Ask and Imagine: A Sermon for Sunday June 30, 2024

The following sermon was preached on Sunday June 30, 2024 at a joint service for the churches of the Interlake Regional Shared Ministry, a collection of Lutheran Churches of the MNO Synod of the ELCIC. (Manitoba Northern Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.). Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Today’s reading is part of a series of stories where Jesus crosses back and forth across the sea in a boat performing miracles along the way. (21)

In today’s reading when Jesus arrives on the shore and leaves the boat there is a “great crowd who gather around him.” (21). People have been hearing stories about Jesus and they want to see him for themselves.

One of the men in the crowd is a powerful community leader named Jairus. Jairus collapses in front of Jesus and says, “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.” (23)

The text actually says that Jairus begs Jesus “repeatedly.” (23).

Falling at Jesus’ feet, begging repeatedly. This is not the way a dignified man with power makes a request. A truly dignified man might not ask at all, he might send a servant to make the request or simply demand that Jesus do what he asks. A dignified powerful man does not fall at someone’s feet and beg.

Jairus has power and social standing, but in this moment he doesn’t care. He is desperate and it shows.

Jesus doesn’t say anything, he just goes with Jairus and the crowd goes as well. And they don’t follow at a polite distance either, there is no respect for Jesus’ personal space in this story. Mark says that “a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.” (24)

Imagine the most crowded place you have ever been. Maybe it’s a rock concert or a sporting event or a Canada Day celebration or maybe even a church service. Imagine that sensation of being in a crowd where everyone is jostling and bumping up against each other.

Imagine holding your hands down at your sides because there are so many people and shuffling along and also knowing that you really need to get out of there and get to your car because a little girl is dying and you have the power to save her. Imagine that sense of urgency and then imagine doing what Jesus does in our story.

Imagine stopping suddenly and asking, ‘Who touched my clothes?” (30).

Jesus’ disciples respond the way I would, “Um… tons of people Jesus? You’re in a huge crowd. Stop being so weird.”

Imagine being Jairus at this moment. You are desperate. Your daughter could die at any minute. You’ve taken a chance and begged a famous healer to come and help her and now that healer has…. stopped to ask a ridiculous question.

We’ll get back to Jesus’ question shortly but let’s stay with Jairus for the time being. Imagine how you would feel, knowing that Jesus had wasted precious time by stopping to ask this ridiculous question and to speak to people in the crowd when your daughter is dying. And then imagine a few moments later someone approaches you and says the thing you have been fearing since your daughter first became ill.

“Your daughter has died.” (35)

It’s over. She is dead. There is no need to bother Jesus anymore.

How would you feel?

Angry? Despairing? Resigned? Too overwhelmed with grief at your daughter’s death to feel anything? All of those are valid responses, but the text doesn’t let tell us what Jairus is thinking or feeling. We can only guess.

Maybe Jairus was afraid, because we do know how Jesus chooses to respond to him. Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” (36)

And then Jesus goes and brings the little girl back to life.

How did Jairus feel before Jesus performs this miracle? We don’t know. But afterwards? We are told that when Jairus, his wife and the disciples see the little girl who was dead is now alive they all were “overcome with amazement.” (42).

Jairus has moved from desperation to despair to awe – all in one day. All because of his encounter with Jesus.

As we have already touched on, there is another story sandwiched in the middle of this healing story. A story of an unnamed woman who “had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years.” (25)

The text doesn’t tell us the cause of this bleeding and there is no consensus among scholars either but regardless of the cause, she has been suffering for 12 years. And she hasn’t simply been resigned to her suffering. We are told that, “she has endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” (26)

She has tried everything she possibly could to become well, spent all of her money and nothing has worked. And then she hears about Jesus and she makes a decision.

She is going to try again.

She decides she doesn’t need to talk to Jesus, she doesn’t need to ask him to make her well, she just has to get close enough to touch his clothes and she will be healed.

Maybe her faith is so great that she believes that even Jesus’ clothes have power. Maybe she doesn’t want to be noticed, maybe she is afraid to talk to Jesus, afraid to ask him for what she wants.

Maybe that’s why instead of falling at his feet and begging like Jairus did she slips quietly into the crowd to touch Jesus’ clothing with every intention of slipping quietly back home again. Unnoticed.

But that is not what happens, because Jesus notices her. And not only does he notice her, he makes Jairus, a powerful community leader, wait so that he can spend time with her.

Touching Jesus’ clothes heals her of her physical condition which was probably a result beyond her wildest dreams, but Jesus goes even further. Jesus stops to talk to her. He pays attention to her. Jesus calls her daughter and he tells this woman and the crowd that she is a woman of faith.

After 12 years of suffering her health and her dignity have been restored.

12 years. The same age as the little girl Jesus heals in this passage. Coincidence?

Possibly, but it is also possible that the first people to hear these stories would have picked up on that number and made a connection between the years the woman was suffering, the age of the young girl, and the 12 tribes of Israel or possibly the 12 disciples.
Maybe we’re supposed to see a connection between the suffering and eventual healing of both of these women and the suffering and hoped-for restoration of the people of Israel.

Maybe in the healing of these two women we are seeing a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Because I do think these stories give us a glimpse of that kingdom and what it means to follow Jesus in our daily lives, what it means to be a disciple.

God’s kingdom is a place where the impossible is in fact, possible. A place where hopeless situations become stories of immense hope. A place where healing occurs.

We don’t have time to go into all of the nuances of this today, so let me just say that I do believe that with God’s help, the impossible can be made possible.

But I also know that it is very likely that we have all encountered situations where what we have hoped for has not happened. Our loved one died and was not resurrected. Our plans did not turn out the way we wanted them to.

If these sorts of things are a part of your story, as they are a part of mine, be very gentle with yourself.

When we follow Jesus we will all experience hard things, impossibly hard things. And we will have experiences where we are completely surprised and delighted by what God has done.

I think one thing we can learn from stories like the ones we are discussing today is that it’s good to dream impossible dreams, and it is good to share those dreams with Jesus and to be prepared to be surprised by what happens next.

In both of our stories today, someone is healed, but those healings do not occur in the exact way that the person requesting healing expected.

The woman didn’t simply touch Jesus’ clothes and then slip back into the crowd to return to her home unnoticed. Jairus had to endure the extreme discomfort of worrying about his child while Jesus stopped to chat with the woman and the heartbreak of learning his little girl had died before he was able to experience the joy of having her restored to him.

It is common at the end of an Anglican liturgy that we repeat words that come from Ephesians 3:20 when we say that God can do “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”

Before the unnamed woman or Jairus went to Jesus, they needed to imagine that a new life was possible, that healing was possible. Before that healing could happen, they needed to ask – or perhaps in the case of the woman, demand – that it would happen.

I think that we are all called, as people who follow Jesus, to imagine and to ask. I believe that when we are aligned with God’s vision for the world that the impossible is in fact possible, with God’s help.

And I also know, that we are living in a time in the church where having the courage, and the imagination, and frankly the time to dream those sorts of dreams feels incredibly hard, if not impossible.

It is likely that you already feel overwhelmed by all the hard, practical important things you need to get done in your own lives and in the lives of your churches that it’s hard to imagine taking the time to spend time dreaming about things that might not ever come true.

But I also think it’s worth it and it’s not something you have to do alone. It is, in fact, something I would be more than happy to help you to explore.

God is capable of doing infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. As you leave this place to go into your week may you feel inspired to both imagine and ask, and may you be delighted by what happens when you do.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.