2009-06-28 Mark 5:21-43 The Ones As G...

2009-06-28 Mark 5:21-43 The Ones As Good As Dead
James McTyre
Lake Hills PCUSA

The gospel lesson - more correctly, the good news lesson - today is about two people. It's about two people who everyone else thought were as good as dead. One of them actually was dead. But effectively speaking, the community put both of them in the grave. Prematurely. The community had declared them dead about twelve years, and two hours, too soon.

Any of you ever get tired of waiting for the doctor to see you? You're sitting in a cold room, with your shirt off - or, more than that, depending on the kind of doctor. You're in a cold room, partially clothed, either sitting on paper, or in paper, or both. You've read an outdated issue of People Magazine cover to cover. That's killed about, what, 15 minutes? You've examined all the doctor's diplomas. Figured out his or her approximate age based on graduation dates. Younger than Doogie Howser.

Anyone been there? Here's a little secret: the doctors don't like you waiting around any more than you do. The doctors would love to get to you quicker. But was a demonic guy in Room 666, and they had to lay hands on him. And on the way to your room, someone grabbed his lab coat and made her move a mountain of paperwork. If you're ever thinking, "Gee, I wish I could see more boils," follow your doctor around for a day.

In today's gospel lesson, Jesus isn't Preacher Jesus, he's Doctor Jesus. And everyone's paging Dr. Jesus at the same time. And like most physicians - through no fault of his own - Jesus is running late. About 12 years and two hours late. He's on his way to help one patient, and another grabs his lab coat. He stops to help this one, and that one dies in the meantime. I wonder how many doctors feel like Jesus, and really wish they didn't. I wonder how many docs are tired of feeling like Jesus in that someone else always wants something more, and someone else is waiting, and they never get the chance to be the miracle worker they dreamed about being in med school. They'd love the chance to work miracles, but the "system" turns them into scribes and Pharisees.

The illnesses in today's gospel lesson were physical. But like most physical illnesses, they're the window into spiritual issues. And whether we're on our deathbeds or fit as a fiddle, the spiritual issues are chronic. We have to deal with the spiritual issues, because they're symptoms of being human.

Time. Time is the first symptom of our humanity. None of us have enough. You think you have troubles with time? Think about Jesus. Seated at the right hand of God. The Alpha and the Omega. Who was with God in the beginning and through whom all things were created. Timeless, infinite Jesus, gives up all that to become human. Timeless, infinite Jesus descends into a world where no matter what else, there's never enough time. You can't do much with power and glory if you don't have time. It's a symptom of being human.

Earnestness. Another symptom of being human. Earnestness, or the lack thereof. Jesus turns to the woman who grabbed his cloak and says, "Your faith has made you well." We wonder: Did Jesus heal her? Or was her faith so earnest that her faith healed her? Jairus, whose daughter was near death, came to Jesus. He fell at Jesus' feet, and, the Bible even says it, Jairus "earnestly pleaded with him. "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." The second symptom of being human is doubting our own earnestness. There's never enough time, and there's never enough earnestness.

A lot of people are afraid to fly in airplanes. For a lot of people it's a claustrophobia thing: the fear of being compressed in a tin can 20,000 feet above ground. Doesn't sound that irrational to me. A lot of people are afraid of flying because they're afraid if they think about the plane crashing, their thoughts could make it happen. It's not that they're afraid of dying, they're afraid of taking all those nice people down with them. They prefer smaller planes.

Doctors call this "magical thinking." Magical thinking means that if you earnestly think about something, it'll happen. And, conversely, if you don't think about something happening, it won't. For instance, if you don't think about losing your job, you won't. If you don't think about having enough money for retirement, you will. If you don't worry about your cholesterol, you can eat all the fried Twinkies you want. Pretty ridiculous, right?

But how many of us hear about these people in the Bible and believe that if we just pray with their earnestness, if we purge all doubt from our minds, God will answer our prayers with a yes?

So when we pray, and someone doesn't get better, we think it's our fault. How many people silently carry around the baggage of that doomed flight, because that's what they infer from the stories in the Bible?

What if Jairus, running to find Jesus, had tripped and broken his leg along the way? What if he hadn't found Jesus? What if more people had touched the cloak of Jesus in the crowd and it slowed him down so much that he forgot where he was going? What if, what if, what if? And what if Jairus carried around the guilt of his daughter's preventable death for the rest of his life?

Not only do we never have enough time, we also never have enough earnestness. As soon as we try to think something good into happening, or think something bad out of happening, we think about ourselves thinking and doubt enters our mind. Are we weak because we doubt? Or is earnestness and the lack thereof a symptom of being human?

I'm not saying we should stop praying. Not in the least. In fact, I think our recognition of our human limitations is reason we should pray all the more. I'm not saying we should stop praying; I'm saying we should stop awarding ourselves responsibility when our prayers get answered, and when they don't. God's power does not pivot on the artistry of your prayers. God already knows what you need; the question is, do you? We pray not because we're so superhuman and earnest, but because we're not.

Don't you know the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years had been praying as earnestly as she could all that time? Don't you know Jairus had been asking God to help his daughter? Of course they had. Did the accumulated weight of their prayers cause a miracle to happen? I don't know. Ask the lady two doors down suffering from the same illness. Ask the father in the next county who's also praying at his daughter's bedside. I do know this: because that woman and because that man had been praying, when the healings did occur, they recognized the miracles as miracles. I know that because they had been praying, when the miracles did happen, they weren't still blaming themselves, and they weren't spitefully asking Jesus, "What took you so long?" They were thankful. Because they had been chasing Jesus and pulling on Jesus, when the miracles did happen, they were ready. They were ready not to take the credit or the blame for themselves. They were ready to be thankful.

Maybe the woman two doors down who missed Jesus because the other lady was ahead of her, and maybe the father in the next county who got word of the first father, maybe they had been praying just enough that they were thankful, too. Thankful that someone else had gotten healing. Thankful that someone else had found what they also needed.

NBC did a bold thing last night. While just about every other TV network, cable outlet, and Internet space was covering the death of Michael Jackson, NBC took the bold move of NOT covering that story. Instead they re-ran the show, "Farrah's Story." Farrah's Story is a video documentary about Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer. It's really, really hard to watch. But it's also more inspiring than I had ever imagined. I imagined a celebrity with big hair milking the spotlight one more time. Instead I saw a woman of faith, great faith in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, praying for the strength to cling to life one more day, one day at a time. Farrah never got the physical healing she was praying for. But her prayers were answered. Because at some point, the human symptoms of time and earnestness became for her, irrelevant.

And there, I think, is the good news in this gospel story. Pressed by time, judged by their earnestness, the woman, the father, and his daughter had their prayers answered by the one human being for whom time and earnestness were, irrelevant.

Whatever you're praying to Jesus to do, pray as though your earnestness and your schedule had nothing to do with your prayers. Pray as though your doubt and your calendar are both irrelevant. Will your prayers change the outcome? I don't know. But I do know your prayers will change the way you judge the outcome. Physical healing isn't easy. But it can happen. Spiritual healing, healing of your heart, healing of your soul - that can take a lot longer. But it's never too late. My prayer for you is that you will keep praying, and that you will find the healing of the good physician, for whom time and earnestness are mere symptoms of a life left behind.