The Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies
St. Martin’s Church
June 28, 2009
Proper 8 B
I don’t usually look for sermon inspiration in airports, but I found it unexpectedly last week as Andy and I changed planes in Dublin. The Dublin airport has panels about Irish history and culture posted in the various departure gates, and as we stood in line waiting to board, I read a quote from Mary Robinson. She was president of Ireland in the 1990s, and in this quote is reflecting on the terrible impact of the 19th century potato famine. She said: “The famine is a central part of our past…it is a human drama upon which we, as Irish people, place an enormous value, and by which we have been radically instructed.”
It was those last two words, “radically instructed” that particularly caught my attention and I started to chew on them as the plane took off, carrying us back home to Boston. We, especially those of us who lived through the 1960s, most frequently use the word “radical” to refer to extreme political and social opinions. We talk about the “radical right” or the “radical left” as if “radical” means out on the fringes, on the very edges of human experience and interaction.
But of course, “radical” derives from the Latin “radix”, which means “root”, so what President Robinson was saying is that the famine forms and informs the Irish people at the very root and foundation of who they are. To be “radically instructed” in anything is to be affected at the core of our being, at the heart – at the center – of how we understand ourselves. It doesn’t have anything at all to do with the fringes.
What has radically instructed you? What has most powerfully made you who you are, formed your values, given your life meaning and purpose?
That question is something every person ought to ponder occasionally, because there are an awful lot of things in our cultural and social environment that compete for the honor of radically instructing us. An alien observer of this past week might conclude that we have been most radically instructed by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album and Farrah Fawcett’s red bathing suit poster.
It occurs to me, that if we don’t once and awhile give some thought and reflection to what radically instructs us, then we run the risk of being radically instructed by any and every cultural trend that blows our way. Or we risk being radically instructed by our own weaknesses – our fears and our anxieties, our shame or guilt, our need for approval, or competition, or power. We are all radically instructed by something, and we might as well be clear about what it is.
We have a particularly long Gospel lesson today – presented to us in the fullness of Mark’s skill as a writer and dramatist. It’s worth taking out your bulletin insert and having a look at it while I talk about it, because Mark is so careful and intentional about how he puts this together.
The lesson is a miracle within a miracle – the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage sandwiched in between the raising of Jairus’ daughter. One story frames the other, which means we have to pay attention to how they are related to each other – Mark doesn’t want us to read one without the other. The two stories may not seem, at first glance, to be connected with each other, but take a closer look:
J
esus heals two women; Jairus’ daughter is twelve years old, which means she is old enough for marriage and child bearing; the second woman is suffering some kind of gynecological problem; it’s not her finger that’s bleeding. Jesus touches both women, which breaks a common cultural taboo in both ancient and modern Middle Eastern culture, which says a man may not touch a woman unrelated to him. But Jesus goes farther than that.
Jewish law declared both the younger and the older woman to be unclean; Jairus’ daughter because she is dead, the older woman because she has essentially been menstruating for twelve years. By death and by disease, both women have been cut off from personal relationships and from life in the community. Part of the radical instruction in Jewish faith at that time was to avoid any contaminating thing that might transfer its uncleanness onto you – that’s behind the dietary laws and the laws about leprosy and the many verses of Leviticus and Numbers that talk about what is icky and what is not.
So look at what Jesus does. First of all he dares to touch these two unclean women, defying the cultural norms that have radically instructed everyone around him. And then, instead of being contaminated by their uncleanness, something extraordinary happens – healing power flows out of him raising Jairus’ daughter back to life and healing the bleeding woman of her disease. And by healing the two women, Jesus also restores them to personal relationships and to community – where before they were cut off and excluded, now they are embraced.
It’s awfully tempting for our modern ears to dismiss the miracle stories as special nice things that Jesus does for people, as if he were sort of a Boy Scout with super powers. But that’s not what Mark is telling us at all.
Mark is saying: This is what the Kingdom of God looks like. This is what the Gospel means. This is what Jesus has come to offer the whole world. Not a series of discrete good deeds, but a completely new life – a radical instruction in the goodness, the authority and the blessing of God – a life that delivers those who believe from the power of death. These two stories certainly bear witness to Jesus’ identity and authority, but much more than that, they bear witness to the possibility of new life, to the possibility that human boundaries, limitations, fear and despair are all touched by Christ, taken into that divinely compassionate self, and transformed into something new.
But here’s the danger. When we hear these two stories of radical instruction that wipe out boundaries and shatter cultic taboos, our own social and cultural environment can empty these stories of their power. We know all about diversity and inclusion – we know that all people are created equal – we are convinced that however small minded and limited the people around Jesus appear to be, we are vastly more tolerant and forbearing. We’re all about breaking down barriers ourselves – we don’t need Jesus to teach us about that. There’s nothing to radically instruct us here.
I am learning a hard lesson this summer. As we face each bitter, difficult day of Gerry’s illness, I am learning that the Gospel really does still have power to radically instruct me. I am having to learn to let go, to be willing to be as empty of hope as Jairus’ daughter, and yet as willing as the bleeding women to catch on even to the hem of Christ’s garment – to be open to blessing and healing wherever they might be found. The power of the fear of death is sorely testing us right now, and so this Gospel today radically instructs me. Jesus takes what is most sad, most difficult, most terrifying in our lives into his own heart, into his own self and transforms it into the ultimate hope and healing of the Kingdom. Believe me, it so no pious platitude when I say that, even here in the valley of the shadow of death, we have seen that grace abounds.
Being radically instructed in anything means that it cuts to the very root and heart of our being. It’s pretty hard to radically instruct anyone else in anything without being willing to acknowledge how you have been instructed yourself. Old fashioned evangelists sometimes say “Christianity is caught, not taught.” And there is truth in that. All the Sunday School classes, Adult forums, and bible studies in the world are just so much data and information unless through them all runs the Gospel thread that proclaims we are baptized into Christ’s death, in order to share in his resurrection, and death no longer has dominion over us. And to proclaim that, sooner or later, we are going to have be willing to tell each other how desperately we want to experience that, as well as how we have already known it in our own lives.
It’s not very Episcopalian is it?
But ultimately – it’s all I have. I can’t preach this gospel as an opportunity for us to pat ourselves on the back about how inclusive and welcoming a parish we are. Or as some kind of pallid, generic reflection on what the miracles meant in their original context.
I want to reach out and snatch at the hem of Jesus’ garment – not because I expect magic – but because I long for the transforming and mighty Gospel power that tramples down death and the fear of death under our feet.
What has radically instructed you?
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