Sermon-Sunday, July 30th

John 6:1-21
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
These two miracle stories; the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on water are among some of the most debated events and stories from scripture. It seems like every once in a while some "brilliant" scientist will come along with some theory that attempts to show that these could not have happened. And time and time again, historians and scientists, both Christian and non-Christian will respond to those theories with disdain and explain why the new theories just don’t add up.
The feeding of the five-thousand is one of the few stories from the Gospels that is in all four of the Gospels. This story is told in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Plus there are two other separate stories of Jesus performing the same type of miracle for four-thousand people. So, all told there are six accounts of Jesus producing an abundant feast from what appeared to be a very minuscule amount of food. Yet this continues to be one of the most debated events and stories in scripture.
You might remember that just recently there was a theory that came out that tried to explain away the miraculous elements of Jesus walking on the water by saying that the water was frozen and He was walking on ice. Now when I read this the first question that came to my mind was if the water was frozen and they were on ice then why the heck were the disciples in a boat? As far as I know, the theory made no attempt to answer that. Regardless, within a few days the theory was being shot down.
However, what this is evidence of is something that we all, Christians and non-Christians, struggle with. And that is a desire and tendency to try to fit God into our own image rather than allow ourselves to be transformed by God through Christ Jesus. We don’t just see this in how people react to and try to explain away the miracle stories, we see it in the stories themselves with the disciples and the people whom Jesus was feeding.
We see Jesus, so filled with compassion on these people who He has encountered, He takes what appears to be a fairly minuscule amount of food and miraculously manages to produce this bountiful feast for these people to partake in. So how do they respond? They try to take Jesus by force so they could make Him their king.
Back in those days, kings didn’t simply rule the land, they were expected to take care of their people by providing all the essentials that they would need; food, shelter, safety etc. So when they saw what Jesus could do with just a few fish and a few loaves they immediately decided that they wanted Jesus to be their king. They were trying to fit Jesus into their mold or image of what they would have liked Jesus to be. But Jesus wasn’t having it. There is much more to Jesus than simply someone who could provide food and shelter. The people weren’t getting it, they weren’t even close to seeing the whole picture of who Jesus is. Consequently, Jesus would not allow Himself to be squeezed into their limited vision of Jesus.
We do the same thing. When someone comes up with an idea for a new program or project or a new ministry opportunity at a council meeting or an annual meeting or whatever what is the first thing that is considered. More often than not, not just here at Grenora Lutheran parish, not just in the ELCA but all across Christianity, the first question will be "Can we afford it?" And when that is your starting point. When you start your assessment of a ministry opportunity that Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit has brought before you by asking "Can we afford it?"more often than not the answer is going to be "no." This is because in doing so you are trying to fit the transforming work of Christ into your limited vision.
A pastor in Marysville, Ca. writes about a workshop that he went to where another way to look at and evaluate ministry opportunities was suggested. This process is broken down into three steps; The idea is presented, the question of who will do it is asked, then you ask how it will be financed. The financial aspect is the last thing that is considered and there is never a question of whether it can be financed, but simply how it will be financed. If the idea is good and people get behind it and are willing to make it happen then they simply find ways to fund it.
The beauty of this approach is that obviously it is very open and responsive to what the Spirit can do when people of faith open themselves up to the transforming work of Christ Jesus. At the same time it acknowledges that our Lord will provide the means for funding, but He won’t make the funding appear out of nowhere. We have all been blessed with gifts, with fruits of the Spirit, and when we open ourselves up to what the Spirit can enable us to do with our gifts, then we never have to ask "Can we afford it?" The vision of our Lord is bigger than anything that we might perceive as being a road-block to the transforming work of Christ.
And what better example do we have of this than baptism? In baptism we are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. But too often baptism is seen as merely an empty ritual that is purely symbolic. But in God’s word we see a different image of baptism. In the great commission, from Matthew 28, Jesus commands us to make disciples of all nations and the first step that He gives us to make that happen is baptism, and He makes no provision about age or understanding when it comes to who should be baptized. That’s because God, in the Holy Spirit is the actor in baptism, and not the person being baptized.
The Holy Spirit is indeed the actor in baptism, but He works through those who have been called to nurture and sustain a person in their baptism. He works through the parents, through the sponsors through the congregation that the person has been baptized into and the entire body of Christ which the person has also been baptized into. That is what Jesus is referring to with the second step in the great commission which is the command to teach those who have been baptized to obey everything that Jesus has commanded.
Baptism is indeed more than a ritual, it is something that we live in everyday as we are daily brought into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
At the end of the Gospel lesson for today the disciples are out on the sea and Jesus walks on the water to see them and they were terrified at the sight of Jesus walking on the water. But Jesus says to them "It is I; do not be afraid."
In a way that is an illustration of what it means to live in your baptism. In baptism you are claimed by Christ, but sometimes what that means for you might scare and intimidate you. But in the midst of that fear Christ Jesus comes to you and calms your fears and reminds you that you are His and that you need not fear anything.
After this, the disciples tried to take Jesus into the boat with them, but He wouldn’t go because they still didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that living in their baptism was not about taking Jesus into the boat with them but it was about stepping out of the boat to follow Jesus. But in spite of their lack of understanding, Jesus remained faithful to them and they eventually found themselves on dry ground.
And Jesus continued to come to them and nurture them in their own baptisms and eventually they got it. And living in your baptism, He does the same for you. In the Holy Spirit, through the body of Christ He comes to you and opens your heart and opens your mind to a greater understanding of what the Holy Spirit can do through you and the gifts that you have been blessed with. Our Lord comes to you and assures you that you need not be afraid of that which you don’t understand.
Amen

Sermon-Sunday, July 23rd

Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23 , Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most popular shows currently on television is a show called Lost. I have never watched the show but I have heard from many people that it is a very good show. Maybe some of you have seen it. It is described as being a show that follows the survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific.
The pilot episode for this show was the most expensive pilot episode in the history of ABC, the network on which the show is broadcast. It was so expensive that the person who approved the show for the ABC schedule was fired before it was even aired. When the pilot episode aired it garnered 18.6 million viewers and gave ABC it’s highest ratings in six years. It continued to gain viewers and when the second season’s premiere episode aired viewership had increased to 23 million people.
What does it say about our culture that one of the most popular shows on television is a show about a handful of people who are lost? I mean this is a show about a group of people who one day, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a situation where they don’t know where they are, they don’t know how or if they can survive, they don’t know how far they are from anyone or anything that can help them survive and they probably don’t know where to begin looking for ways to address this situation. And yet every week, 23 million people decide that they want to spend an hour of their lives with these people.
Essentially what Lost is about is people who are looking for direction. They know what they want; survival, safety, and a way off the island. But because of their situation, they struggle to know where to look to find that. They have become like the people that the prophet Jeremiah writes of in today’s OT lesson, people who have been scattered from their flock.
And maybe that is why the show is so popular. In many ways we often find ourselves feeling like sheep who have been scattered from our flock. We find ourselves in search of direction, in search of a shepherd, if you will. Problems arise when we try to convince ourselves that we can be our own shepherd, that we can go our own way, that we can blaze our own path.
When Jeremiah speaks of shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of the pasture he was referring to kings at the time who’s inept leadership would eventually lead to the exile of Judah. Indeed this inept leadership led to the scattering of the sheep in Judah’s flock.
Today this text speaks to us in a more direct way. In today's culture individualism is embraced and encouraged. When I say individualism, I don't mean simply the freedom that we enjoy as Americans to pursue our own life, liberty, and happiness. We all want that. But our culture tells us that we don't need faith in any sort of absolute truth to depend on. In fact our culture tells us that to rely first on our faith and what our faith has been placed in before relying on our own instincts is weakness. I recently remember hearing about a survey among people of faith. Among the people surveyed, 65 percent of them said that they rely more on Oprah Winfrey for spiritual counsel than they do any sort of clergy.
Why do you think that is? Where does Oprah tell people that they should be seeking their own spiritual enlightenment? Oprah tells you that spiritual enlightenment and peace can be found within yourself. Oprah essentially tells us what we all, by our sinful nature, want to hear; that we can be our own shepherds. She doesn't use those exact words but complete and utter reliance on your own instincts is at the heart of what Oprah preaches.
But reality and God's Word tell us otherwise. In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that the two most important commandments are to first love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself and that the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. He tells us not to think of ourselves first, but to think of our Lord and our neighbor first.
Why should we not look to ourselves first? Well what do your instincts tell you when someone does something to you that you don’t like? More often than not, your instincts are probably to get even or at least get mad. And this has been made graphically evident this week with all of the events that have taken place in the Middle East.
But we don’t have to look just to extreme examples in the news to see the failure of looking to ourselves first. When we look to ourselves first we end up focusing on what needs to be done right now. Many of you farmers who have been spending so much time out in the fields this Summer I am sure can relate to this. I am sure you have spent some time worrying about crops burning up or not getting rain, and who could blame you? I am sure many of you have seen the effects of an economy that seems to make it harder and harder everyday for people to make a living in rural, farming communities.
Or getting back to when someone does something to us that we think is wrong. When we look to ourselves first we end up holding on to grudges over petty disputes or getting angry at our neighbor for something petty, and soon we end up isolating ourselves from one another. We end up thinking that all we need is ourselves.
We end up worrying about what we don’t have and what still has to be done, rather than celebrating what we do have, such as a good home, or family and friends who love and care for us, or celebrating what has been done for us such as being reconciled before God through the blood of Christ. In other words, we end up like sheep who have been scattered from their flock.
But the good news is that our Lord does not allow us to remain lost or scattered from the flock. In our Gospel lesson we read that as Jesus came ashore to what He thought was going to be a ‘deserted place,’ He actually saw a great crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and it says that Jesus began to teach them many things. Indeed, when we allow ourselves to get lost or scattered from our flock, our Lord does not leave us alone but instead He comes to us and has compassion on us and fills us with His love and grace and direction and, being the good shepherd, He guides us back to the flock.
When I was in boot camp, one of my company commanders would always recite psalm 23, which coincidentally is the psalm for today. He would always recite it in the King James version, and he would slow down and pause when he got to verse 4 which in the King James says " 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;" He would really slow down at the "thou art with me" part and then he would tell us to look to our left and our right.
He would then tell us that we are not in this alone, but are in it together and relying on each other and not just ourselves was how we would get through it. Now, he wouldn’t actually say the name of Christ when he did this because to do so would have been a violation of the separation of church and state. But the Christians and probably some of the non-Christians could read between the lines.
We could see that he was talking about more than just teamwork. We could see that he was reminding us that in each other we would see Christ, that Christ would come to us in each other. That is how our Lord comes to you. He comes to you in His Word, in the sacraments and in each other. He comes to you and brings you together as a community and a flock. And when you try to scatter yourself from the flock, He finds you and brings you back to the flock. He is the good shepherd and through the blood of Christ you have been made part of His flock, not just today, not just tomorrow but for all eternity. Try as you might, our Lord, the good shepherd will not allow you to scatter yourself from the flock that is the Body of Christ, the flock that you have been baptized into.
Amen

Sermon-Sunday, July 16th

Mark 6:14-29 and Ephesians 1:3-14
Brothers and sisters,
grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we have a baptism. So, I suppose it is appropriate that our Gospel lesson for today involves John the baptist, or John the baptizer as he is known in some circles. Of course it would have been easier to preach on this if it had been a moment in John’s life when he was actually baptizing people or preaching or something different from the story that we have in today’s Gospel lesson, which is of course the story of when John the baptizer was killed.
And I will confess, when I first read this lesson, my immediate reaction was to think "I’m not going to preach on the Gospel lesson this week." But as I read this lesson and studied it, and read what other people who are much smarter than I am had to say about it, I realized that there was much more going on here than simply a beheading.
For one thing, John had to know that Herod’s wife Herodias wanted John dead since he was basically telling Herod that he shouldn’t be married to Herodias. John had to know that Herod’s wife was threatened by him and had a grudge against him. By telling Herod that it was unlawful for him to marry his brother’s wife, John was threatening Herodias’ livelihood.
I suppose that it’s not very feminist of me to say that, but it’s true. Being married to Herod, afforded Herodias a life of luxury that she would not otherwise be able to enjoy, and John was a threat to that. So Herodias had John killed.
And this was just one example of the dangers that come with being a prophetic voice. John was always facing resistance and opposition. And yet in the face of this opposition, he continued to be that voice of one crying out in the wilderness. And his voice was effective. His voice was so effective that even Herod, whom John had spent much of his time denouncing was perplexed by much of what John said and he even liked to listen to what John said.
John was a man of great faith. He stood defiantly in the face of the opposition that eventually ended up killing him. And from what we see in the Gospel lesson, John offered no resistance when the time came for his beheading. He simply went. That kind of courage can only come from faith. But where does that kind of faith come from?
The answer is literally right in front of you. Look at the font. That is where that kind of faith comes from. Faith comes in baptism. In baptism you are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit for all eternity.
In our second lesson for today, Paul writes that we have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. That is what we are seeing in the baptism of Katelynn Rene Folvag today.
In the waters of baptism, our Lord is making His claim on Katelynn. He is making His claim on her to be holy and righteous before God, the claim that He made before the foundations of the world. This is the very same claim that our Lord makes on each and every one of you in your baptism. That’s it, it’s done you are His, live with it.
Earlier this week when I was going over the baptismal instruction for the parents and sponsors, I came across something where it described the Lutheran view of baptism and why Lutherans baptize infants. It said, Lutherans don’t baptize babies in case they die, rather we baptize babies in case they live.
As Katelynn lives in her baptism, our Lord will continue to come to her in His word as she is exposed to God’s word through the nurturing and sustaining of her baptism by Katelynn’s family, her sponsors and all of us in this parish and the entire body of Christ. Our Lord will continue to come to Katelynn in the sacraments and in fellowship with other members of the baptized body of Christ. Our Lord comes to Katelynn the same way He comes to you.
Our Lord comes to us as we live in our baptism and we are filled with a trust in God, a trust that God has chosen us before the foundations of the world and that God will indeed never let us go. This is the kind of faith that sustains us in the event that we live.
Some have called this perspective "The long view" of the life of faith which essentially refers to the trust that whatever sufferings or hardships we endure in this life, our earthly life, our physical or material life, that in the end they will prove to be small and insignificant in the light of God’s plans for us in eternity.
In the beloved hymn "A mighty fortress is our God," Martin Luther illustrates this perspective in a very powerful way where he writes "Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child or spouse, though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day. The kingdom’s ours forever." In the light of the eternal kingdom of God, even death is powerless.
In fact in speaking of the cross and the resurrection, Martin Luther writes "It is indeed a divine work that he wrought, and it is not surprising that he made the evil of death into the greatest blessing." By taking our sin with Him to the cross, Christ Jesus literally takes death and flips it upside down and turns it into a blessing.
This promise, this "long view" of the life of faith is why John the baptizer was able to exhibit such tremendous faith. It was because in his baptism, he had been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit and he was filled with the faith that he had been chosen by God. He knew that he had been made holy and blameless in the love of Christ. And because of that, he knew that he didn’t have to fear anything, not even death.
Now, in baptism, we have this same security. We may not face the same challenges that John faced. When we proclaim the name of Jesus we are not violating the law so we need not fear imprisonment, at least not here in the U.S.
But make no mistake about it, there is opposition to the Gospel in our culture. Through John’s great faith that we see displayed in the Gospel lesson and the reminder that God has claimed us as His own in the second lesson for today, we are reminded just how utterly dependent we are on our Lord. This sense of being utterly dependent on something bigger than ourselves flies in the face of the spirit of individualism and autonomy that our western culture embraces so passionately.
In the midst of this spirit of individualism, there is also a spirit that tells us that we must be self-sufficient, that we must take care of ourselves, that we must carry our own weight. In light of this claim that God has acted on our behalf; from a worldly perspective we are driven to ask "What can we do to pay God back?"
The answer of course is nothing. By that I mean, we could do everything within our power to pay it back and it would still amount to nothing because there is no repayment for the debt that could never be repaid.
Our calling is not to try to pay the debt back but to live in the freedom and the peace of knowing that the debt has been paid and than nothing not even a death as brutal as that of John the baptizer can change that.
In baptism we are marked with the cross of Christ, and sealed by the Holy Spirit for ever. In baptism God promises to remain true and faithful to us. There were hardships and challenges for John the baptizer, there were for Martin Luther and there are for us also. But in the midst of all the challenges, God’s promise to be faithful remains forever, our status as beloved children of God remains forever. In the waters of baptism, through the blood of Christ, God’s kingdom is ours forever and that is where faith comes from.
Amen

Sermon-Sunday, July 9th

2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13
There is a question that has been posed by many leaders and movers and shakers in contemporary Christianity who come from movements as denominational as mainline Protestantism to movements as non-denominational as conservative evangelicals. This question is issued more as a challenge to shape the way that we as the Body of Christ can effectively bring the gospel to a complex, post-modern twenty-first century culture. That question is "How can we make the Gospel relevant?"
Let me say that again, "How can we make the Gospel relevant?" I don’t like that question, and not just because it’s a question that tends to be posed by bishops. I don’t like it because it misses the point. It denies the power of the Gospel. It puts the power of relevance in our hands. It makes the Gospel dependent upon us, when the truth is we are more dependent on the Gospel than we could possibly realize. We don’t make the Gospel relevant, the Gospel makes us righteous.
As you see in the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus was not worried about making the Gospel relevant when He proclaimed it in His own hometown. He didn’t worry about how He could make it less offensive or more palatable. To paraphrase one of my seminary professors, "He just gave them the goods." And they were amazed at this wisdom that He provided and the deeds of power that He did.
When Jesus came to His hometown to teach and announce the coming of the kingdom of God and also cured a few sick people, the people were dumbfounded. However, they were not so shocked that they didn’t believe the wisdom that Jesus provided or question that He would cure people of their illnesses. What blew their minds was that it was Jesus who was able to do all these things. Jesus was the son of Joseph, He was a carpenter’s son.
Now you could point to all sorts of possible reasons as to why they may have felt that way. It could have a simple case of familiarity breeding contempt. It was probably also related to the fact that their was an ancient mentality that suggested that geographical and hereditary origins determined who a person is and just how gifted and successful they will be. And there are probably many other reasons, but at the heart of this is something that you still struggle with today.
At the heart of the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth is the reality that the world’s standards of judgement appear to run completely counter to those of God. By appealing to reason and rationale in their evaluation of the events that are unfolding before their eyes, the people of Nazareth can only conclude that it just doesn’t make sense that this son of a carpenter would be able to do such miraculous things, and it doesn’t make sense for this son of a carpenter to be who He says He is. If only He could have made it a little more palatable, maybe sugar-coated it a little bit.
We all do that. We all come up with reasons to doubt, question, or reject the Gospel. That’s why when you go to a Christian book-store, some of the biggest-sellers will be the books on Christian apologetics. Christian apologetics is the field of study that explores the historical and scientific elements of scripture and seeks to provide Christians with tools to defend their faith in the face of objections that secularist, humanist world might throw out at them.
While the authors of these books are very well-intended, I don’t really like the message that they send. Again, I’ll take you back to the question that has been posed by some leaders in the Christian community; the question of how we can make the Gospel relevant. Just the field of study that these books are a part of; Christian apologetics, suggests that we have something to apologize for.
Many of the authors of these books will suggest that Christians give copies of these books on apologetics to their non-believing friends. As if we can make the Gospel more relevant, palatable, or acceptable through reason and science. While these books and resources may be valuable in providing people with ways to defend their faith, they are no substitute for the Gospel. Faith is not created through reason and science.
Faith is created when the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the pure proclamation of the promise of the Gospel. Paul reminds us of this in Romans 10 when he writes of faith being created through the hearing of the word of Christ. That’s how it happens. We hear the Gospel, the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Gospel and creates faith in us. That is how it happens. Its’ all a part of our baptism. Faith is not created by making the Gospel more friendly or less offensive or more palatable.
That is what Jesus understood. In the face of that rejection, He may have been tempted to make His message easier to swallow. He may have been tempted to throw in a little reason and science, or to water His message down, but He knew that is not where faith is created. We don’t really know what happened after this. We don’t know whether they ever came around to believing.
Jesus’ brother James, rejected Jesus at first but eventually James was grasped by the reality of who Jesus is. Maybe the same thing happened to the people of Galilee, we don’t know. But Jesus knew that if faith was going to be created there, it wasn’t going to be by watering down the eternal promise and eternal hope that He brought so that it might get more positive feedback.
This is why He sends the disciples out two by two, telling them to take nothing but a staff and themselves. There is all kinds of speculation as to why He would have them take a staff, but basically I see it as a reminder to them that they are to be dependent on nothing but Christ, who is their Shepherd. A shepherd would carry a staff. There is also all kinds of historical speculation as to why He would send them out two by two, but I believe it basically comes down to Jesus’ promise that where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is. By depending on each other, they would be depending on Christ.
By not relying on their "stuff," the disciples were able to focus on Christ Jesus and what Christ Jesus was calling them to do. Our calling is this; to love and care for the people in and around our communities. We love them through words and action, through the proclaiming of the Gospel so that they might know that God does indeed love them so much that He sent His Son to die for them so that He could be with them for eternity, and we show our love to them through our actions so that they might experience the very love of Christ through us.
Martin Luther wrote
Now to preach of the kingdom of God is nothing else than to preach the gospel, in which is taught the faith of Christ by which alone God dwells and rules in us.
In faith, God dwells and rules in us. It’s not about us, but what God does through us. In our second lesson, Paul tells of when Jesus said to him "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." God’s grace is indeed sufficient and in the waters of baptism you are brought into that grace. And living in your baptism, God speaks to you and comes to you in His word, in the sacraments He comes to you and you are able to see, taste, touch and feel forgiveness, and in fellowship with each other He reaches out to you and shows you His love.
So, how do we make the Gospel relevant? We don’t. The Gospel does not need our brilliant and insightful contributions. The Gospel is the manifestation of God’s grace, and God’s grace is sufficient. No matter what challenges and trials may come our way, God’s grace is sufficient. The Gospel of Christ Jesus needs to be proclaimed through our words and experienced through our actions. And when we get out of the way, and put down our stuff, and our attempts to make the Gospel relevant, God in the Holy Spirit dwells and rules in us and the Gospel is proclaimed and shared. It happens because God’s grace, and nothing else, is sufficient.
Amen

Sermon-Sunday, July 2nd

Mark 5:21-43
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We, as a culture, have become extremely cautious of the dangers that come with being unclean. Gone are the days when you would go to the dentist and have a cavity filled while the dentist dug around your mouth bare-handed. And that’s a good thing. Someone who spends their entire day digging their fingers around people’s mouths should probably wear protective gloves, especially when you consider that it has been determined that the human mouth is dirtier than a dog’s mouth. And this attention to hygiene and fighting the curse of uncleanness is not limited to the medical and/or dental field. Go into any fast-food restaurant now and what will you see the employees wearing? Hair-nets on their head and latex gloves on their hands.
But again, these make sense. I can understand why those steps would be taken. That’s clearly, working toward preventing the unhealthy spread of germs and bacteria. What I don’t understand is the irrational fears that we develop, like mice. If a mouse all of a sudden came running through here, how would some of you react? At the risk of embarrassing my mother, who is here with us today, I am pretty sure she’d be one of the first ones jumping on the pew.
In all fairness, I am no different. I have my own little irrational fears related to uncleanness. Not that I am a neat-freak by any stretch, and I think my parents, and my wife would probably attest to that. I have been known to not be bound by expiration dates on food and I have pushed way beyond the boundaries of the 5-second rule when food falls on the floor. But, as long as I can remember, I have always been freaked out by snails and slugs. I am pretty sure, I have never actually touched one, not even the shell of a snail. They just give me the willies, with their sliminess and their antennae.
At the heart of this and other irrational fears is the fear of that which we perceive as being unclean. Mice are harmless, and yet some people are afraid of them. It’s because we think of mice as vermin. You’re not so much afraid of mice, but where they have been or what they might pass on to you.
There is a strong presence of uncleanness in today’s Gospel lesson. Today’s Gospel lesson tells us the story of two miraculous healings, one of a little girl and another of a grown woman. Both the little girl and the woman would have been considered unclean by many of the people in that culture simply because of their illness.
They would have been considered so unclean that they would have literally been considered untouchable. It would have been required for them to have been shut off from the rest of society in order to protect the clean and unblemished segment of society. They would have been considered unclean and impure.
This passage begins with the father of the little girl coming to Jesus seeking His help. The girl’s father’s name was Jairus and he was a leader of the synagogue. For the leader of a synagogue to seek out Jesus’ help at a time when so many other Jewish leaders were trying to persecute Jesus, to say the least would have been a humungous political risk for Jairus.
But Jairus doesn’t just come to Jesus thinking maybe this might work. For him to take this kind of risk, he must have been absolutely convinced that Jesus could heal his daughter. And when he asks Jesus, he doesn’t just ask Him, he falls on his feet and begs Him repeatedly. Jairus is not concerned about the political ramifications of what he was doing, he just wanted his daughter to be healed and He saw something in Jesus that his colleagues didn’t. Jairus saw something in Jesus that led him to believe that this Man who so many other people seemed to be so threatened by, could actually save his daughter.
But as bold and courageous as Jairus was, there was, I think, an even bolder act of faith that unfolded as Jesus made His way to Jairus’ house to see Jairus’ daughter. As they are on their way to Jairus’ house a large crowd follows them and soon surrounds them. And then, as Mark writes, “a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years” comes up behind Jesus.
This woman had endured much suffering and much scrutiny from physicians, and had no money left to pursue further treatment, and was no better. But she comes up behind Jesus and touches Jesus cloak because she believed that if she just touched His clothes she would be made well.
In the eyes of the Jewish culture at the time, this woman had three strikes against her; she was a woman, she was sick with probably Leprosy, and she was poor. The only thing left to do with someone like that, was to isolate them from everyone else so they could be left to die without getting anyone else sick. Again she would have literally been considered untouchable.
Just to see her in the crowd would have been shocking, but then for her to actually work her way through the crowd to actually touch the person who was garnering so much attention from the crowd would have been unfathomable. And after being touched, Jesus seeks her out, she comes forward and falls at Jesus’ feet and tells Him everything, and Jesus is so moved that He tells her that her faith has made her well. And then He continues on His way, and heals Jairus’ daughter, actually he raises her from the dead.
Through sin, we are all like the older woman who had been sick for all those years and Jairus’ little daughter. We are unclean. One thing that we see in this lesson is that uncleanness doesn’t discriminate. Jairus’ daughter would have come from a very respected and honored household, the older woman, on the other hand had probably long since been considered an outcast, and probably came from pretty humble beginnings. But uncleanness attacked both of them, and as a result they were separated from society.
Certainly in our enlightened society, we don’t exhibit that type of isolationism anymore do we? Maybe not to that extent. But, how would you react if you were, oh I don’t know, in a movie theater and you were sitting next to a complete stranger, and then somehow you found out that this person sitting next to you was HIV positive? Would you get up and move? Would you put your hands in your pockets, being careful not to touch them? Would you move over one seat? Or would you introduce yourself?
The uncleanness that our Gospel lesson speaks of is obviously much more serious than when a 2-year old plays in the mud or something like that. It’s the type of uncleanness that can’t really be seen. It’s an uncleanness based in fear. The biggest casualty of this type of uncleanness is relationships.
And that is what sin does. It comes in and makes you unclean and tries to prevent you from not only from being in relationship with each other, but from being in relationship with our Lord. But our Lord is not like us. Our Lord does not respond to our uncleanness with fear and isolationism. Instead He sends you a Savior; a Savior in the form of a Son who is the living incarnation of our Lord.
He sends a Son who takes our uncleanness with Him to the cross and in exchange, through the waters of baptism you receive His cleanness, His righteousness. This is a cleansing that you experience daily. You experience it in His Word, you will experience it in a few minutes when you come forward and partake in His supper, and you experience it in each other.
Christ Jesus comes to you daily and makes you clean. As I said earlier, uncleanness does not discriminate, but neither does God’s mercy. Through Christ Jesus, God’s mercy is extended to all; be they rich, poor, black, white, farmer, rancher or whatever. So when you do find yourself sitting next to someone for whom society tends to see as unclean, fear not, because it might just be that Christ Jesus has brought you there so through you, the Spirit could reach out to this person and make them clean, or perhaps it’s the other way around and the Spirit will work through this person to cleanse you. Either way, fear not.
Amen