Hal preaches on Mark 6:30-34. ​

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Psalm 24  
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be good, pleasing, and whole to you, O God, our rock and our swim coach. Amen.
 
We live in a shallow world that is scared of the deep-end of life! Our world these days is terrified of truths about death and mortality, about the emotions we all share as humans, about the deep places: rage, fear, frustration, joy, confusion, wonder. The real stuff is out there, friends, in the deep-end of life, yet culture, technology, even how we travel in our isolated cars in this country (how most of us got to church this morning), all drive us towards the shallow, self-centered-end of the wading pool.
 
Nobody really wants to dive off the high dive anymore into the mysteries of life, of love, and of wonder. We are scared of the water. It is just too dangerous to be real with each other. What if we don’t have all of the answers? What if we might be seen as vulnerable? What if we make a mistake somewhere between the diving board and the surface of the water? What if we embarrass ourselves with loud laughter, with tears, or with honest confessions in public? What if someone doesn’t like us? No… no, it is safer to just stay in the shallow, thin, barely moving waters of the easy side, shallow end, of the pool.
 
Learning to swim spiritually and emotionally in the complexity of life and death and real feelings isn’t even necessary anymore anyway. We don’t have to actually live life to observe it.
 
We let the characters on TV and on Netflix do that “Olympic swimming” work of “feeling” life for us on the screen instead. It is safer to be an observer of others in the pool than to jump in ourselves. We stay in the bleachers either cheering or booing. We can just watch the world swim by on Facebook, on Instagram, or from the safety of our couches—we can watch the world treading water. But is that a Christian response to the deepness and mystery and wonder and possibilities of the gift of living? No.
 
Christians, Baptism is a deep-end sort of promise to God as community. It is a promise that springs from the deepest founts of our souls. It is a promise to jump in the pool together. It is a promise for when life is way over our heads. It is waterborne promise to accompany, to provide the swimming lessons, and to dive off the high dive of life with each other. Moreover, we are the lifeguards for one another in times of struggle. As a community preforming and administering the Baptism, we likewise promise, to each other, and the children brought to us to share in this ancient rite, to stay with each other in hope and togetherness. Likewise, and most importantly, God through Jesus the Christ also accompanies us as our swim coach for this swim team called Plymouth and wider Olympics of the Church Universal. We are not alone in the deep-end or on the high dive. We can rest assured that Jesus is with us.
 
Baptism historically and in most Christian traditions represents being buried with Christ when descending into the water and then resurrecting into a promise of eternal life with Christ. While this can be seen as morbid of part of traditional theology, there is a kernel of something reassuring and beautiful in that image isn’t there? There is something worth keeping. We are raised with Christ in Baptism: This is why Baptisms traditionally happen on Easter Sunday. In our progressive tradition, we think of this in a broader sense than that older theology of a sacrificial atonement and burial. We think of it as a promise of God to be with us through every step of life and into death but also the community’s call to stick with each other through the good, the bad, the ugly. Amen?
 
It may not surprise you to learn that our denomination’s official statement on the question of, “What does Baptism Signify?” is only two sentences long! “The sacrament of baptism is an outward and visible sign of the grace of God. Through baptism a person is joined with the universal church, the body of Christ. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit, and the knowledge of the call to be God's people always.”[1]
 
This is one of the gifts and beautiful things about the United Church of Christ: our simplicity in explaining what we believe. We are sort of the United Church of Elevator Speeches. In Baptism, in joining each other and Christ in the waters of Baptism, we claim a new and deeper connection, an ongoing renewal, and an understanding of our sense of purpose to be God’s people and to do God’s work of justice and inclusion in this short life on earth. In Baptism, according to the UCC, we are given a promise of purpose, of hope, and of togetherness. This is indeed a great gift from God. [So many are looking for a sense of purpose these days, and Baptism really is the root of that sense for us.]
 
Why talk about this symbol like Baptism on a Sunday when so much preaching is needed on social justice issues in the world and in the news? What a deep-end time we live in!
 
Because we are in a time, friends, when words have failed us. We are in a time when it is hard for us to measure how deep, how VERY deep the waters have become around and under us. We are in a time when we seem to be treading water socially more than swimming forward in community and God’s call for liberation. In short, we are in a time when our Baptisms and the ecumenical, connectional, timeless, promise of Baptism is more important than ever. We are in a time when we can reach out for that reliable “floatation device”/ “life saver” of God that is hope, togetherness, and purpose. Baptism can be our buoy in the deep end. We are in a time when words have failed us. We are in a time when words have reached their limit of usefulness, so symbols must keep us afloat.
 
We are not communicating well in 2018 with words, so maybe it is a time when symbols, Holy Gestures of Blessing, like Baptism and Communion, matter more and offer us understanding in ways that words cannot right now.  The Sacraments can help us keep the faith!
 
I am convinced that the least important part of a Sunday Christian service in 2018, not always but right now, is the sermon. This makes me a very VERY bad Reformed/Calvinist Christian—which is our UCC history. That is a difficult thing to admit as a minister, especially in the UCC where our hiring process and retention is measured by this sport of preaching, but it is what I believe for right now. [Imagine if you hired clergy based on sending a couple members into a mock pastoral care session and then had the congregational vote based on their experiences!?]
 
2018 is not a time for words because nobody is listening. It is a time for symbols. That is because we are talked at (not with but at) all week, all day, all night (if we let it). You are talked at all the time from the alerts on the phone, from the computer, from the TV, etc.
 
People can only hear so much of even a good sermon like love and inclusion and absorb it, BUT I believe that symbols like Baptism can be reclaimed and refocused to give us the meaning and feeling and truth that words are failing to provide. The problem, as my colleague The Rev. Sean Neil-Barron from Foothills UU once told me during a conversation about 21st Century Church Communications, isn’t that people aren’t getting information or communication or publicity—it is that they are sinking from the weight of too much information. As the church thinks people aren’t hearing, rather than retreat to our symbols of meaning-making, we talk faster and more.
 
When the words fail us or are drowning us, let us allow the symbols of buoyancy float us until such a time as we can swim again. I believe the progressive church and all church is drowning in words, in blogs, in newsletters, etc. We need our symbols like Baptism, the water, the waves of love more than ever.
 
Speaking of words, let’s look at the Word from Scripture this morning:
 
Our Scripture today, Psalm 24, is an ancient hymn that predates our Christian tradition by about some 1,100 years and comes from the Ancient Israelite Hebrew book of Psalms or songs. It also speaks to a community looking for the meaning of community and how to find truth in a confusing time. It is a classified by scholars a “Festival Celebration of Faith”[2] Psalm regarding the question of entrance into the temple. It is a song of praise to God for God’s enduring presence and power in their lives, but it also has a specific purpose. It is intended to name what matters in community. Verses 3 and 4 have a question and response about this: “Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in God’s Holy Place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully [tell lies]. They will receive blessing from the Lord.” The word of God.
 
“Do not lift our souls up to what is false.”
 
Today, friends, we are being called to the deep end, to waters over our heads, to live life with fullness, with truth, and with togetherness in community and with purpose. We are not permitted by the Gospel to stay in the wading pool or walk around the shallow waters.
 
Together, we dive into the deep, real, true stuff. The Psalm for today tells of the importance of not giving in and giving up to what is false or untrue in the world. If we take it a step further, it would also mean that we cannot give into the easy way out of the water called pessimism. Pessimism isn’t learning how to swim… it is a submarine of deception. It is a faulty and temporary flotation device that guarantees an eventual floundering. Hope in our Baptisms is what keeps us afloat. In a time when lies seem more commonplace than truth, when words threaten to overwhelm us in confusion, backtracking, and deception we know that God is with us in the pool of life through the Baptism promise of Jesus Christ to teach us to swim and then to swim with us. We do not have a God who watched us from afar. God is with us in the pool.
 
Words might not be our salvation in this time, for words have proven to be unreliable at best. Symbols, however, offer us something to hold onto. In this deep end of the pool with Jesus and with each other, we can rely on the silent beauty, the assurance of hope, and the call to authenticity, realness, and truth that comes through Baptism.
 
We are Baptized with Christ into new life. We are baptized into lives of authenticity. We are Baptized in the deep end, over our heads, wild, emotional, real life we live together. This is what Church is at its best: we are a swim team moving through life together, following in the wake and the waters of the greatest one to ever live.
 
So, when my sermons get boring, as this one definitely did [joking], remember that what matters isn’t the words we share but the symbols we embrace as we swim forward in uncharted waters as this swim team of Christ.
​
Amen.

[1] http://www.ucc.org/worship_baptism

[2] Bruce C. Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terrence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen. A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2005), 119. 

Hal preaches on Mark 6:1-13.

Mark 5:21-43
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Healings of Jairus's daughter and the hemorrhaging woman
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."
24 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" 31 And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." 40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
 
 
Did Jesus really cure these two woman of disease? Could he do that? It seems impossible to our 21st century knowledge of modern science and medicine, doesn’t it? What do we make of this? Considering the healing stories of Jesus to be historically true in some form or fashion seems dangerous....maybe even ridiculous to some. Is it best to stick with metaphorical interpretations of the stories? Ask questions about spiritual healing? Is our life force slowly hemorrhaging away, individually or corporately? Are we sleeping, moving through life comatose, waiting for the voice of God to raise us from the dead? Good questions, but do they skirt the real power of our stories today?
 
In his book, Days of Awe and Wonder, How to be a Christian in the 21st Century, the beloved and late Marcus Borg, encourages us to understand Jesus as one in the long stream of a Biblical tradition of Spirit-filled mediators who bridged the two worlds of tangible reality (our modern scientific world, world of the our physical senses) and the world of nonmaterial reality charged with energy and power, the world of Spirit. With his scholarly expertise and deep faith Marcus stretches our theological imaginations and our spiritual muscles to accept the historical man Jesus as a Spirit person and a charismatic healer. Marcus’s writing brings me hope in understanding our texts today.
 
Both the woman with the hemorrhage and Jairus’ daughter are brought back from the brink of death by Jesus’ healing. The woman was unclean in the eyes of her community. No one could socialize with her. Perhaps she had family, but they dared not take her in because of her impurity. She obviously had no male relatives willing to intercede for her with Jesus which would have been the proper cultural tradition of introduction. And she was out of money. Spent it all on seeking a cure. With no family, no finances, no community she might as well be dead.
 
Jairus tell Jesus his daughter is near death. Then a messenger from his house tells us she is dead. Then the mourners laugh at Jesus when he suggests otherwise. They know death when they see it. The spectral image of death is repeated here times. Does the girl really die? Or is she so deeply comatose that people believed she was dead? The only clue is that Jesus speaks against what the crowd says in tangible evidence of death, saying she is only sleeping. Sleep of death or sleep of coma? Either way she is cut off from family, from community, and they from her. And dead bodies were also ritually unclean. Like the woman, the young girl is as good as dead.
 
Yet these two woman, younger and older, both considered dead to community, dead to possibility of wholeness, are cured. By God’s power through the touch of Jesus the healer. Thanks be to God! These are miracles! And haven’t we all hoped for such miracles in our lives for ourselves or our loved ones?
 
We think of cure as medical wholeness, the banishing, repairing of  disease medically. We often equate this with healing, the restoration of health. Healing is more that medical cure. It is restoration to wholeness. The stories of the woman with the flow of blood and Jairus’s daughter bring us to the intersection of curing and healing. Jesus never just cures. He also heals.
 
And yet....we all know the stories, we have all lived the stories, when curing does not accompany healing. Not everyone we pray for is cured. We have all experienced this. Where is the healing? I believe we take the example of Jairus who advocated for his daughter and the woman who advocated for herself. We begin the healing process by telling our whole truth. Both Jairus and the woman tell their stories. They tell the whole truth.
 
Jairus is a prominent man in the local village and surrounding area as one of the leaders of the synagogue. What is he doing throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, this itinerant, upstart teacher and begging, repeatedly and in front of the crowd? Telling the story, the whole truth, of his daughter’s illness? Unbecoming conduct for a man of his stature. To be so vulnerable about his personal needs. What would the other leaders of the synagogue think? Even if holy men who were charismatic healers were accepted in Jesus’ time was it appropriate for Jairus to seek out a healer so publically? Making a spectacle of himself? Surely he had the power to send a message and request privately that Jesus come to his house. Yet he falls at Jesus feet and begs....and which of us wouldn’t do that for a child on the brink of death?
 
The woman is audacious as well. She tries to remain hidden, doesn’t she? According to Jewish law the woman with the hemorrhage ritually unclean because of her unceasing flow of menstrual blood. Like a leper she could not be touched. And could not touch men in particular. Yet here she is in the crowd surreptitiously making her way through to touch just the hem of Jesus garment. To be healed and yet not contaminate him? And she is in the crowd that is moving toward the house of Jairus. She knows Jesus is on a mission. But so is she. She too, is seeking a last resort for healing. And it works! She is cured of her long, long ordeal of disease. What she didn’t know is that once you fervently seek the power of God, you can’t hide out anymore. Realizing this with Jesus’ prompting she finally comes forward and tells her whole story, the whole truth.
 
Jesus meets these two people right where they are. Jesus knew as he moved through the crowd that someone had been cured, God’s power had flowed through him. He also knew he was on a time sensitive journey to Jairus’ house. He could have rushed on knowing this miracle was accomplished. But he stops to personally interact with the woman. He is not doing this for show. Seeking her out allows her to come and tell her story....in front of the whole crowd. She becomes a witness, she testifies to the power of God she has experienced. Telling her story of faith heals and empowers her soul. Jesus affirms her with God’s love, calling her “Daughter!”  He Acknowledges that she received God’s power and also that it is her faith, her complete trust, that empowers her healing. Her body is cured and her soul is healed internally. Publically  brought back into community through her encounter with Jesus. If Jesus had not encountered her publically she might never have been believed by her community that she was cured.  The community would have missed the power of her testimony. Healing is never just for the individual. It is always brings us back into the community.
 
Jairus daughter is brought back to life and also into community. While Jesus orders those with him not to tell anyone about her healing....how could this have happened? The daughter would be living in the house with the family. She continued her normal life. So those who were mourning outside the house would see her. They would know about the miracle. They would eventually be included in those “overcome with amazement.” This story did not stay contained long. The joy and celebration of the daughter’s cure surely spilled over into healing in the family and community. They had experienced the power of God’s love! That cannot be contained!
 
Jesus always brought healing. And it always affected the community as well as the individual. And healing always begins with telling and hearing one another’s stories, listening to the whole truth. Healing comes with the vulnerability. Think of it....authentic medical treatment cannot begin unless we are vulnerable in telling the doctor all our symptoms. This is true in mental health therapy as well. And it is true when we are completely vulnerable in seeking the power of God. Telling God the whole truth, the sorrowful truth, the angry truth, the despairing truth, the doubting, questioning truth opens the door to healing. Vulnerably telling the truth in our communities, the truth of sexual harassment, the truth of suicide, the truth of  addiction, the truth of domestic violence, the truth of sexual and gender identity, the truth of oppression,.... you can add your truth to the list...leads to healing. We may not see a cure immediately. Or even in our lifetime. But I can guarantee that as we tell our whole stories to one another and to God healing will begin....healing will happen. When we are vulnerable we may not be cured, our loved ones may not be cured in the ways we envision, but we are healed into deeper community and communion with God.
 
Yesterday Hal and Christopher and I were with friends and family from my son, Colin’s, community. I had prayed for a cure for Colin’s struggles for years...and it did not come as I had envisioned. His release from disease came with death rather than with my hopes for new life in the treatment for mental illness and addiction. And while I am fully confident that he is now at peace, it hurts not to have had my prayers answered in the ways I had envisioned. And to heal I must tell that story. And as I encouraged his young adult friends yesterday....we must tell our stories of his life and love to one another and to others. We must tell the stories of his pain and struggle and of his joy in living, his joy in the creation of music and visual art. It is only in sharing our stories that we are being healed. My friends, I invite you on the journey with me. Tell your stories of struggle, of cure, of healing, to one another and to God.  Tell your whole truth for there lies your healing and the healing of community through the power of God. 
 
Amen.
 
©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2018 and beyond. May be reprinted only with permission.