Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost by Susan N. Eaves. June 28, 2009

I would like to think that if I were to encounter Jesus I would know who he was. I would like to believe I would understand him, admire him, and follow him without question or confusion. But when I look at the scriptures I become aware that my hope is not likely to be realized anytime soon.

If the people surrounding Jesus at the time and the disciples who had chosen to follow him were confused, what chance is there that I might fare differently two thousand years later? I can’t speak for you but I know I am often operating out of my own set of assumptions about the way things are – the opinions and perspectives I have derived from what I have been taught, or seen or experienced. I am human, so I have only the smallest speck of life to reflect on – but I still live out of that speck and not out of that vast picture of which I am a part but which I did not create and for which I did not create the rules. 

In another scripture which we did not read today Paul speaks of us as seeing through a glass darkly and I can certainly identify with that in a world where there is a lot of confusion and suffering, a lot of threat and fear. 

And into our line of sight comes the story of this morning’s gospel. Primarily, it is a story about human beings acting out of perfectly human assumptions about what is real and in plain sight. Like us, they have derived those assumptions from what they have seen, what they have been taught and what they have learned from their experience. 

Jesus is, as usual, hemmed in by crowds. Jesus is a phenomenon, a religious rock star and no-one intends to miss a moment of the show. Into those crowds comes an important member of the community – one of the leaders of the synagogue, a member of the establishment, a person of power and influence. Powerful himself, he seeks help from the person he sees as having a kind of power he needs –Jesus. We are told that when he saw Jesus he “fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘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.’" He is a powerful man and he knows how to approach powerful people – on his knees. He is afraid his daughter will die, he is afraid Jesus might refuse to help. 

And then we have the woman with hemorrhages. She also is acting out of her assumptions. Poor and sick, she is at the bottom of the totem pole of life. She is the exact opposite of the ruler of the synagogue – a person to be despised, discarded and ignored. A person who also thought she knew how to approach the powerful – from behind, anonymous, invisible, secretly, unseen. She acts in secret. She needs to be healed but if she asks she is afraid Jesus might refuse. 

Even the disciples are acting out of their assumptions – who, in a crowded place, would be sensitive to the jostling of one person? Don’t be ridiculous, Jesus. Sometimes Jesus was just a puzzle. 

And then there are those who make the most sense of all – the mourners. The child is dead after all and we all know what that means. Death is the end – wail and weep. The mourners know for certain that Jesus is ridiculous – so ridiculous they laugh at his insistence that she sleeps.

So where have these assumptions taken us?That Jesus is a spectacle. That Jesus is to be feared least he refuse to help. That Jesus has strange ideas about crowds. That the obvious is always the truth and, essentially, that there is nothing new under the sun, there is nothing new going on here. Everything is as it has always been and always will be. We are human, we see and think and feel with human eyes. We have opinions and perspectives derived from what we have been taught, or seen or experienced; which is why we have a hard time seeing Jesus. There is, after all, nothing new under the sun. 

Seeing Jesus for who he is is hard because he refuses to be confined by the data from human experience. Human as he is, he has placed his life and his faith in his relationship with God and the result is a bit awe-inspiring to say the least; awe-inspiring if we are willing to let our own opinions and assumptions take a back seat, that it.

This story is a story that embodies the generosity of Jesus and the generosity of God. Jesus’ doesn’t argue with the leader of the synagogue, he doesn’t take the opportunity to point out that the religious establishment has been giving him a hard time, that the religious leaders have not supported his ministry and have in fact tried to sabotage it and that there is no reason therefore why Jesus should help the one who represents all that indifference and love of religious power. He doesn’t ask why Jairus didn’t come sooner when things were not so serious or ask what did Jairus expect him to do now. None of those things. Instead, Jesus sets out to go to the house of the precious daughter who is sick and about to die.

Likewise, he does not ignore the touch of the woman who was afraid to be seen, afraid to be identified. He does not criticize the crowd for pressing in or the disciples for their lack of understanding or condemn the woman for taking without asking. Instead, he raises her up, he makes her healing public. He restores her to dignity of life before society, before the crowd. He names her “daughter”, family, honored, trusted, healed, whole, at peace with herself and the world. 

And, on arriving at the home of the child, he does not mourn or weep, he does not make fun of the mourners mocking him, he does not abandon the parents to their grief. He simply reminds us, “Do not fear, only believe.” And, telling everyone to leave, to stop the commotion, and taking the parents and the disciples to the place where the child lay, he raises her up and tells the amazed family and disciples to remember to give her something to eat. He makes it all seem very simple and very natural – but it changes the way things are for good.

Now we see. It is God who is the Lord and Giver of life. We will not always understand or see or do that which we might. But we can learn to see as Jesus sees. We can turn to God sooner when we are afraid and in trouble, we can know our human power to be a very fragile thing, we can believe we are not the bottom of the barrel – that God always sees us and loves us and is generous to us – and act out of it. For, as Paul reminds us this morning, “you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” 

There is quite a lot at stake here. We are about to baptize a child. Into which world will we call her?  To which world you would rather belong? Do you choose the world that fulfills your assumptions; the world in which we live in fear because others are more powerful than ourselves, a world in which ordinary people are at the bottom of the barrel? Or do we choose a different world. The world as God would have it. A world of confidence and hope, of generosity and abundance, a world of faith where there is plenty of love to go around. A world fit for a little girl raised from the dead. Which world will it be? Which will you choose? Remember, the kingdom depends on it. Amen.