Heart Disease

Mark 5:21-43
June 28, 2009


It’s good to get out of town
every once in awhile
When we drove west before heading up to the Black Hills
I could feel all the stress falling off of me
like something I was carrying on my back
before it all slid off
The more wide open and barren the landscape became
the more I felt myself breathing better
Coming into South Dakota, it’s hard to explain
but just staring at those Black Hills mile after mile
every little thing that troubles us on this earth
seems so small
petty, trivial
It’s not hard to get swallowed up
in the beauty of God’s vast creation up there
in the roaming elk, buffalo, deer and donkeys
or laughing at the antics of the bears with their cubs
or the comedy of the prairie dogs
petting a 400-lb tortoise on his leathery head
made me feel connected to the age of dinosaurs somehow
with the prehistoric-looking head and leathery skin
The air was clear
and the weather was beautiful,
all of God’s creation lit up with color and life

How DOES the air get so polluted?
How does it become so filthy that you choke and can’t breathe?
Choked with death, choked with hate, murder, and meanness?
That woman
we’ve seen her
we’ve known her
The woman in the crowd
with the wound that never stops bleeding
the hurt that never stops hurting
the pain that rules her life somewhere in the unseen recesses of her body
it drains her physically, yes
but day after day, it drains her spirit, her vitality
sucks out her joy and hope
till she just wants to crawl up into a corner and weep
She’s tired of being tired
she’s tired of being alone
she’s tired of people talking about her
pointing fingers and whispering
sometimes shaking their heads in shame
“She’s unclean,” they say
“poor woman,” they say
but they don’t come near her, they don’t TOUCH her
If they touch her, if they get too close,
they might be unclean too
they might catch what she’s got
besides, it might be too painful
Maybe they’re afraid that if they care
if they let themselves care about her
they will get sucked into a bottomless pit
and never get out
Maybe they’ll get blood on their clothes and skin
that they’ll never be able to wash completely off
because really, when we get involved
other people’s pain often becomes our own
UNCLEAN, they always said
backing away
careful not to bump into her
There was fear in their eyes
they didn’t know what she had
and that made it worse
Fear makes people do crazy things
mean things
irrational things
but word got out
that there was a person out there
who was different
A person who wasn’t afraid of anything
or if he was, he didn’t let it stop him
A person who CARED
who was willing to care so deeply it hurt him sometimes
A person who was willing to touch people
who couldn’t remember the gentleness of a hug
A person, they said, who could HEAL

She covered herself so no one would know
she covered herself so they wouldn’t steal her gift
she covered herself because she couldn’t be rejected one more time
she couldn’t risk that,
it would send her over the edge,
to a dark place where she might never recover

“Wait!” Jesus said, stopping in his footsteps
He turned around,
“Who touched me?”
People laughed, everybody touched him
everyone wanted a piece of him
everyone wanted to inhale the air around him
because it was sweet and beautiful
Who touched him? yeah, right …
He ignored the people, crowded all around him,
He ignored his disciples who were urging him to keep moving
He looked around until he saw her
the woman, covered completely in black,
huddled on the ground, trying to grow ever more invisible
She looked up at him, her eyes full of guilt and fear
her hands trembling, waiting for her punishment
“It was I,” she whispered
and wept
Jesus leaned down and lifted her chin
and then took her hands, lifting her to her feet
he threw back the hood that hid her face
and cradled her face in his hands
He ran his fingers through her hair,
pushing it out of her face, wiping the tears beneath her eyes
There was a collective gasp in the crowd
at his intimate behavior
They could just it,
the headlines would be on Yahoo in minutes

“Religious leader caresses unclean woman in public,
church leaders say he is a lecherous fraud…”

“Daughter,” he said
and just the word, the name, washed over her with
overwhelming gentleness,
“Daughter,” he said, “your faith has made you well;
go in peace, be healed…”
and he gave her a hug
She collapsed into sobs and sighs too deep for words
and she felt the renewed strength fill her body
all through a gentle touch
all through the invisible being made visible
all through truly finding herself loved

The little girl, they said,
had already died
most of the crowd didn’t know what the big deal was
daughters died all the time
Shoot, many times, they were left to die as babies
because daughters were no good
to a father
they were essentially a burden
A man wanted sons
and lamented when he had daughters
who were so unlike sons
Why, they often wondered, did God even bother?
except, of course, to make babies
to produce more sons
The men in the crowd didn’t understand
what the fuss was all about
they didn’t understand Jairus
why he was so broken up over a daughter
He wouldn’t be burdened with needing to come up with a dowry
in the future
it was one less mouth to feed
that didn’t contribute much
But Jairus was different
They all knew that
He was inconsolable
when he found out his daughter had died
The other men were embarrassed
at his public breakdown
they cleared their throats,
made circles in the dirt with their toes
They rolled their eyes at the weeping and loud wailing
of the women surrounding the house
Women were just emotional
prone to embarrassing displays of emotion
Then Jesus walked through,
pushing his way through the mourners
the women, clutching each other
“Why do you make such a commotion and weep?” he said
“The child is not dead but sleeping!”
And they laughed
Those who had turned away, toeing the dirt
looked up and burst into laughter
that sounded above the wailing
They laughed!
In the midst of all that grief and sorrow,
they laughed
Who is this guy?
Where did HE come from?

But Jesus ignored them
and went inside
He took the child’s parents inside with him
and knelt down at the side of the child’s bed
“Hey,” he said, gently nudging the little girl
with his hands,
“Hey, you,..” he smiled
He took her hand, laying by her side
and said in a whisper, “talitha cum… talitha cum!”
Get up, little girl, get up!
She groaned and stretched
while at the same time her mother let out a startled yelp
The little girl
shook her head as if shaking off a night full of dreams
and let Jesus pull her up and out of bed
she reached out and hugged him
as if to simply say, “good morning..”
Her mother wept loudly, embracing her daughter tightly
covering her face with kisses and tears
Her father reached out and gently cradled her face in his hand
“Thanks be to God,” he whispered so lowly only Jesus could hear
“Thank you,” he whispered to Jesus, tears welling up in his eyes…
“Thank you.”

Meanwhile, outside there were people with notebooks
writing things down
“Religious leader touches corpse,
renders himself unclean.”
“Religious leader touching bleeding woman,
disregards church’s traditions…”
“Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, who is he?
Magician? Sorcerer? Demon? Devil? You decide…”

The rumors were rampant
Jesus raised a little girl from the dead
others said she wasn’t dead
Or Jesus touched that woman who was bleeding
others said, no, that wasn’t her,
she just looked like her
And he just kept going
He kept on walking, traveling,
looking for more people to teach, to heal,
to listen to him
But most people didn’t want to listen, he found
most people thought they already knew him
already knew everything they needed to know
and so they disregarded him
But some listened,
Thank God
Some heard what he said, what he taught
some people paid attention to his behavior
not to look for faults or mistakes
but to look for clues of the coming Kingdom
Because they knew that every miracle
no matter how small,
every miracle is a preview of the Kingdom of God
Everywhere he went, he said, “Do not fear….”
because Jesus knew that fear makes people crazy
fear makes people hurt people
fear makes people kill people
fear makes people tear each other apart
“Do not fear,” he said
“trust in God.”
And he healed people, not just to make them feel better
but he healed people to show that God is the God of life
God is the God of restoration and balance
and goodness, wholeness and health
body, mind and spirit-health
He healed people to give them a chance to truly
experience the joys of life
to take away any barriers to real life, lasting life
eternal life
He healed people of heart disease
He found so many people so sickened by heart disease
hearts full of hate, rage, bitterness
hearts full of darkness and cruelty
hearts that full of pain that caused people to inflict more pain
He found people beaten down by life
beaten down by other people
declared unclean, immoral, unfit, undeserving of life and breath
He touched them
and he saw them for who they really were, inside
underneath all the burdensome labels and abuse
that others had laid on their backs
He healed some with hearts poisoned by evil
by hate
but those hearts were much harder to heal
and sometimes even Jesus just had to walk away
But he shared the Holy Spirit
and said to all of us, “Do not be afraid…”
the forces of life and resurrection are much stronger
and relentless than the powers of evil
So he gave all of us the ability to heal heart disease
to touch another human being
who otherwise would never be touched
to dry the tears of another, to embrace another
to see the beauty in someone who is convinced they are ugly
He gave us the power to purify the air
to rid it of pollution that chokes people to death
to fill the air with gentleness and love
He gave us all the power to heal
to be transformed daily and to have a transforming impact
on each other
He knows that we live in a world where there are too many people
spreading heart disease
people who attempt to kill our spirits
to choke us with hate and cynicism
“Do not fear,” he says
He knows many of us have hurts inside of us
that just won’t stop bleeding
that daily hemorrhage
and take away our vitality
He wants to touch those wounds
and heal them, to stop the bleeding
and to infuse us with new life here and now
Fred Buechner writes:
“Jesus gives life to those who are dead
and to those who are only partly alive
who much of the time live our lives closed to the wild beauty
and the miracle of things
including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live
and even the miracle of ourselves….
and so Jesus says to us,
you who believe, you who sometimes believe
and sometimes don’t believe much of anything
and you who would give up almost anything
to believe if you could….
Get up! Get up!
All of you!.... Get up!”