This was my final sermon for preaching class nearly a little over a year ago. Funny, how I grow attached to these things and they become a part of how I see the world...
Where
is your hiding place? No, I am not
talking about your favorite childhood hide-and-seek spot. I am talking about the hiding spot
where we place all our fears, all our insecurities, and all our vulnerability
that we hope nobody will ever see.
Where is it? Does it
work? Have you ever had it, that,
no matter how deeply you thought you buried a feeling or a fear or a memory,
something happens and it comes to the surface. We try to so hard to barricade ourselves, to be protected…
only to find the walls are a bit more thin than what we had hoped. When people ask how we are, we say,
“Fine,” even though we feel like we’re dying on the inside. Vulnerable is not a word we want to use
to describe ourselves. But – for
most of us – it describes how we feel when things start to hit a little too
close to home. In our barricades,
salvation and life seem so far away, intangible, impossible. In building up all of our walls and all
of our barriers, trying to save ourselves from embarrassment and fear. Untouchable, alone in the crowd, we
wish we could feel something… longing for touch, we are scared to make
ourselves that vulnerable.
The
characters in our gospel for today know a thing or two about vulnerability. Two unnamed women are saved. Two unnamed women draw breath as though
for the first time. I can see
Jairus running up to Jesus, “Please, teacher, please… please, teacher.” Panting, hardly able to catch his
breath, hardly able to say what he needs, he asks for the impossible. “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.” In a society in which women had little value, a daughter
often a burden, this little girl – this little girl who would likely be married
soon, Jairus’ urgency is a bit startling.
Before
we hear what happens to Jairus’ daughter, even as Jairus is presumably walking
along with the crowd, the crowd pressing in on Jesus and Jairus like a room
becoming ever smaller, the story is interrupted. A woman, who keeps murmuring to herself, “If I just touch
his cloak, I will be saved… if I just touch his cloak, I will be saved… if I
just touch his cloak I will be saved.”
Over and over again, coaching herself to not only be in the crowd, but
to touch the teacher. Having been
unclean for 12 years, the only touch this woman has received is from the
physicians who provided care for her.
Perhaps they had her eat grain found in donkey’s dung, as one commentator
suggested, or maybe she sought risky treatments, trying anything to find a
cure. Perhaps she had a
family. Of course, by now her
children would have been grown, or at least 12 years old. She wouldn’t have been allowed to hug
her children or embrace her spouse, even if she had them, even if she wanted
to, even if they wanted to. She
was an untouchable. She may as
well have been dead. Perhaps she
felt like she already was. What was
left for her to do? If she were
found out, who knows what would have happened to her? She knew she wouldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t at least
try. Jesus has had to ask others
if they wanted to be made well, but not this woman. Invisible, coming up from behind, paranoid someone will be
able to tell she is unclean, the identity of “unclean” like a tattoo on her
forehead, she touches Jesus. Was
she crying because, for the first time in twelve years, she felt like
herself? Was she crying because
she was terrified she would be judged, still unclean, still untouchable, still
unloved? Jesus… I… I didn’t think
you would actually heal me… Jesus… I… don’t really believe in miracles. But then I… and you… and, er… I can
almost hear her stuttering the whole truth, crying and laughing and crying and
shaking. Barely daring to look at
Jesus, she hears the word, “daughter.”
She loses it. She hasn’t
been called a daughter since… since… she hasn’t had a family since she can’t
remember when. Not daring to
dream, not daring to touch, she inhales as though it is her first breath. “Your faith has saved you.” And she doesn’t know which way to run…
to the windows of her family’s home, ducking under the window just as they
think they have glimpsed her, bursting through the doors as one brought back to
life… Surely she had been.
How
do you suppose Jairus felt when he saw this? Was he urgent and impatient, wanting Jesus to tend to
him? Was he hopeful and joyful:
saying if Jesus could heal this woman, surely he can heal my daughter? What was his response when the others
from the synagogue came, “Jairus, give it up. She’s dead.”
Like when the doctor comes into the waiting room, sighs, and shakes his
head, we don’t need an explanation.
“Do not fear, only believe.”
They walk, Jairus biting his lip, acting like he’s not crying, telling
himself it is only a joke, wipes his nose on his cloak and tries to hold his
head up and not think about her laugh, the way she said “Daddy,” or the way she
smelled when he kissed her goodnight.
Lying on her bed, the teacher touches her, taking her hand, “Talitha
cum.” Incredulous, he looks at
Jesus and at his daughter. Having
asked for the impossible, Jairus receives the unimaginable.
These
women are woven closer and closer together as the story unfolds. “In both stories, the petitioner desires
‘salvation’ and falls at Jesus’ feet.
In both, the person healed is called a ‘daughter’; in the one case, the
‘daughter’ has been ill for twelve years, the other is twelve years old.”[1] Both women encounter Jesus, on this
day, both receive both salvation and life despite impossible odds. Sandwiched together, we cannot help but
see the stories blurring, telling a common story of hope, of salvation, and of
life.
But
it’s only a story, right? At
least, it is easier to tell ourselves it is just a Bible story. Faith seems impossible sometimes. How often do we try to talk ourselves
into it? How often do we talk
ourselves out of it? How often do
we believe – really believe – that in Jesus, we are saved and we receive life? We tend to believe we are more safe
barricaded away. Like the woman,
we are numb. We have been numb for
so long we can’t remember what it is to be in relationship. Our walls start to be built, layer by
layer, protecting us from our fears of being hurt by our vulnerability. It is all we can do to show up at
church; maybe we fought with our spouse, maybe we yelled at our kids on the
way, maybe we totally lost it last night and they’re still not talking to us
and we wonder if it will ever be okay again. The walls might be up, protecting us, but like Jairus, we
come to Jesus to find ourselves disarmed in front of the crowd. Like the woman, we come to find our
walls are less important than being called “daughter.”
Deep
down, it is hard to believe the truth.
It is hard to believe we are loved. It is hard to believe all those things that keep us from
relationship do not define us. It
is hard to believe that our vulnerability will lead to love instead of
judgment. It is hard to believe
that we are loved even though we feel unlovable. In the Heidelburg Disputation, Martin Luther states,
“Sinners are attractive because they are loved, they are not loved because they
are attractive.”[2] It seems to me we often have the order
backward. We are attractive
because we are loved, we are touched because we are loved, we are saved because
we are loved, we are given life because we are loved. It may seem too good to be true, but maybe that’s the point.
It
seems too good to be true, but it is
true. You see, our hiding places,
the ones in which we barricade ourselves tell us we are sinners. And sinners we are. But now we’ve constructed this little
room and the words begin to echo in them, making us scared that they tell the
whole truth. What they
conveniently forget to mention is that we are loved. This is the love that won’t let us go. No matter how far we run, no matter how
we protest, Jesus is there, saying, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” The voices that tell us we will never be good enough or smart
enough or patient enough or kind enough try to make us believe that these are conditions
for us to be loved, building our walls a little higher. But they have it backward. Love comes first, without condition and
without qualification. Love bursts
through our walls, like Jesus at Easter.
Barricaded and hidden away, Jesus walks through our walls, disarming us,
teaching us our vulnerabilities are precisely the things that bring us to
him. We think of Jesus as a
last-ditch solution to our problems, praying when it only gets really bad. But Jesus thinks about us first. Jesus bursts through our walls because he loves us, warts,
imperfections, vulnerabilities, and all.
The point isn’t that it sounds too good to be true; the point is that it
is true. When the half truths of our undeserving and our failures fall away, we realize that the truth has been there all
along. By it, our walls a taken
down. We are touched, we are
saved, and we have received life.
Thanks be to God.
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