A Congregational President And His Sick Daughter
Preaching
The Miracles Of Jesus And Their Flip Side
Miracle narratives from the Revised Common Lectionary with a fresh look at the other side of the story
Death flutes wailed a morbid tune for Jairus' daughter;
at life's end our graceful God provides for us and loved ones,
By touch old woman's hemorrhage dried from compassion,
Even when ridiculed, health and wellness is our ministry.
(1)If Matthew were to have told the tale in contemporary language of our day, he might have said it like this: While Jesus was holding an evangelism rally in a local church, the president of the congregation told him he just got a call that his twelve-year-old daughter had suddenly died. Shaken and unsteady, he asked if Jesus would come home with him and place his hand on her little body, praying she would have eternal life. They quickly headed for the subway station to go to the home of the little girl. In the crowd at the station someone touched Jesus' coat. The president of the congregation, named Jairus, was impatient and wanted to quickly dismiss this encounter with a wretched homeless woman, who had had a problem of uterine bleeding for years now and was always hanging around there. She had gone to many of the city's clinics, but no one seemed to help. Her health insurance had run out. In spite of the protest of Jairus, Jesus turned to this poor woman and assured her that because of her faith she was healed. They then went on to Jairus' house in the suburbs where the neighbors had gathered, the coroner had been called, and the local funeral director awaited his verdict. It was a hysterical atmosphere! Neighbor kids were crying, friends of Jairus' wife had gathered in the bedroom, and one set of grandparents just couldn't be comforted. The brother of the little girl played his CD with high volume. Jesus asked them to step out of the bedroom and he and three of his theological students went up to the bed.
Checking for a pulse in the main artery of the neck, he discovered she was not dead but in a coma or insulin shock. He told her to get up ... and she did! He instructed others to feed her right away. All through the neighborhood the story was told that day about a misdiagnosis and new life for a precious little girl just down the block by a visiting evangelist.
It was a marvelous day in Jesus' life when he gave new life and a different life to two people. (2)It certainly shows us some beautiful things about our God we have gathered to worship today. Even though Jairus was a leader in the synagogue and would probably have hated Jesus and the new thinking he proclaimed, Jesus still felt sorry for a father whose daughter was dying.
God is like that. God loves us in spite of our weak faith or poor attitude. We can come to a God like this no matter how disreputable we have been in the past. We can come to a God like this and request our miracles without fear that God will ignore us because of our past sins or lack of faithfulness to Christ's Church. There will be no checking of our communion or contribution record. Our God does not want to be our judge, according to John, but rather our Savior (John 3:17). God still wants to help in spite of all our poor motivations. So we can put it bluntly: We have a very graceful God.
John Newton wrote it this way: "Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!
By far the main teaching about God here in these two stories is that we have a profound comfort not only in lengthy suffering, but in death itself. Since these events, Jesus has gone to the cross for our forgiveness and come out of Jerusalem's Easter grave so we also can say of our loved ones -- "They are asleep." Death is not the end. We have a life with this Christ beyond the earthly grave or cremation. It is in Christ and thus we sleep and move into a new relationship with our God.
At the funeral home or church sanctuaries, we have a profound presence of the Christ who assures us our loved ones are okay. They are asleep. Perhaps we need to review again what those of faith, our church foremothers and fathers, knew and wrote down for us: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." They are asleep. We who remain a while longer are comforted. And we have courage to face an uncertain future unafraid. Any Christ who would go to such individual trouble as this one in going to the home of a man who probably opposed him, and healing his daughter; any Christ who would stop on the way and help a woman who managed to touch him in the crowd, will certainly help us when we ask it also.
(3)We learn a lot about ourselves in these experiences as well. Although our motivation is for the wrong reason and our faith inadequate, and we are one in many who have needs, the Christ will still help. I surely like this idea of the importance of the individual in our religion. For we live in a day of big numbers and mass communication, and often sacrificing the individual "for the good of the many." Here, just the touch of the fringe of Jesus' robe was noticed. And he stopped to see who had needed his attention. In the midst of that large pressing crowd and the hurry to get to Jairus' home, he stopped, and that one wretched woman had his complete, undivided attention. Wonderful! I'll bet he notices us in the same individual way, too. You know he could have said to Jairus, "I can't leave all these people here in the synagogue right now. I must stay here and continue to teach. But instead, for one little girl in one little Palestinian home, he went home with Jairus. That's really hope-filled for us. We count, we are important, we are very precious to none other than the creator of the whole universe. We are more than our social security and credit card numbers. We are God's individual daughters and sons.
In 1994 during the bloody civil and tribal war in Liberia, I visited a displaced-person camp in a swampy area, called Brewersville, in order to take some rice to a mother and children we knew. The horrid conditions were beyond description. One elder came into the Lutheran World Relief medical tent carrying a dead little child. He explained that about one a day dies there. I recall walking between the little mud huts with the hungry people pulling at my clothing, begging for money or food. It must have been like that for Jesus that day as he made his way with Jairus toward his home.
This story within a story, of Jesus stopping to heal the outcast woman who had hemorrhaged for years, tells us today we ought to give similar attention to the marginalized in our own day and culture. There are always those people who are not "our people," who just don't fit in with the majority, who don't dress or behave like the rest of us who need our attention. The church often attracts such as these, as it should, because it's one of the very few places where some will try their best to love and accept them. Because this woman had a continued loss of blood from the genital area for all these years, she was considered "unclean" and probably was even physically unclean in that day of much less sanitary supplies to help cope with the problem. So she was forbidden in church, to touch anyone else, or even be around where they lived.
We must be sure we see those of our day who are considered by our society as unclean. We must love them on God's behalf. You can draw up the list. Some are more acceptable than others: those with AIDS; the mentally and physically challenged; the so-called "street people"; those of skin color different than ours; and the people of different sexual preferences than the majority. All these we must welcome and encourage into our loving fellowship.
I hope Jairus, after this woman's illness was healed, invited her to church next Sabbath with his alive daughter and family! I hope she was welcomed there with great enthusiasm.
Speaking of Jairus, how about Jesus going home with him? Doesn't this tell us Jesus wants to go home with us also? I think so. Our tendency is to think of being with Jesus here in church and somehow separate him from our home life and family. Here we learn we can and ought to take him home. It's one thing to be loving and gentle and kind here in the church building, but quite something else to take that behavior home and practice it there all week. He can work miracles there still. Pettiness can be changed into an attitude of generosity, hostility into loving concern, getting even into undeserved forgiveness.
It's obvious that we have the kind of Savior who wants to bring peace and healing into our homes. This Savior is eager to bless where we live with an aura of kindness toward each other. This Savior likes to heal the hurts and pain we have brought to each other. This Christ wants to help us be faithful to our marriage covenant of fidelity and restore deep love between husband and wife, parents and children, family and neighbors.
This same Jesus, when we take him home with us, wants our homes to be places of warm hospitality and welcome to others, like orphans and refugees, abandoned and abused. The old and lonely, the young and rebellious, ought to find comfort and security there.
That same home with Jesus present can be a place of frequent prayer before meals and at bedtime. It can be where the Bible is read and discussed and where witness is taught and taken out into our daily lives.
(4)It's always important to consider why the writer of the Gospel, in this case Matthew, wanted this story told and preserved. Matthew always writes his accounts in order to instruct. This Gospel is sometimes called the "teaching Gospel." Here he wanted to instruct us about the power of the Savior. There are three miracle stories grouped together by Matthew which demonstrate God had power over evil, sickness, and even death. No doubt these were to prove to the people who heard them what it can be like when the kingdom of God breaks into our daily life. It turns the world, as we know it, upside down. It brings unity where there has been such strife. The kingdom helps us live with each other knowing we are not perfect, but that we are forgiven. So Matthew told the stories to let us know the power of God in bringing the kingdom into our world and lives. Thanks, Matt, we needed that!
(5)The flip side (or other side) of these two brief stories of healing would ask us to consider ministries which bring Jesus out of our churches and into our homes. I think, especially in light of the healings, of the possibilities and needs of our people for a ministry of health and wholeness taken from our churches out into our homes. Oh, the things a Christian nurse can accomplish when she or he goes into the homes of the elderly, the confused, the ill, the lonely, whom HMOs and other schemes of health care will not serve.
As our health care has gotten more and more impersonal, we disciples need to step in and minister to the individual woman the crowd ignores and the daughter the father was so worried about. With children and youth in general, we have something to offer. We can bring Jesus to touch them with his loving concern in homes where parents have gotten trapped into being far too busy and distracted to do good parenting.
There may be something else here. When Jesus said of Jairus' daughter, "The girl is not dead, but asleep," Matthew said, "But they laughed at him" (Matthew 9:24). Ridicule is hard to take for your belief. It did not deter Jesus. He continued his act of mercy. When we are ridiculed, perhaps we should do the same. It doesn't help to argue or prove you are right. It doesn't help to get others to join on your side. Just continue your discipleship and let your humble service and the results of it be the witness to how God can change things in our lives and our outlook on life. I don't think anyone has ever been argued into the kingdom. But many, many, upon seeing devoted, humble service for, and to, the Master, have found their cynical attitude removed and the faith of the believer become gradually attractive as a way of life for them. I'll bet those who laughed at Jesus that day had some second thoughts when that little daughter of Jairus came out of the bedroom to go to the kitchen for some food. I'll guess, too, that Jesus had to remind the disciples not to take an attitude of "I told you so," but rather to continue on with their ministry of compassion. After all, changed lives are still the most persuasive and convincing way to prove Jesus is real, and we have a powerful God who loves us.
(6)Let's continue our service this week even though some laugh. Let's explore ways we can more fully develop a health ministry from our congregation. Let's all take Jesus home with us today. Let's be comforted no matter how small we think we are. Jesus sees us and cares. Let's be on guard for the outsiders in our midst so that we can involve them. And when death comes to our loved one, let us be lifted up and encouraged with the promise of life beyond the grave.
(7)In contemporary language we might complete the story like this: That evening at the big evangelism rally at the church, there were some new faces in the pews. There was an older woman who had never felt welcome there who sang the song, "Amazing Grace," with an off-tone gusto, nearly shouting the words, "... who saved a wretch like me." She had been brought by the president of the congregation and sat next to a little twelve-year-old girl who seemed extra vibrant and alive, whose neighbors were seated toward the back. About all these new-found worshipers, the rest of that congregation just weren't quite sure.
____________
Note: The numbers in parentheses indicate the seven points of the sermon development. See the introduction for clarification.
at life's end our graceful God provides for us and loved ones,
By touch old woman's hemorrhage dried from compassion,
Even when ridiculed, health and wellness is our ministry.
(1)If Matthew were to have told the tale in contemporary language of our day, he might have said it like this: While Jesus was holding an evangelism rally in a local church, the president of the congregation told him he just got a call that his twelve-year-old daughter had suddenly died. Shaken and unsteady, he asked if Jesus would come home with him and place his hand on her little body, praying she would have eternal life. They quickly headed for the subway station to go to the home of the little girl. In the crowd at the station someone touched Jesus' coat. The president of the congregation, named Jairus, was impatient and wanted to quickly dismiss this encounter with a wretched homeless woman, who had had a problem of uterine bleeding for years now and was always hanging around there. She had gone to many of the city's clinics, but no one seemed to help. Her health insurance had run out. In spite of the protest of Jairus, Jesus turned to this poor woman and assured her that because of her faith she was healed. They then went on to Jairus' house in the suburbs where the neighbors had gathered, the coroner had been called, and the local funeral director awaited his verdict. It was a hysterical atmosphere! Neighbor kids were crying, friends of Jairus' wife had gathered in the bedroom, and one set of grandparents just couldn't be comforted. The brother of the little girl played his CD with high volume. Jesus asked them to step out of the bedroom and he and three of his theological students went up to the bed.
Checking for a pulse in the main artery of the neck, he discovered she was not dead but in a coma or insulin shock. He told her to get up ... and she did! He instructed others to feed her right away. All through the neighborhood the story was told that day about a misdiagnosis and new life for a precious little girl just down the block by a visiting evangelist.
It was a marvelous day in Jesus' life when he gave new life and a different life to two people. (2)It certainly shows us some beautiful things about our God we have gathered to worship today. Even though Jairus was a leader in the synagogue and would probably have hated Jesus and the new thinking he proclaimed, Jesus still felt sorry for a father whose daughter was dying.
God is like that. God loves us in spite of our weak faith or poor attitude. We can come to a God like this no matter how disreputable we have been in the past. We can come to a God like this and request our miracles without fear that God will ignore us because of our past sins or lack of faithfulness to Christ's Church. There will be no checking of our communion or contribution record. Our God does not want to be our judge, according to John, but rather our Savior (John 3:17). God still wants to help in spite of all our poor motivations. So we can put it bluntly: We have a very graceful God.
John Newton wrote it this way: "Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound!
By far the main teaching about God here in these two stories is that we have a profound comfort not only in lengthy suffering, but in death itself. Since these events, Jesus has gone to the cross for our forgiveness and come out of Jerusalem's Easter grave so we also can say of our loved ones -- "They are asleep." Death is not the end. We have a life with this Christ beyond the earthly grave or cremation. It is in Christ and thus we sleep and move into a new relationship with our God.
At the funeral home or church sanctuaries, we have a profound presence of the Christ who assures us our loved ones are okay. They are asleep. Perhaps we need to review again what those of faith, our church foremothers and fathers, knew and wrote down for us: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." They are asleep. We who remain a while longer are comforted. And we have courage to face an uncertain future unafraid. Any Christ who would go to such individual trouble as this one in going to the home of a man who probably opposed him, and healing his daughter; any Christ who would stop on the way and help a woman who managed to touch him in the crowd, will certainly help us when we ask it also.
(3)We learn a lot about ourselves in these experiences as well. Although our motivation is for the wrong reason and our faith inadequate, and we are one in many who have needs, the Christ will still help. I surely like this idea of the importance of the individual in our religion. For we live in a day of big numbers and mass communication, and often sacrificing the individual "for the good of the many." Here, just the touch of the fringe of Jesus' robe was noticed. And he stopped to see who had needed his attention. In the midst of that large pressing crowd and the hurry to get to Jairus' home, he stopped, and that one wretched woman had his complete, undivided attention. Wonderful! I'll bet he notices us in the same individual way, too. You know he could have said to Jairus, "I can't leave all these people here in the synagogue right now. I must stay here and continue to teach. But instead, for one little girl in one little Palestinian home, he went home with Jairus. That's really hope-filled for us. We count, we are important, we are very precious to none other than the creator of the whole universe. We are more than our social security and credit card numbers. We are God's individual daughters and sons.
In 1994 during the bloody civil and tribal war in Liberia, I visited a displaced-person camp in a swampy area, called Brewersville, in order to take some rice to a mother and children we knew. The horrid conditions were beyond description. One elder came into the Lutheran World Relief medical tent carrying a dead little child. He explained that about one a day dies there. I recall walking between the little mud huts with the hungry people pulling at my clothing, begging for money or food. It must have been like that for Jesus that day as he made his way with Jairus toward his home.
This story within a story, of Jesus stopping to heal the outcast woman who had hemorrhaged for years, tells us today we ought to give similar attention to the marginalized in our own day and culture. There are always those people who are not "our people," who just don't fit in with the majority, who don't dress or behave like the rest of us who need our attention. The church often attracts such as these, as it should, because it's one of the very few places where some will try their best to love and accept them. Because this woman had a continued loss of blood from the genital area for all these years, she was considered "unclean" and probably was even physically unclean in that day of much less sanitary supplies to help cope with the problem. So she was forbidden in church, to touch anyone else, or even be around where they lived.
We must be sure we see those of our day who are considered by our society as unclean. We must love them on God's behalf. You can draw up the list. Some are more acceptable than others: those with AIDS; the mentally and physically challenged; the so-called "street people"; those of skin color different than ours; and the people of different sexual preferences than the majority. All these we must welcome and encourage into our loving fellowship.
I hope Jairus, after this woman's illness was healed, invited her to church next Sabbath with his alive daughter and family! I hope she was welcomed there with great enthusiasm.
Speaking of Jairus, how about Jesus going home with him? Doesn't this tell us Jesus wants to go home with us also? I think so. Our tendency is to think of being with Jesus here in church and somehow separate him from our home life and family. Here we learn we can and ought to take him home. It's one thing to be loving and gentle and kind here in the church building, but quite something else to take that behavior home and practice it there all week. He can work miracles there still. Pettiness can be changed into an attitude of generosity, hostility into loving concern, getting even into undeserved forgiveness.
It's obvious that we have the kind of Savior who wants to bring peace and healing into our homes. This Savior is eager to bless where we live with an aura of kindness toward each other. This Savior likes to heal the hurts and pain we have brought to each other. This Christ wants to help us be faithful to our marriage covenant of fidelity and restore deep love between husband and wife, parents and children, family and neighbors.
This same Jesus, when we take him home with us, wants our homes to be places of warm hospitality and welcome to others, like orphans and refugees, abandoned and abused. The old and lonely, the young and rebellious, ought to find comfort and security there.
That same home with Jesus present can be a place of frequent prayer before meals and at bedtime. It can be where the Bible is read and discussed and where witness is taught and taken out into our daily lives.
(4)It's always important to consider why the writer of the Gospel, in this case Matthew, wanted this story told and preserved. Matthew always writes his accounts in order to instruct. This Gospel is sometimes called the "teaching Gospel." Here he wanted to instruct us about the power of the Savior. There are three miracle stories grouped together by Matthew which demonstrate God had power over evil, sickness, and even death. No doubt these were to prove to the people who heard them what it can be like when the kingdom of God breaks into our daily life. It turns the world, as we know it, upside down. It brings unity where there has been such strife. The kingdom helps us live with each other knowing we are not perfect, but that we are forgiven. So Matthew told the stories to let us know the power of God in bringing the kingdom into our world and lives. Thanks, Matt, we needed that!
(5)The flip side (or other side) of these two brief stories of healing would ask us to consider ministries which bring Jesus out of our churches and into our homes. I think, especially in light of the healings, of the possibilities and needs of our people for a ministry of health and wholeness taken from our churches out into our homes. Oh, the things a Christian nurse can accomplish when she or he goes into the homes of the elderly, the confused, the ill, the lonely, whom HMOs and other schemes of health care will not serve.
As our health care has gotten more and more impersonal, we disciples need to step in and minister to the individual woman the crowd ignores and the daughter the father was so worried about. With children and youth in general, we have something to offer. We can bring Jesus to touch them with his loving concern in homes where parents have gotten trapped into being far too busy and distracted to do good parenting.
There may be something else here. When Jesus said of Jairus' daughter, "The girl is not dead, but asleep," Matthew said, "But they laughed at him" (Matthew 9:24). Ridicule is hard to take for your belief. It did not deter Jesus. He continued his act of mercy. When we are ridiculed, perhaps we should do the same. It doesn't help to argue or prove you are right. It doesn't help to get others to join on your side. Just continue your discipleship and let your humble service and the results of it be the witness to how God can change things in our lives and our outlook on life. I don't think anyone has ever been argued into the kingdom. But many, many, upon seeing devoted, humble service for, and to, the Master, have found their cynical attitude removed and the faith of the believer become gradually attractive as a way of life for them. I'll bet those who laughed at Jesus that day had some second thoughts when that little daughter of Jairus came out of the bedroom to go to the kitchen for some food. I'll guess, too, that Jesus had to remind the disciples not to take an attitude of "I told you so," but rather to continue on with their ministry of compassion. After all, changed lives are still the most persuasive and convincing way to prove Jesus is real, and we have a powerful God who loves us.
(6)Let's continue our service this week even though some laugh. Let's explore ways we can more fully develop a health ministry from our congregation. Let's all take Jesus home with us today. Let's be comforted no matter how small we think we are. Jesus sees us and cares. Let's be on guard for the outsiders in our midst so that we can involve them. And when death comes to our loved one, let us be lifted up and encouraged with the promise of life beyond the grave.
(7)In contemporary language we might complete the story like this: That evening at the big evangelism rally at the church, there were some new faces in the pews. There was an older woman who had never felt welcome there who sang the song, "Amazing Grace," with an off-tone gusto, nearly shouting the words, "... who saved a wretch like me." She had been brought by the president of the congregation and sat next to a little twelve-year-old girl who seemed extra vibrant and alive, whose neighbors were seated toward the back. About all these new-found worshipers, the rest of that congregation just weren't quite sure.
____________
Note: The numbers in parentheses indicate the seven points of the sermon development. See the introduction for clarification.
