generative forces of the world to be wholesome. (Wisdom of Solomon 1:14) They chose to believe the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King that only love can drive out hate.
And through their love filled actions, we all have been changed. We have witnessed what God working in us can accomplish. What it truly means to follow in faith God whose love is eternal. It may have seemed unimaginable that these grief stricken people could find the words or the strength to forgive the person accused of murdering their family members. But God’s grace is awe inspiring.
And for those who witnessed the joy and love expressed by those who can now marry their loves, our hearts have also been broken open. For persons who are gay or lesbian, or who have sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who are gay, or lesbian the news on Friday morning seemed almost inconceivable. But through the efforts of thousands of people over many decades the slow movement of hope became a thunderbol, like a sudden visceral healing.
But God is always doing something new. God always works in mysterious ways. With God nothing is impossible. God is always reaching out, inviting us not to fear, but to believe—and this faith can make us well.
Sometimes in what looks like the end God creates the possibility for a new beginning. God stands with us and sends us angels to hold us when it seems that our very breath has been taken away by the struggles in our lives. God stands with us as weeping endures for a night, but then helps us rise to greet the joy that can come in the new morning. God heals us through people we love and sometimes even strangers that invite us to see God’s life giving power even in the midst of death. Even when all hope seems to be lost—God touches us and says, “Little one—beloved child—get up.”
As followers of Christ we are called to participate in this healing.We all are invited to participate in healing wherever we encounter suffering, injustice, exclusion, or need of any kind. We are called to reach out, to walk alongside to share in God’s eternal mercy, as together we move toward wholeness. God is always working in us, sharing God’s eternal grace, accomplishing more than we could ask or imagine.
The people of Mother Emanuel Church will be touched and lifted up by the prayers and the presence of their families, the people in their church, and the outpouring of love and support that is growing across this country.
People who now face the glory of a new future, as ones able to marry the person they love, will find family and friends who will stand by them and joyously celebrate their relationships.
This has been a week of incredible courage—people reaching out in hope—living as if God’s steadfast love really does endure forever. This week and in this story in the Gospel, we are witnesses that faith can exist in seemingly hopeless situations and yet, when in this faith we reach out, when we beg Jesus to accompany us, when we open ourselves to God’s possibility in us, that this faith—this trust in God’s eternal grace-this faith can make us well.
[1] Families Hope Words Endure Past Shooting. New York Times, Thursday, June 25, 2015.