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Posted on Wed Jul 01 2009
Diane Eubanks Hill
Live Welcoming to All
Mark 5:21-43
Diane Eubanks Hill
(The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language)
She boarded the subway, preoccupied with the weather and with her own personal challenges. After a few miles, she noticed that the woman directly across from her was weeping. Big, silent tears flowed down her cheeks. Quickly, the first woman averted her glance, careful not to allow any extended eye contact with the woman who was weeping.
Safe at home at last, she had trouble getting the weeping woman off her mind. Of course, there was nothing she could have done, she argued to herself. Her own plate was full, and their encounter was brief. She went to bed, thinking that she had put an end to the argument going on in her soul.
During the night, in a dream, she was sitting in a small boat, facing the woman on the train. The boat was filling with the woman’s tears, and they were about to sink. Bailing was unsuccessful, and the tears kept flowing, until she looked up and stared into the eyes of the woman who was weeping. The tears stopped, only to start flowing again when eye contact was averted. (Sue Monk Kidd in Availability, Weavings, Sept/Oct ’97, p. 7)
The sermon title comes from the Christian mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg: Live Welcoming to All. The woman on the train resisted welcoming this weeping stranger. And what a never-ending challenge it is for many of us to follow this mandate! Lots of hurdles lie in the way: How can we live welcoming to all and take care of ourselves? What if someone needs me and I don’t have anything left to give? How can I make room for anyone else in the midst of my already crowded life? How do I manage when 5 or 6 people need my attention at the same time? What would it mean for me to enter more fully into the healing of lives around me?
Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t aim to provide answers today. Mostly I hope to challenge us all to be more aware of the opportunities that lie in our paths each day to offer God’s love and healing. I also hope we’ll dare to take a look at a blind spot or two that might hinder our fulfilling this calling to be faithful vehicles of God’s healing grace.
In our Gospel lesson today Jesus had left the crowd and crossed “to the other side.” Immediately, a crowd gathered around him. He was right there in the middle of the people when a synagogue leader, a very prominent person in his community, dared to humble himself and beg for Jesus to touch his daughter and make her well.
The biblical account says that Jesus turned to go with Jairus, but the crowd kept pushing in, pressing together on him. We may not have had this same physical experience, but we’ve all had the experience of having more demands flying at us than we feel we can handle. Mothers of young children, classroom teachers, students taking heavy class loads, adults struggling to handle the responsibilities of several jobs as the work force around you is trimmed, adult children caring for aging parents, while parenting your own children….We’ve all been there.
And so it was with Jesus. As he struggled to respond to one need, it happened again: This woman, the one known throughout the community to be unclean, dared to violate the strict rules of the time and to reach out to touch this man, this one whom she knew to have healing powers. And immediately he knew.
The disciples had expressed consternation before when Jesus talked with a woman publicly. They were perturbed that he kept on ignoring the rules and mores by doing outlandish things like healing the boy with a demon, or giving new life to the leper, or healing the sinful woman, even on the Sabbath. We can only imagine their frustration as Jesus kept a prominent official of the synagogue waiting as he turned his attention to this unclean woman. Clearly, Jesus had nothing to gain in giving his attention to this woman. And he certainly already had a number of concerns and challenges on his plate. On the other hand, a quick trip to the home of Jairus would enhance his resume. Yet, not only did he heal this woman, but he also paused to engage her in conversation. He touched her soul as well as her body, welcoming her fully in all of her need.
In the NRSV translation of this account, Jesus offers the woman a traditional Hebrew blessing: “Go in peace.” In this case, peace means wholeness, soundness, rather than only an absence of strife. Other biblical scholars have translated this blessing even more graphically: “Go with sweet insides,” or “Go and sit down in your heart. (Henry Turlington in “Mark” from The Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, p. 311).
Many of you in this room have the blessing of sweet insides and have found numerous ways to welcome all, to spread far and wide this gift of sweet peace. In efforts known to you alone, you find ways to offer God’s welcome to those around you. You touch the broken places in our community and world with God’s healing. Some of these efforts are accomplished within and through the ministries of this church. At other times you dare to become even more vulnerable as you reach out on your own to share God’s grace and healing—with the homeless, or lonely seniors, or hurting, frightened children. Thanks be to God for your courage and generosity!!
Others of us may, out of necessity, be so focused on our own needs, or on the needs of those closest to us, that we have forgotten that God’s love and healing grace can be made available through us to an even larger circle.
I also expect that many of you struggle with priorities, as do I. Much of my work time is consumed by what I call “administrivia.” These are details that must be tended, like calendars and schedules and publications, but they get in the way of the human contact, the clearer opportunities of welcoming all, of touching the souls of folks who are hurting. Dare I intentionally let go of some of this administrivia in order to do a better job of welcoming all?
Still others of you may have drifted into isolation from those around you as you have become more and more dependent on Blackberries and phones and iPods. I feel very sad when I see parents talking on the phone as they pick up their children from school, or as they walk with them through the mall or the grocery store. To live welcoming to our children, or to those around us, we need to be willing to disconnect from some of our electronic addictions and pay attention.
Some of you may have decided that you have nothing to offer. Feelings of inadequacy hinder you from allowing God’s love to flow through you. Why should you welcome all if you have nothing to give? Or you may decide that you have no right to enter another person’s life, without a clear invitation.
His name is Solo and he is from
Conclusion
I believe that God makes it possible for us to cross paths and share life with people with profound human needs. Sometimes we imagine, and maybe even assume, that we travel in separate boats. Not so. We are all in the same boat. My well-being is at risk when you or others suffer. I must be available to respond to that suffering, just as I need you to be available to respond to mine. We will sink together or float together.
And the best news of all is that the same healing that Jesus offered to the woman in the crowd is offered to each of us. Jesus welcomes us all. And the love and grace of God comes as a rich and healing gift in the midst of our struggles.
Live welcoming to all. Slow down. Turn off the TV, the phone, the iPod. Dare to touch Jesus and to look into the face of the one who is suffering today and allow God’s healing to flow through you.
So may it be. Amen.
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