Sermon for Proper 8 B

This sermon was given in 1994 before the most recent changes in the lectionary. At that time the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years was left out of the readings. It is a reflection upon why Mark included it in the middle of the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter.

Sermon for Proper 8 B

Given on June 16, 1994

At St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Brentwood

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

If the Gospel reading seemed a bit long to you today, that’s because it was. I added a bit extra. Each Sunday we are mandated to read what is in the lectionary for that week, but it is up to the discretion of the priest to add to the readings. If we followed the lectionary today we would hear only the story of Jairus’s daughter. This is a powerful story even if standing alone. Certainly much could be preached about it. Themes of faith, and resurrection, the meaning of death and of life are there to be drawn upon. But when Mark wrote the story down he chose to add in the middle of it the story of the woman who had been bleeding. By editorial prerogative he could have put that story somewhere else, or even left it out, but instead he sandwiched it in the middle of another story. The people who put together the Sunday lectionary, unlike Mark, chose to leave the story of the hemorrhaging woman out. She doesn’t show up in the readings for any other Sunday, and I feel her story is too important to ignore. In addition, I feel that Mark must have had a reason for combining these two stories together, so I read the whole thing.

Jairus is a leader of the synagogue, that would be like being a Bishop and a mayor wrapped into one. Leaders of the synagogues had religious respect and authority, and were also community leaders. He was undoubtedly also well off financially.

In contrast, the woman who is hemorrhaging doesn’t even have a name. She has spent all her money on doctors, so she must have been quite poor. She has been bleeding for twelve years, which is usually interpreted to be a menopausal problem. When a woman was bleeding in ancient Israel she was considered unclean, ritually impure. In fact a man who touched (or was touched by) a menstruating woman was considered impure and had to go through certain rituals and wait at least twenty-four hours before being considered clean again. A man who was ritually impure was not allowed to enter the temple or partake in any religious services. Imagine what it would have been like for this woman. An outcast, untouchable for twelve years. Desperate she committed an unthinkable act - she touched a rabbi - thereby making him unclean as well.

Yet Jesus responded to her with as much compassion and love as he did to the rich Jairus. She is healed, not condemned.

Then Mark describes Jesus as continuing on with Jairus, without any purity rituals, without waiting the appointed time, and bringing the little girl back to life. A great miracle is performed by a ritually impure rabbi.

I believe Mark put these two stories together to emphasize Jesus’ total acceptance of all people. The rich and powerful and the most lowly and outcast are all welcomed and loved by Christ. It is the model which Mark would have us follow - total acceptance of all. It would have been easy for Jesus to focus his ministry on the rich - he could have healed them and lived will. But he didn’t, he responded to the poor, the outcast as well. It would have been easy for Jesus to only focus on the poor, to say that the powerful were already too corrupt. But he didn’t, he healed the rich and the powerful as well.

The community which Christ began - the Church - is called to welcome all. There is never a fee to enter the church. We are not judged by the amount of money in our pockets or the power that we wield. We are all in need of Christ’s healing love, rich or poor, powerful or outcast. We are all equal in his loving eyes.

Right now I feel a little like that hemorrhaging woman. I feel a bit awkward and unsure. I need to reach our and touch your robes for the health of this church. Asking for money is difficult for me. I don’t like to focus on the needs of the church, especially in a sermon, but I don’t know any other way to do this. This church, this tiny part of the great Kingdom of God, is in financial need. Each month we spend more than we receive and our savings are being quickly consumed. If St. Alban’s is to continue as a light in the world, if Christ’s work of reconciliation and healing is to continue here, in this form, we quite frankly need more money. The work of Christ will go on regardless of what happens here. The Kingdom of God is greater than you or I or St. Alban’s, but I believe we have some unique gifts to bring to this community and if you feel so also I ask you to increase your pledge or fill out a pledge card in the back of the church.

In the letter read today Paul writes to the Corinthians about members of the church in another city saying:

During a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave accord to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints. Begging for the privilege of sharing in the ministry.

In my mind from the readings today there can be no question about the kind of life a Christian is called to live. It is a life in which all people are valued, where no one needs to be ashamed because of their lack of the ability to give and no one is to be proud because of their wealth. It is a life in which one gives all that one can. It is a life where people give out of the abundance of joy that they have experienced as Christ’s gift to them.

All of us, rich and poor alike, are like the woman who feels she is unworthy to speak to the Lord and ask for his healing, yet has faith that just to touch his hem will heal her. We come on our knees to Christ, awed by the greatness of his gift to us, knowing that there is nothing we can do that would even begin to equal it. So we offer to Christ what we have, our time, our talents, our treasure. Not out of ought, but joyfully wanting to share in the privilege of Christ’s ministry to the world.

Even small acts of hospitality, like giving someone a cup of cold water, can make all the difference. The readings for this Sunday are very rich. In this sermon I reflect on the generous hospitality I saw at a wedding, and weave together the Gospel, the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, and Paul's letter to the Romans.

Proper 8 Year A

Transcription of a sermon given on

June 26, 2011

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Arroyo Grande

By Rev. Valerie Hart

In the Gospel reading today Jesus talks about hospitality, and that even small acts of hospitality, like giving someone a cup of cold water, can make a great deal of difference. I had a chance to see that at work this past weekend at a wedding. I didn’t know the bride’s family very well. I had met a few them but I didn’t know the whole family. Something happened that told me a lot about this family.  There was a man at the wedding who had never met anyone else who was attending. He was a stranger. He had been invited to the wedding, but he came having never met in person anyone there. You see the bride was adopted. Her birth dad had given permission for her to find him, so when she became an adult she looked him up. She had contacted him over email and they had communicated a little bit on Facebook and through email, but it never worked for them to meet in person. And then she invited him to her wedding.

Now you can try to imagine what it would be like to be a man meeting your biological daughter for the first time at her wedding. What would it be like walking into a wedding where you didn’t know anyone at all? That takes a lot of courage. What impressed me was that he was made 100% welcome. Everyone from her family, the whole wedding, treated him like family. He was seated at a table with other family members. Many people spoke to him and made him feel comfortable and welcome. To me this said a great deal about bride’s family - about her parents, about their love for one another, about their love for their daughter, and about their love for all people. A little bit of hospitality made all the difference.

Of course it can work the other way as well. As I was reading background material and ideas for the sermon today I read the story of a pastor who spoke about a man in his town that he knew well. A respected businessman, a good man who lived a good and generous life, but he never came to church. So this pastor would keep inviting him to come to church and he would say “nope, not comin’.” So finally the pastor asked him why. This time the man was in a place where he was ready to tell him. He said that when he was eleven years old his family had decided that it would be good for he and his brothers and sisters if they had some religious training. So they took him to Sunday School. He got to Sunday School and he loved it. He loved hearing the great stories of the Bible. He loved the music. He loved coloring. He loved everything about Sunday School and he was all ready to come back. But at the end of the Sunday School class the Sunday School teacher pulled him aside and said to him - in a very nice way I suppose - “You know son when we come to church we always dress in our best. I don’t want to see you coming back to church dressed the way you are today.” And he looked down at his handed down overalls with holes in them, which were his best clothes, and he never came back to church dressed that way. Well he never came back to church until he was dressed in a brand new suit and laid out in a box for his funeral.

I’m sure that that Sunday School teacher meant well. But it wasn’t being hospitable. It wasn’t being welcoming. It wasn’t seeing the need of the child.

Little acts of hospitality can make a huge difference. Even giving a cup of cold water. It is interesting when you read the Gospel that Jesus doesn’t give many “Thou Shalt Nots”. Oh, occasionally he does, but usually he is telling us what he wants us to do. He wants us to love one another as he loves us, to be hospitable to one another, to see the poor, to give a cup of water to the thirsty. He doesn’t dwell on rules and regulations, but on compassion and love.

If we look at the reading from Roman’s that Paul wrote we find that Paul teaches that we are free from the Law through grace. Things have changed. With the resurrection of Christ everything has changed. We no longer are slaves to a bunch of rules. We are not controlled by the “Thou Shalt Nots”. But Paul had a dilemma because there were some people that when he told them that they were free from the law said, “Okay good, I can do whatever I want.” And they were doing things that weren’t good for them or weren’t good for the people around them. Things that weren’t even respectful of their own bodies. And Paul said, “No, no, no, you don’t quite get it. We are free from the arbitrary laws, but we are slaves to Christ and therefore we want to serve Christ.” There are places in Paul’s letters where he delineates what that looks like, especially in the letters to the Corinthians, because it appears that the Corinthians didn’t quite understand the concept of freedom. So he had to delineate some “Thou Shalt Nots”. But what is most important about what Paul says is that we are a new creation. We are a new creation in Christ. Everything changed with the resurrection. Our relationship with God and our relationship with one another have changed, just as everything changed with Abraham. Before Abraham, and even after in some places, human sacrifice was common.  At the beginning of this story Abraham believes he needs to sacrifice his son to God. Because that is what you did. You made sacrifices to your God. You sacrificed that which was most valuable to you and often it was your own child because you wanted to appease God. You wanted to appease the anger of God. It was as if human beings could do something to take care of God. And then God would owe you something. But things changed with Abraham. Abraham was willing to offer his son. He loved God that much, but God said that is not what it is about. I will provide the sacrifice. God doesn’t need anything from human beings. God has everything that God needs. God wants relationship with human beings and with Abraham the relationship with God became one of friendship rather than one of duty and fear.

Then God provided the sacrifice in Christ to take another step in the relationship between God and human beings. This was a new creation, a new way of being with God, an opportunity to live in grace.

Every day we say the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.” Then we say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Right there, central in that prayer, is the coming of God’ reign, the time when God will truly rule the earth. When the earth, all of the earth, all of creation will be as God intended for it to be. God will be in charge, a time when God’s will is how people will respond. The resurrection of Christ opened a window to that new world. That is the new creation, where this earth will become what God intended. Where human beings will treat one another the way we are supposed to - with love and compassion.

We are called to be part of the transformation. We are called to bring on the new kingdom.

If you look at history it is pretty amazing that a small band of followers of Jesus in less then 300 years expanded to cover the entire Roman Empire and become a force to be reckoned with, even though they were illegal. Even though they were persecuted. But Christianity spread like crazy. What was it, what was it that made the church grow so much then? It had to do with how the Christians lived their lives. They lived their lives bringing in the new creation. They lived their lives to be the new kingdom. They treated each other with compassion and love. They brought in and welcomed everyone. Hospitality for everyone - male, female, free, slave, rich, poor, gentile, Jew - anywhere, any language.  This was a community that fed one another; it was not like the rest of the Roman Empire. When plague came people were left because their family didn’t want to catch it. They left people to die alone. The Christians, however, took care of one another, nursed one another back to health. When people were hungry they fed one another. When they were alone they were invited into community. They shared what they had. They had a little taste of what the kingdom of God looks like. Where people love one another as Christ loved us. By the way they lived in their communities they taught people about what love looked like. They didn’t have an army. They didn’t have much money. Most of the early Christians were poor. But they had something more powerful. And when you look at the history of the Christian church that goes into different areas, the missions that were often most successful were ones where it was a doctor who brought healing, or they brought food, or in some other way were being hospitable and caring for people.

We are called, each and every one of us, to help bring on the kingdom of God. When we pray the Lord’s prayer it is our responsibility to do what we can to make this world what God intended - to let the reign of God come through us. It comes through those small acts of hospitality. Those times of charity and love when we feed people, when we welcome people, when we comfort people, when we give them even a cup of cold water.