SUNDAY SERMON
Reaching for God: Facing Our Fears, Finding Our Faith
Third Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8, Year B
June 29, 2003
Gospel: Mark 5:22-24,35b-43
A couple of weeks ago my daughter graduated from the eighth grade. In a few months she'll be entering high school. As many of you know, that's exciting and scary, all at once. One beloved family member, after looking at one of Hannah's latest school pictures, asked me this unexpected question: "You bought your shotgun yet?"
During her commencement ceremony and the party for graduates and family that followed, I got in touch with that combination of feelings, of joy and fear. I believe our lives are filled with experiences like this, times that hold many emotions for us. I also believe we are far more ambivalent about all our feelings than we want to admit.
And so I rejoice that Hannah has done so well for herself these past several years of her young life. At the age of eleven she survived a move to a new school in a new state, no longer living with her brother or her father. She soon found a way to thrive and make lots of new friends. By all accounts she has faith in herself, a zest for life and a capacity for love. While her parents can take some small bit of credit for this, my true joy comes from knowing that all these good things flow largely from within her.
At the same time, I fear for her welfare as a rising high-school freshman. This is, of course, what parents do. We can't help but fear for our children, who grow up, as our Prayer Book puts it, in "an unsteady and confusing world" (p. 829). This fear is complicated by the fact that, compared to the days of her early childhood, there is very little time Hannah and I actually share these days. At any given moment, I don't know where she is. I can add other fears to my list, including the fear I have these post-9/11 days of her simply getting on a plane to visit me.
How does Hannah feel about graduating and moving on to high school? I really can't speak for her. I do know she is pleased with and proud of her achievements. I also know she is somewhat apprehensive about losing a wonderful extended family of middle-school friends and families, when she moves on to a large township high school this fall.
I also know there are some other things my daughter has been learning about in middle school, fears and dangers adolescent girls face in the 21st century. We live in a time of what Mary Pipher, in her ground-breaking book Reviving Ophelia, calls a "look-obsessed, media-saturated, girl-poisoning culture." It is, she argues, a culture that encourages girls to stifle their natural giftedness, a culture that sometimes even kills their creative spirit, snuffing out the life and love within.
This results, Pipher suggests, in more problems than ever before with drug and alcohol use, sexual violence and eating disorders. I wonder: if this is even remotely true for girls and women today, how can they have faith in themselves and grow up without fear? And while we certainly have faith in our daughters, why would we parents and grandparents and other loving adults not have some fears as well?
Mark's gospel account today gives us two stories about daughters. One is an unnamed woman Jesus calls "daughter," who has been suffering with a hemorrhage for twelve years. The other is a twelve-year-old girl, the daughter of a synagogue leader named Jairus. Together these two stories can, I think, teach us an important lesson about faith and fear. I say "together" because they really do need to be heard together, the way the gospel writers wrote these stories, in order for us more fully to understand.
Jesus is on his way to respond to Jairus' plea for his daughter. Her father has been begging Jesus, over and over again, to "come and lay…hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live" (Mark 5:23). He and his household are clearly anxious, fearing for the life of this girl. If this were your daughter, wouldn't you?
So Jesus sets off to do what he has been asked. But the press of the large crowd following Jesus slows him down. And one woman stops him completely.
This is a woman on the other end of the socioeconomic scale from synagogue leader Jairus. Like the women of her time, she has no wealth or power. She has spent what little she has on doctors, enduring much pain and suffering. Instead of getting better, she is worse. In short, she is desperate, ready to try anything. Wouldn't we?
She has heard about Jesus. She believes that, if she can just touch the hem of his garment, she will at last be healed. And she is determined to find out if she is right.
Touch his clothes she does. Healed she is. When Jesus asks, "who touched my clothes?" she comes forward, in fear and trembling, kneels down, telling Jesus the truth. And Jesus sends her forth, confirming her healing, calling her a faithful daughter of God.
By now, Jairus' daughter is dead…or so it seems. Jesus urges the father and the others not to be afraid, only to believe. How absurd this seems! They laugh at Jesus, until he revives the girl, showing them and us new life, the power of God's resurrection.
Memphis Theological Seminary professor of New Testament Mitzi Minor suggests that fear, in and of itself, is not the problem. We all have fears. The problem, she says, is that our fears can consume us.
We will be afraid, Minor says, of "opposition, of transformation, of threats to our sense of self, of journeying through the wilderness, even of God. But," she says, as we journey in faith, "…we do not have to be dominated by our fears" (The Power of Mark's Story, p. 81).
Both the daughter with faith and the father with fear were probably far more ambivalent about their feelings than they might have wanted to admit. The daughter approached Jesus in faith, but also in fear and trembling. The father kept begging Jesus on behalf of his dying daughter, and he did so out of a faith within him. The Good News? In different ways, the healing power of God came to both of those, a faithful daughter and a fearful father, who simply asked Jesus for what they needed.
I read a novel last week called The DaVinci Code. Besides being a great read, it contained one sentence that struck me as a way to understand this dynamic of faith and fear. Here it is: "…men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire" (p. 266).
Perhaps the lesson is this: to fear is human; to face it, divine. Another way to say this is: we can be afraid, but we do not have to become our fears. When we refuse to be dominated by our fears and face them, we can begin to obtain what we desire, we can start finding our faith. That's how we can reach for God. That's how we can touch the hem of the garment of Jesus.
At a grief camp for children who have lost someone they loved, a twelve-year-old girl from an inner-city ghetto faces a challenge. A wall stands before her, with ropes and other things she can grab onto. These will assist her on her mission: to climb that wall.
When she sees the hanging harness, she hesitates. It looks too small for her body, which is larger than normal. I'm dealing with the death of my dad, she thinks, but maybe I just can't deal with this.
Gently encouraged by her counselors, she finds she does fit, after all. And so, reaching with all her might, she begins her ascent. Yet she can only touch and reach the first few steps. It's not long before she gives up in tears, more overwhelmed than exhausted.
Now here's the part of the story I love: with ongoing encouragement from counselors and friends, each day she comes back and tries again. Each day she makes a little progress, until, finally, on the last day of camp, she makes it all the way to the top. Beaming brightly, she laughs out loud, as someone gives her a reward: a button pinned to her t-shirt that says, "I faced the wall."
Fear is a wall we face each and every day. The questions that face you and me as we approach that wall are these:
Are we willing to take that leap of faith, and, time after time, go to greater lengths, greater than ever before, to obtain what we desire in our lives?
Do we believe we have to face our fears alone? Or do we know that Jesus is there, waiting to go with us, willing to help, offering his healing power and grace, no matter what fears we face, even the fear of God, even the fear of death?
On this day, ten weeks after Easter, do we believe in reaching together for the power of God, touching Jesus, who waits to give us healing and wholeness and new life?