June 20, 2010
 
Scripture:         Mark 5:21-24, 35-43
 
Sermon:           “A Father’s Faith”
 
            Turning our hearts and minds now to the word of God, let us read together the scripture lesson for the day.  Turn with me to the Gospel According to Mark, chapter 5 where we will read together verses 21 through 24, and then verses 35 through 43.  You can find that easily on page   of the New Testament in the pew Bible.
            There’s another story sandwiched in here that we are not going to read today.  And you’re familiar with it, I’m sure.  We begin with a scene where Jesus is sought out by one of the leaders of the local synagogue.  There’s a desperate situation at home with a sick and dying child.  And this father reaches out to Jesus to come and save her, to heal her.   If you’ve ever had a child in the hospital, you know something of this.
            In the midst of this scene, as Jesus leaves to go to this man’s house, a crowd crushes in on him.  And in the crowd is a woman that has suffered for twelve years with an incurable and debilitating condition.  She manages to get a hand in between all of the bodies to just catch a thread of cloth hanging off of Jesus.  She believed that if she could only touch the man her suffering would come to an end.  And it did.
            That’s the story that happens while Jesus is trying to get to the house where a young girl is dying.  He can’t seem to get there quick enough for all of the other people and all of the other needs.  That is where the story continues.  This is the word of the Lord…
 
            When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands one her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So he went with him.
 
We pick the story up again after the healing of the woman in the large crowd.
 
            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?”  But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”  He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.  When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.  When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep?  The child is not dead but sleeping.”  And 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.  He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”  And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was about twelve years of age).  At this they were overcome with amazement.  He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
 
            Two people seek out Jesus.  Two people are just desperate for the power of God to change something in their lives.  One is a man, a father, a respected community leader.  The other is a woman who has suffered for years and lost everything.  In some ways they could not have been any more different than each other.  In some ways they could not have been more alike.
            We didn’t read this part of the scripture together.  But, this is a woman whose poor health has cost her everything in search of a cure.  For twelve years she’s had bleeding.  And in that time she’s been reduced to poverty for all of the doctors she’s seen and all of the treatments that she’s tried.
            I’ve known her.  Have you?  It’s so frustrating to watch.  You pray.  You wring your hands.  You pray some more.  And all that ever seems to happen is more bad news in this one person’s life.  And the costs of healthcare end up bankrupting somebody, which is exactly what the Bible said happened to this woman.  “She spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.”
            You’re not a doctor.  You just watch helplessly and wonder why some folks never seem to catch a break.  Sometimes you go to the gas station, you know, and there’s a little jar to collect your spare change there next to the cash register.  Somebody nearby needs money to fight off this disease.  It’s going to cost more than this family’s got.  Did you hear that?  Life is going to cost more than this person’s got.  Can’t afford life.
            That’s the woman in this story.  She’s reached the end.  And she’s got nothing left to lose.  It’s the point at which she joins in the throng of people gathered around Jesus just to brush up against him in the hopes that will bring her relief.
            It doesn’t surprise us, I think, that she’s come to this.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  And that’s what this is.  Desperation.
            Do you know what Jesus calls this?  Do you know what he calls this desperation?  He calls it faith.  “Daughter, you faith has made you well.  Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
            It kind of comes as a surprise to folks who sit in the pews and go through all of the motions week in and week out.  Doesn’t it?  You could say that turning to Jesus—turning to God—that was the last thing this woman did.  It took hitting absolute rock bottom for her to give this a try.  Right?  And it was desperation.
            Says something that Jesus calls it faith.  We usually don’t.  We call it desperation.  We don’t call it faith.  We’re suspicious when all of the sudden folks start praying because they’ve run out of other options.  We’re suspicious.  But, Jesus called it faith.  What he saw was a person reduced to absolute dependence upon what only God might be able to do.
            In some ways she could not have been any different than this other man.  She had become nameless, insignificant.  But, we know his name.  And he was significant.  One of the leaders of the synagogue, his name was Jairus.
            Do you know what that means?  He’s a good man.  A respected man.  And without him the place might very well have to shut the doors because he’s sacrificed and given and supported the faith community in his town for years.
            You see those stained glass windows there?  In the synagogue, do you see them?  He’s paid for them to honor the memory of the saints in that place.  And some day folks are going to fill the pews at his funeral because they loved him and adored him.  And they’ll figure out a way to honor his memory with stained glass, or an education wing on the building, or something significant.
            We call Jairus an “Elder” of the congregation.  And someday Jairus will be “Elder Emeritus” because he’s been doing this for so long.  He’s a pillar of the community.  He’s a pillar of the church.  He’s a loved man.  And if the doors of this place are open you can bet that he’s here.  It’s a solid faith.  It’s a constant faith.  It is a studied and practiced faith.  And it is the kind of faith that most of us long for.  Each of us have known this man and looked up to him in the church.
            In many ways he could not have been any different than the woman who touched Jesus’ robe.  They came from such different paths, such different backgrounds.
            But, Jairus was in trouble.  And that made him very much just like this nameless woman.  Part of what made him so special and so respected is that, above all, you’d recognize him as a great father.  And the love of his life, the little girl that wrapped him around his finger was helplessly dying.
            I don’t understand it when children suffer.  I don’t understand it any more than you do.  What I know is that it reduces people to a miserable mess.  It reduced this man, Jairus, to much the same.  And in the end, the suffering of this child reduced Jairus to the point where he was just exactly the same as the desperate woman who’d been hemorrhaging for twelve years.  They were both broken people who’d do anything to have God step in and change things for the better.
            Now, all that you know and all that you imagine about Jairus…do you imagine him falling down at the feet of Jesus, begging him over and over again?  “Please come and lay your hands on my little girl.  She’s dying.  But, you can save her.  Please.”
            He’s got on those nice clothes that he always wears.  It’s not obnoxious.  He’s just well-dressed and appropriate.  And there he is in the dirt at Jesus’ feet like all of the suffering masses who ever came to be healed.
            You know men don’t do a very good job of teaching one another how to be vulnerable like this.  We don’t tend to believe that vulnerable is in any way related to noble.  Be a man.  Men don’t cry.  To stop and ask for directions?  That’s vulnerable.  It means that you don’t already know.  “Be a man,” we tell each other.  Jairus is pleading on his knees as tears stream down his cheeks.
            Do you know this kind of father?  I know that not everybody does.  This isn’t every father.  It isn’t enough fathers, that’s for sure.  But, do you know this father?  Your own?  Somebody else’s?  This man is just defined by his family and his children.  He’d do anything for them, go to any lengths.  And that’s how he winds up in this completely vulnerable position of begging at Jesus’ feet for mercy.
            It’s not where you expect to see him, really.  But, he’s in love with this child, his daughter.  He’s in love with being her father.
            When my own daughter was born I had this kind of glimpse into heaven that I was very unprepared for.  That little girl really has changed everything for me.  Sometimes I even go so far as to think that she might have saved my life.  She might have saved my life.  And the woman that I love, the woman who brought my daughter into our lives, she sent me an email one day to go and read the words to this song.  Have you ever heard this?  It’s called Father and Daughter.
            “I’m gonna watch you shine.  Gonna watch you grow.  Gonna paint a sign.  So you’ll always you.  As long as one and one is two.  There could never be a father who love his daughter more than I love you.”
            Jairus loves that girl with every fiber of his being.  You can see it in the way he asks Jesus over and over again to come and help.  You can hear it in his voice.  And when you see him acting just the way that poor woman who had reached the end of her rope was acting, you know.  He would do anything to change what was happening to his little girl.
            It occurs to most of us on Father’s Day that we think about God in those terms most of the time.  We think about God just the way Jesus taught us.  Our Father.  Father God.  Father of Creation.  It’s not the only way to think about God.  But, it’s a good one.  It’s an important one.  Jesus wanted us to understand something of this intimate and unbreakable bond between ourselves and God.
            It’s hard, though.  It’s hard.  When you say the word “father” to some folks it has a lot of the wrong ideas attached to it.  I grew up with a kid that used to call his dad a “bum”.  “The old man is a bum.”  If you were to ask him to describe his own father, he’d use words like “absent”, “abusive”, “unloving”, “uncaring”, “self-absorbed”.  Jeffrey, he just called the man a bum.  When my friend Jeff died at the age of 20, his own father didn’t even show up to the funeral.
            That’s not just his reality.  For some of you here it’s your reality.  Or it’s something like your reality.
            None of those things are what Jesus ever had in mind when he would refer to God as Father.  It’s not what he meant.  But, it’s the kind of stuff that follows a lot of us around and makes it hard to ever really trust that anything called Father could be a trustworthy thing at all.
            What Jesus had in mind was a picture of this man Jairus.  Do you see that?  If you want to understand God…if you want to connect to God…if you want to get a glimpse of the way God looks at you, then take a look at this father named Jairus.  He would do anything, go to any length to save his child.  That might not be anything like what you have been taught about fatherhood.  Then again, maybe it is.
            But, what if God really is something like this man Jairus?  What if this God is the one who would do anything, go to any length just to pass along the fullness of life to you?  Would you believe that?  Isn’t that what the cross of Jesus Christ is saying to us?

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)