"Falling" Sermon from Delmar First UMC 6/30/24

 

Mark 5:21-43

          Today’s passage from Mark is one of my favorites and I have preached on it many times as it has come up in the lectionary cycle. In fact, this was the first scripture I preached on in my very first appointment, many years ago as the associate pastor of a United Methodist Church in Ohio. Back then I was in my mid-twenties, newly married, just graduated from seminary and did not yet have any kids. I was excited to finally be a pastor, something I had prepared a long time for and I was determined to get it right.  The sermon was well-researched and well-rehearsed. It contained appropriate study and time and I had prepared for every part of the liturgy. Being prepared in a brand new vocation was important to me. I remember in those days calling my mentor before my first funeral to make sure I knew how to get every detail of the service right, including where to stand at all times.

          I still try to get everything right, which I think is a natural thing when you care a lot about what you are doing. I want to be a great mom because I love my kids so much. So I sometimes get caught up in trying to make sure every little thing is right- like picking out the perfect sunscreen that balances good protection without whatever chemicals are currently considered harmful. I want to be a great wife, pastor, friend and human so I try to think through decisions and be responsible in what I do, considering things like how others feel, environmental impact of decisions, and more.

         So, as a person who likes to take a careful and thorough approach, I have always begun my sermon preparation on this text by analyzing the text itself and researching what experts have said about it. This passage, like so many others in the Gospel of Mark is part of a sandwich. Meaning, it begins with one story, then in the middle cuts to another and then goes back to the first one. So, you get two stories sandwiched together.  In this case, it begins with the story of the leader of the synagogue’s daughter and then right in the middle of that cuts to a story of a bleeding woman touching the cloak of Jesus and then goes back to the story of the synagogue leader’s daughter.

          This sandwiching of two stories typically gives us a lot of clues as to why these stories are included in the Gospel, hints at what to take notice of. For example, in this passage we see the number 12. The dead little girl is 12 years old and the woman has been bleeding for 12 years. There is also a juxtaposition of power. An important and named leader compared to an unnamed woman getting scolded for touching Jesus.  All of these clues help us see things like the spectrum of faith and Christ’s mercy.

          But this time, as I began to look at this passage, I saw something I had never noticed before – falling. Jairus, the synagogue leader comes to Jesus and falls down at is feet and then the bleeding woman, after she is healed, comes before Jesus in fear and trembling and falls down at his feet. In both cases what follows the fall is a plea for help, a desperate cry and complete and utter vulnerable honesty.  No longer upright, no longer holding it together, they fall and out comes their pain, their fear, their begging, their humanity before Jesus. And Jesus sees them.

           Confession: sometimes I find myself watching those video shorts- tik toks or reels of people falling at very inconvenient times, like in the middle of a wedding – straight into a swimming pool - and sometimes it is hilarious and sometimes it’s painful to watch. No one wants to fall. It’s what happens when something else takes over our plan to get it all right, whether that’s an ice patch disrupting our walk down the driveway, a long wedding dress ruining a picture perfect walk down the aisle, or pain dropping us to our knees, or suffering pouring the strength right out of us. We even use that term for love, we say someone is “falling in love” meaning something else is taking hold of them, and their heart is knocking them off where they thought they might be going.

          And here in this passage from Mark we have a powerful religious leader falling to his knees. His composure is taken over by his love for his daughter, he falls and begs. He begs Jesus to heal his dying daughter. I can imagine that he had tried many things before this, that he tried to make it right, do what he could, but nothing worked and so now he was on his knees begging.

          And then the bleeding woman meets Jesus. The text tells us that she had tried many physicians and spent all of her money to find healing but it only worsened. She tried everything she could but it didn’t work so she took a chance on a traveling prophet and when he faced her she fell down.  Both she and Jairus tried their best but the answer they sought came when they gave up, leaned only on faith, fell down and threw themselves before Jesus.

          As someone who tries my best at everything I do, I understand their frustration, their desperation … their emotion. Sometimes no matter what we do, things don’t turn out the way we had hoped, the pain does not disappear and the way ahead is still hard.

          I recently started working as a part time hospital chaplain at Samaritan Hospital. I visit anyone who says they are open to seeing a chaplain. So I see people from all religious traditions and in all health circumstances. As I started serving in this role, I thought back to the days when I did Clinical Pastoral Education, which is a training program for hospital chaplains. I did that training about 20 years ago. I remember that when I did the training I was very concerned with doing everything right- I didn’t want to do or say the wrong thing and I wanted to get it right because these were people in very trying times and I wanted to be helpful. I remember sometimes feeling nervous or uncomfortable.

 I was thinking about that because it’s so different from how I feel now when I visit patients. I do not feel nervous or uncomfortable at all, and honestly that kind of surprised me. I enjoy the work and find it very meaningful, and I also find it to come much more naturally now than it did when I was younger. I think that’s because I have learned over the years that we don’t have to get it right in order for God to show up. I have seen time and time again, the Holy Spirit’s presence when everything goes wrong and learned to trust that God is always there, whether we say the right things or not.

          And so what I do is create space for people. I sit with them, listen to them, take a genuine interest in them and care about who they are and what they say. And what I see time and time again is that when people are given that space, when they stop feeling like they need to do or say everything right or put up a front, or pretend everything is ok, they allow themselves to be vulnerable, for their true feelings to emerge and even when they are lying in a hospital bed … in their own way they fall before God, revealing their humanity, crying out in hope and seeking connection with another. And somehow, someway, that always brings some type of healing or feeling better. I am not saying that somehow finding true faith brings some kind of magical healing to all physical ailments, but rather something about the act of just letting go, falling before God and letting the emotions out- brings a type of healing, where the Holy Spirit shows up and hope sustains. When we know that it’s ok if we didn’t get it all right, it doesn’t matter if we made mistakes- who we are at our core is seen by a loving Creator and that brings a healing that is deep and powerful.

          This was not the last time that Jairus or the woman would suffer. Life would bring pain again as they were human as we all are, but because of Jesus, they knew that they were loved, that God is the source of healing and that there is hope. They knew that God sent God’s own son Jesus into the world because God loves us so deeply, and that knowledge literally knocked them to the ground.

          Planning is good, preparation is good, but leaving our hearts open to the unexpected presence of the Holy Spirit is essential to our faith. Letting ourselves exhale and shed the weight of all we carry on our shoulders, the worry, the uncertainty, the helplessness and falling on our knees is where we may finally find the healing we seek. Amen.

         

9 Years

9 years. That’s how long it’s been since Laura died. It’s also the term for a Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church. I spent this week in Louisville, Kentucky at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and was able to be present for the historic moment when the House of Deputies affirmed the House of Bishop’s election of a new Presiding Bishop. I also had the privilege of attending the retirement celebration dinner for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. Nine years ago he was elected. Nine years ago my husband, Jeremiah, was at the General Convention that elected him in Utah. Nine years ago I was on the phone with him as he took breaks from the convention work and as I took breaks from the crowded Hospice room where Laura was fighting for every breath and we both tried to hold it together because we both loved her. Our Bishop at the time, Mark Hollingsworth had the House of Bishops pray for Laura. I have always appreciated that, even more so now that the House of Bishops is community for me in a new way. Sometimes life falls into cycles. Every time Bishop Curry speaks I find myself filled with emotion. One reason is because he is a powerful, passionate speaker who has done amazing things for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion and he will be greatly missed. The other reason is because I realize nine years is a long time.  It’s been a long time since Laura was alive.

               The night after the new Presiding Bishop was elected I had a dream about Laura. She was coming towards me and she looked very young and as she approached I kept having realizations that it wasn’t her, it was just someone who looked a lot like her and every time I realized that I felt a wave of sadness through my body. I think I had that dream because as I have thought about what to say this year, I have realized that there is a danger in filling in the pieces of memory with assumptions and maybe even things I have thought Laura might think or say or do … because our brains can only hold so much and as much as we try to avoid it, the memory we have of someone is incomplete. I don’t want to try to make it complete by guessing what she might think or say or do about things that she never got to think or say or do.  And yet, I still want to hold onto and honor the memory I do have of her and the memories all of her many loved ones and friends have of her. And so, I keep writing every year on this day, knowing that it will fall short of capturing who she was … but that’s only human.

               Laura brought out an authenticity in myself and others. She did that by always being so authentically herself. She said the things that needed to be said, even if it was uncomfortable. She was her same sarcastic, deeply caring, witty self with everyone, and I think that’s why everyone’s relationship with her was so meaningful and the loss felt so deeply.

               I have been thinking a lot about authenticity. I thought that being in my forties would be a time of nicely settling into the life I have built, the relationships I value and the person I want to be for the rest of my days. Instead it has felt like upheaval. And not just because of a cross country move, completely new role in the church and a sometimes fumbled and awkward approach to introducing myself to loads of new people. It’s also been a wild ride of hormones, getting to know my body, anxiety and deeply felt emotions that sometimes scare me. (I hesitated before saying hormones, but if I am going to honor Laura, then I have to be able to be brutally honest. She faced death, cancer and unplucked chin hairs with brutal honesty and courage, so surely I can talk about midlife changes.) So rather than a gentle settling in to the life patterns I have established and predicted paths I have held, it feels more like jumping from a plane (and I’m really hoping the parachute works.) And I have sometimes wondered how to be authentic when I am not really sure who I am right now.

               This is where I start to do that thing where I want to fill in the blanks of what Laura might think or do or say and say that she would understand or would tease me for always worrying, but she didn’t get to see her forties, and that injustice still makes me sad and angry. What I do know though is how courageously she faced the upheaval that came into her life. Her kids stayed front and center in her mind, even when her head was pounding and her heart was breaking. She wouldn’t let go until I told her they were ok. Her authenticity meant she was able to ride the changes and tragedies of life with eyes wide open, unwavering faith and a devotion to her family that surely has made them the wonderful people they are today. And, she definitely put her foot in her mouth and said awkward things sometimes.

               So that’s what we do  … we face each day with courage, we hold firm to our faith in a God who is loving and never leaves us, we continue to love our families fiercely and sometimes we are awkward and sometimes we mess up. Because life is brutiful but we love love love always always always.

 

Grateful for her blog, that helps me remember her: https://publiclookin.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-02-03T11:57:00-08:00&max-results=7

Photo taken from her blog