July 2, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 8 : 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, Mark 5:21-43
Today we have a miracle of Jesus being interrupted by a miracle of Jesus. Two miracles where two people believe that Jesus has what can help them – the power to heal; for the wealthy leader the healing of his daughter, for the poor woman the healing of herself. The leader meets Jesus head-on; the woman who is an outcast, a nobody, because of her condition creeps up on him from behind. Both hoping beyond hope that there is power to heal
There is healing for both. There is restoration for both. The restoration of Jairus’ daughter to life and to health; the restoration of the woman to health and to a place in society.
We see here that in Jesus there is saving power. He makes the wounded whole. He brings what is dead back to life.
Of course, if Jesus hadn’t stopped to speak to the woman in the street, Jairus’ daughter wouldn’t have died. Couldn’t he just have noted that someone had touched his garment and hurried on to heal the young girl? Why did he have to stop?
It has been said that this passage encourages us to consider a “theology of interruptions”. God’s time is not our time. God’s schedule is not ruled by ours. God’s priorities are not our priorities. God is not bound by our human “oughts” and “should-have’s”.
God’s power is for each, for all. God attends to each in the particularity of her or his own need. God’s grace is sufficient for each and touches the whole person.
Jesus takes the time to address the woman before him. He meets her at the place of her greatest need. His power heals her physical condition, and he addresses this outcast, this nobody as “daughter” and thereby returns her to her rightful place in society and re-places her in relationships to those in her life.
God’s grace is at work in the interruptions.
Canon Charles Shreve, beloved canon of this cathedral, told us once of the time when he was canon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco when his secretary called him out to deal with a man who had come to ask for money.
Charles saw a man who was an obvious street drunk - dirty, unkempt, filthy clothes. But Charles is Charles and so he invited him into his office to sit and have some coffee or tea. The man told him a well-rehearsed story of his descent into his present condition. The man wanted money for food, he said. Charles asked him, "Isn't there anyone you could call for help."
He said that there was no one. He had a son whom he had not seen for several years, since his graduation from Stanford, and he had no idea where to find him, or even if it was worth finding him, given his present condition. When he mentioned that the son had graduated from Stanford, A possible way to trace the son crossed Charles mind. He asked for the name of his son.
The name he gave was the name of a man Charles knew. This young man was a kind of "Golden Boy." He was young, handsome, well educated, well employed, had a winning personality, a rising star, active in cathedral life and ministry. Charles asked the man if he would come back the next day at 12:00 noon, and said he would try to locate his son. The man agreed.
Charles called the son and told him the story of his father. The man said that he hadn't seen him since his graduation. His mother had divorced his father because of all the abuse involved in his addiction. He had lost track of him. He didn’t really want to see him, know him, and certainly he wasn’t about to forgive him. Charles talked with him for quite a while. Finally, “Yes”, he would certainly be at the cathedral at noon.
The old man arrived first and Charles invited him to wait in his office. Shortly afterward the son came in. Dressed in a beautiful, double-breasted Cashmere overcoat. The old man stood up and said, “Hello Son”. The young man said, “Hello Dad”. And he went over to him; to this dirty disheveled drunk who was his father. He took off his coat and placed it around the shoulders of his father - wrapped him up in it - and drew him into a warm embrace of love. Tears, all ‘round.
A moment of healing, of reconciliation, of redemption, of restoration. New life was begun. God’s grace was at work in the interruption.
As you and I are recipients of that grace, so God also calls us to be agents of grace as well. To be aware of the need for it in the day-to-day interruptions of what we would like to be our well-ordered lives.
You and I, yes even you and I, are empowered to defeat death, relieve suffering, and make the wounded whole… in the name of Jesus.
Amen
