Pentecost 5B
Preserve us, O God, from
all faithless fears and worldly anxieties, through faith in your Son, our
Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
These past two weeks are
lining up like Fear Factor for the church. For two weeks in a row we hear stories about
fear - stories about people being pushed to the very edges of their ability to
cope, only to find Jesus there, ready to step in, just in time.
This week it’s hidden a
little more than it was last week - with its storm-tossed boats and trembling
disciples. Fear was on the front page
last week. This week it’s still here,
but it hidden a little deeper.
Perhaps you got lost in
the healing stories and let it slip right past, but it was there: “Do not
fear. Only believe.” That’s what Jesus said to Jairus after the
message was brought that his daughter was dead.
“Do not fear. Only believe.”
We hear these words only
once every three years as a part of the Gospel for today, but we could stand to
hear them every day. We should hear them
every day. They should be our mantra.
“Do not fear. Only believe.”
Very often, in our lives,
fear seems to be the most logical reaction.
We live in the midst of profound uncertainty: financial uncertainty,
environmental instability and climate change, threats to our physical safety
from terrorism, crime, and simply everyday life. It makes a lot of sense to be afraid – even
for those among us who are most secure.
But Christ says, “Do not
fear. Only believe.”
In the Gospel that we
read this morning, we hear the story of two healings intertwined with one
another: the raising from the dead of Jairus’ daughter, and the healing of the
unnamed woman who had been bleeding for twelve years.
A desperate father and a
lonely woman. Jairus was a leader in the
synagogue while the woman was a social and religious outcast. These two, who were about as separated by the
social order as any two could be, were united by two common threads: their
fear, but also its antidote – their faith in God through Christ.
First, the story of
Jairus. He was a leader in the
synagogue, and as such, a leader in his community. Common people might fall under the spell of a
traveling preacher like Jesus, but someone so ensconced in the establishment of
his day, like Jairus was, must have been held to a higher standard.
Can you imagine the
responses of his family, friends, and advisors?
His daughter was sick and getting sicker with each passing hour. He was groping for hope wherever he might
find it when he remembered the stories of Jesus. Word had been spreading through the
countryside of the things this man had done.
What must it have been like when Jairus first announced to those around
him that he was leaving his daughter to seek the help of a heretic?
Then there’s the story of
the woman. Word of Jesus had spread to
her, too. Common people were clamoring
around him for teaching and support, but she was not common. She was to keep her distance. She was ‘unclean’. She had been unclean for many years.
What courage must she
have summoned to break the social order, to enter a crowd, and to dare to touch
another person?
Jairus and the woman, as
separate as they were, shared a common curse.
The world was asking them to put aside their faith and their hope in
favor of order and expectations. The
world was asking a lot of them. But
Christ was only asking this: that they “Do not fear. Only believe.”
This isn’t one of the
standard Sundays set apart for baptism, but as I was reflecting on this lesson
today - this “Do not fear. Only
believe.” challenge - I couldn’t help but remember the challenges that we all
carry with us as baptized members of the Christian community.
The challenge is to live
our lives in a different way. The
challenge is to live by a standard that’s different from many of the people
around us. Even if other Christians also
populate most of the circles in which we travel, the fact remains that the
world - even the church - rarely lives up to the ideals we’ve set for
ourselves.
Take a moment and pull
out your Prayer Book again and turn with me to page 304 - the Baptismal
Covenant - and follow along with me as we remind ourselves of the covenant
we’ve made.
The questions at the end of
the covenant have been described as the outline, or the directions, for how we
plan to go about living our Christian lives.
Will you continue in the
apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the
prayers?
Will you persevere in
resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word
and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve
Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for
justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human
being?
After each question, we
answer, “I will, with God’s help.”
It’s a lot to ask of each
other. It’s even more for each of us to
promise. Perhaps, if we take it
seriously enough, it might even be enough to inspire fear. How could we ever live up to this promise
that we make to God, to each other, and to ourselves?
Not one of those vows is
either easy or natural for most of us.
It is hard work to strive for justice and peace among all people. Sometimes I’d rather not love my neighbor as
myself. Sometimes it feels good to
continue in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread,
and in the prayers; but, sometimes it feels better to just sleep in.
It’s a lot to ask. But again and again we ask it of ourselves
and of each other. We promise again to
proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. We have to keep promising again and again,
because we always fail.
The burden of each “I
will” can seem so great. And as they
compound, one on top of the other, five times over, the “I wills” can leave us
feeling overladen with responsibility.
But “I will” is not the
end of the story. Yes, we will, but
“with God’s help.” You will, and I will.
But the burden is not only our own.
We will repent and return to the Lord, but only with God’s help.
The stories of Jairus and
the woman are remarkable because they’re not stories of fear, but stories of
faith in the face of fear. They’re
remarkable not because of the healings or the miracles, but because of the
faithfulness of Christ. The suffering
people have faith in God through Christ, and so, too, does Jesus remain
faithful to them in their need.
Christ only asks one
thing of us: that we do not fear, but only believe. Amen.
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