Get Out of My Way!

Preached at Ascension Lutheran Church, Towson MD - July 1, 2018. (Mark 5:21-43)

I hope you’re up for a sandwich this morning. As in a Mark sandwich. His gospel is a veritable sandwich shop. He will begin with story A and then, before he finishes it, he inserts story B, and then he goes back to story A.

Today’s Mark sandwich could be called the Women in Crisis Sandwich. We don’t know their names, but they’ve both become outsiders. And Jesus is not only dealing with healing them of their illnesses, but he’s also erasing the lines that separate them from others.

The religious laws of the time said that neither a menstruating woman nor a dead person should be touched. If you touched them, then you’d become impure and you’d have to go through a lengthy, involved ritual to be made pure again.

Now, as the leader of the synagogue, Jairus knows all about those purity laws because he’s the one who must enforce them. He is a person of prestige in his community. Well-respected. The one other people listened to. And so, the public display he makes of himself here is really quite shocking. He falls at Jesus’ feet and begs Jesus to help his daughter. And, just like that, Jesus is on his way to Jairus’ house, with a large crowd of people tagging along.

Then, right there on the road, Jesus’ mission is interrupted. This is no doubt upsetting to Jairus, who was in a hurry to get Jesus to his daughter before it was too late to save her.

There’s a woman in the crowd. A woman who’s been bleeding for 12 years, which, we learn later, is the age of Jairus’ daughter. The entire time this little girl has been alive, the woman in the crowd has been on her period. Perhaps only a woman could appreciate what that might have been like, but a good word to describe the woman would be tired. The worst part of this for the woman isn’t physical, though. It’s relational. Her sickness has completely removed her from contact with other people.

Not only did the purity laws say that you can’t touch a woman who is menstruating, but you also couldn’t even touch anything that SHE touched, or you’d be unclean. So, for twelve years, the woman has lived in social isolation. Like Jairus, she’s desperate. And, like Jairus, in her desperation she’s prepared to take a big risk.

She’s heard about Jesus’ power and thinks that maybe if she can just get close enough to him, she could be healed. She figures out a way to do it so that no one even has to know. It could be a stealth healing. If she blends in with the crowd and just gets close enough to touch the edge of his cloak, she might go undetected.

It doesn’t work. Jesus stops in his tracks and asks, “Who touched my clothes?” This is an absurd question. With the crowd pressing in on him, everybody’s touching his clothes. But one person in the crowd knows she’s been discovered.

Now, remember Jairus? He’s got to be out of his mind about now. He is taking Jesus to save his dying daughter. They don’t have a moment to spare. And here Jesus stops to have a conversation with this random woman. To Jairus it must seem like Jesus has chosen to help some worthless woman instead of his precious little daughter.

Imagine the dilemma that Jesus faces in this story. Either he hurries to the daughter of a rich man, or he stops to heal an outcast woman. He either helps an important person, or he helps a nobody.

Well, what may seem like a dilemma to you or me is no dilemma for Jesus. He doesn’t choose, he does both.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t go out seeking the bleeding woman. He’s on the move, and she’s in his way.

And that’s where ministry opportunities so often find us. We don’t have to go out looking for them. If we open our eyes, they’re right there in our path… Often what we consider an interruption or an obstacle. You may wish they’d just go away, because you’re headed someplace and they are in your way!

It’s a lot like the story of the Good Samaritan where the good religious folk find a man in their path who needs their help. They can’t be bothered, so they walk on by on the other side of the road and pretend not to see the poor man who’s been beaten and left for dead. But the Samaritan sees the man in need and stops to help.

Are there such people we in our path? Perhaps they’re people who find us, or, maybe they’re people God places in our path.

Who is God placing in our path here at Ascension? When we’re longing to follow Jesus and the needs of the world around us seem overwhelming, it’s a good question to ask. Who are the people God is placing in our path?

Can we see them? Are there barriers that keep us from responding to them? Discomfort? Fear?

Lately, we seem to be overly concerned about who’s on our side and who isn’t. Who is worthy of our care and who isn’t. Who we’ll serve in a restaurant and who we can refuse to serve. Who we will bake a cake for and who gets no cake. Who we will respect as a human being and who we will not.

That’s never the way Jesus encounters people. They’re more to him than the laws that keep them in their place. They’re more to him than the labels assigned to them by society. They are God’s beloved. As unlovable as they sometimes are to everyone else, they are always God’s beloved.

As Jesus people, we’re all about living the Jesus Way in the world. This is what it looks like…

What are the lines we draw that make it so difficult for us to see other people as God’s beloved? Pure/impure. Old/young. Rich/poor. Christian/Muslim. Brown/black/white. Republican/Democrat. Gay/Straight. Legal/illegal. Us/them.

Instead of erasing those lines, we’re drawing more of them every day. Those who take a knee for the National Anthem/those who stand for the National Anthem. Those who refer to Donald Trump as the current occupant of the White House/those who refer him as our president. Those who believe everything they hear on MSNBC/those they believe everything they hear on FOX News.

We have doubled-down on our boundaries and shut out those we’ve separated ourselves from. We don’t listen to opinions that differ from our own anymore. We shut them out and only listen to the others who occupy our own tiny boxes.

Friends, this is not the Jesus Way. Our life together, as a community of faith, embodies the Jesus Way. When we enter this place to worship, none of those lines we draw between ourselves and other people matter.

At no time is this more evident than in the meal we share. Do you realize what a radical concept this is in our world today? If Sarah Huckabee Sanders came to our communion table today, of course we would serve her. If a transgender person came to our communion table today, of course we would serve them. Come to the table here and we will serve you, no matter who you are.

Thomas Merton has said it so well: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”

In our little love laboratory that we call Ascension Lutheran Church, we practice the Jesus Way of love so that we can live the Jesus Way of love in the world. That’s how we usher in the Kingdom of God, by living the Jesus Way in a world that’s about as far from the Kingdom of God as it could be.

We can begin by really seeing the people we encounter, not as obstacles in our way, but as God’s beloved.