2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Mark 5:21-43 – June 28, 2015
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 8
This is the week to set aside our Presbyterian sensibilities and follow Jesus into the chaos.
I recently attended a non-Presbyterian wedding. It was in another mainline Protestant church but it felt worlds away from my tradition. It wasn’t the service itself that was different. The words, the Scripture passages, the music… it all resonated. I could recite a lot of it. What was different was the ethos of the gathering before the service. It was lively. It was, at times, LOUD.
The closer it got to the appointed hour, the more anxious I got. Every fiber of my Presbyterian being wanted to “shhh” the people around me. I comforted myself with the knowledge that surely soon everyone would settle down because the music had just shifted to the tune designated for the seating of the mothers. I relaxed, but only for a second. You see, others had also noticed the change in music and, it appeared, had simultaneously noticed that a number of the pews toward the front of the church were unoccupied. And so they got up and moved. Some beckoned others forward. There was more chatting, laughter.
There was still some shifting as the mothers entered the sanctuary and the place only became quiet when the first bridesmaid was one-fourth down the aisle. I felt undone. I also realized that I may be the most uptight worshipgoer on the planet and thanked God for the obliviousness that comes with being in the vestibule or chancel.
It is this discomfort with even a hint of disorder and chaos that makes reading Mark’s Gospel for Sunday anxiety provoking. What with people falling at Jesus’ feet and begging, with words like tumult (also translated riot) and scourge, with pulsating crowds and weeping and wailing mourners, I just want everyone to settle down, get themselves together, form a line, something!
But they won’t. Everyone is clamoring for a chance to get to Jesus. The Greek word for great is found verses 21, 23, 24, twice in verse 26, 38 and 43. As in: great crowd (x2), begged greatly, suffered greatly, great many physicians, weeping and wailing greatly and charged them greatly. Add to the greats the alls in verses 26, 33, and 40: she had spent all her money, she told Jesus all the truth, Jesus put out all the people. These intertwined stories are over the top, teeming with emotion, out of control, in no way decent and orderly – and I’m sure there are some Presbyterian-types in the crowd uneasy with the whole scene.
There are the disciples asking how in the world, in the midst of all that madness, Jesus could know someone touched him. There are those messengers telling Jairus, settle down, be quiet, give it up, leave the teacher alone. “Shhh!” There are the mourners, loud in their wailing, playing their part, their employment secure because death is certain. They don’t want a Jesus disruption either. They laugh at his audacity to say no to death. They, like so many of us and our world, mock anyone who thinks there is an alternative to the pervasive and sure power of thanatos.
But Jesus persists. His disciples’ skepticism doesn’t dissuade him. The messengers’ capitulation to the inevitable doesn’t distract him. The mourners’ fatalism doesn’t undermine his mission. The great crowds don’t unnerve him. The near riot doesn’t frighten him. The raw emotion, the over-the-top needs, the disorder and chaos, the great and greatly, the much, the more, all of it… Jesus enters into all of it. And this is the week to set aside our Presbyterian sensibilities and follow him there.
On Tuesday morning of last week, June 16, I met with four of the five executive presbyters of South Carolina for a planned meeting to discuss ways to talk honestly in our churches about race and racism. I left feeling good about the meeting – with no real plans, but promises to stay in touch, pray for discernment and keep it on our collective radar. We were Presbyterian, thinking a discussion of a book would be good, some invitational sharing of personal stories around tables, and nothing too reactive or over the top.
Then there was the evening of Wednesday, June 17. I woke up on Thursday morning to the news of nine people shot dead – in a church, in a historic African American Church, in South Carolina. The shooter was a young white man, a young white man who came into a black church and was welcomed in the name of Jesus Christ. He sat through a Bible study and then shot the very ones who welcomed him. Shot them as he ranted racism and hate. This happened Wednesday night after the Tuesday morning of my very decent and orderly Presbyterian discussion about race and the church.
This happened Wednesday night after a Tuesday morning in which I was all too comfortable, maybe even relieved, to keep racism on my radar and discernment, too often a code for foot dragging, as my goal.
After Wednesday, June 17, there was no longer a need for discernment, clarity came in a hail of bullets. After Wednesday, June 17, we can no longer pretend to be faithful, weeping and wailing for the dead, while our inaction mocks those who work with the Spirit to bring new life. After Wednesday, June 17, we need to be falling at the feet of Jesus, begging for healing and telling the WHOLE, PAINFUL, GREAT, SCOURGE REVEALING TRUTH.
Racism has been, and is, the source of great suffering, years and years and years of it. We need the transformative healing and the resurrection power of Jesus if we are going to move forward and follow the witness of welcome those nine victims gave their lives for. And the witness of forgiveness the family members of those nine have held up to the world. And the witness of unity the surging crowds in Charleston have shown us. And the witness of unwavering faithfulness the congregation of Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston has demonstrated.
This is the week to get over decent and orderly and enter into this Markan text of much and more and greatly, of tumult and suffering and crowds and begging. This is a week to TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH so that Jesus’ healing can take hold of us as we take hold of him.
Presbyterian preachers, those of us who tout all things in moderation, those of us who prize our task forces and our committees and our discernment and our book discussions, let us not dare give into the temptation to quiet the crowd or dampen the wailing or send Jairus on his way.
Lament greatly this week. Read David’s lament as if it were our own. Pray Psalm 130 with silence in between each verse. Take sides in the Mark text, not with the scoffers and the silencers, the mockers and the professional mourners, but with those who suffer and fall at Jesus’ feet. Beg for his help because people’s lives are at stake. Unabashedly name all that inflicts and infects us because we can’t be made well unless we tell the whole truth.
Let this Sunday be the beginning of much and more and great and all… much lamenting, more honestly, great compassion and total dependence on the grace of God. Read this text and picture the crowds that have gathered in Charleston, that place of great suffering where, through the power of Jesus Christ, a great healing has begun.
This week:
- Read your church’s history or, if you have access, look through your church’s session minutes. Pay special attention to the history of your church at key times: around the Civil War, during the Civil Rights Movement. What do you learn? Are there places where the whole truth needs to be told?
- Take a look at this list and go get one of the books. Start reading. Start sharing. Start talking. Start something.
- Consider those areas in your life and/or in the life of your congregation where healing is needed. What are they? What truth needs to be told in order for Jesus’ healing to happen?
- All three texts in Mark with the Greek word for “begged” involve healing and touch. (This story, Mark 1:40 and Mark 7:32) Why this connection between healing and touch?
- Many are dumbfounded by the response of Charleston to last week’s tragedy. Read this article. How has faith made the difference? How will your faith make a difference in the days and weeks and months ahead?
- As funerals for the nine victims take place this week, pray daily for their families and friends.
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