Miracles (6th Sunday after Pentecost, 1 July 2018)

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     And he strictly charged them that no one should know this.
     Several times when Jesus heals a sick person, he tells the disciples to tell no one about it. Why does he do this? Because, as he makes clear more than once, he doesn’t like the way people get all excited about signs and wonders. That excitement diverts attention from his message about the Kingdom. Focussing on signs and wonders is likely to make you forget his command to love one another. He’s come to fulfill the law. He has not come to entertain us.
     When we think about the miracles recorded in the Gospels, we should keep all that in mind. It’s not the miracles themselves that matter. It’s what they signify. The question is not “How could this happen?” It’s “Why is this story included?”
     John ends his Gospel with There were also many other things which Jesus did; if every one of them were written, the world could not contain all the books that would be written. The Gospel writers selected only a few things, those things that would be enough to convey the story and meaning of that ministry.
     When I read the stories of Jesus’s miracles, I notice two common threads. One is that most of the miracles are healings. Even the feeding the 5,000 can be thought of as a healing miracle, as anyone who remembers feeling very, very hungry will understand.
     The other thread is that every one is Jesus’s response to a request for help. The very first one, the changing of water into wine at the wedding, set the pattern. He never performs a miracle merely to show that he can do it. In fact, quite a few times, he seems reluctant to perform the miracle. He doesn’t like the publicity.

     So we have three topics for today: Jesus's refusal to be an entertainer.  Jesus the healer. And Jesus the one who responds to pleas for help. I’ll start with asking for help.
     We often ask for help, but sometimes we don’t recognise it. Here’s one of my favourite stories about that:

     There was a bad flood. The water was rising and coming closer to Joe’s house. The police came by and advised him to leave. “Oh, I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Well, the water rose and came up to Joe’s house. A neighbour came by in his SUV and said, “Get in, the water’s still low enough that we can drive out.” “That’s OK”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     The water rose further, and Joe had to go up to the second floor. An emergency crew in a boat came by, and urged him to leave. Joe refused, “The Lord will provide”, he said.
The water kept rising, and Joe climbed up onto the roof. A helicopter came, and offered to take Joe to safety. “I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Finally, the water reached Joe’s chin as he held onto the chimney. “O Lord,” he prayed, “Save me.” And a voice from on high spoke: “I sent you the police, a neighbour with an SUV, a rescue crew with a boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want me to do?” 

      Joe wanted a bona fide miracle, I guess. He had this idea that God helps by doing something spectacular and wonderful. Maybe he expected God to send an angel to pick him up and carry him to safety.
     Well, he got his angel, but he didn’t have large white feathery wings. He didn’t float silently through the air and pick him up. He was flying a machine with black rotors which made a lot of noise. He lowered a ladder for Joe to climb up on. With his helmet and face mask and all, he looked like some insectoid robot. Not like an angel at all.
     So Joe turned down the offer of rescue. It reminds me of Naaman the leper, who didn’t want to follow Elisha’s simple instructions to wash in the Jordan. He expected Elisha to come out and say magic words over him and wave his hands and such. A bona fide miracle, you see. Not something as ordinary as a wash in a river.
     Question is, how often have we turned down offers of help because they didn’t look like the help we expected? How often have we not seen the miracle that God is performing right before our eyes because we expected something out of this world?
     But this world is itself a miracle. That we live in it is a miracle. That we can do God’s work in it is a miracle.

     Mark’s story is a little different, or so it seems. The woman knew what she wanted. Jairus knew what he wanted. Both, in different ways, asked for Jesus’s help, and both got it. But not exactly the way they expected.
     I don’t think the woman expected Jesus to notice that she had touched him. She was very afraid when he turned towards her and said, Who touched me? Perhaps he was going to take away the cure! When she stammered out her explanation, Jesus said Go on your way, your faith has cured you.
     Notice: He didn’t say I have cured you. He said Your faith has cured you.
Then he continued on his way to Jairus’s house. Jairus’s servants came out and said, The girl is dead. There’s no point troubling the Teacher anymore. But Jesus ignored them. Don’t be afraid, have faith, he said. She is not dead; she is asleep. Then he woke her. Again, there is the emphasis on faith. We’ll come back to that.
    The woman got what she wanted, but not the way she expected. Jairus got what he wanted, but not the way he expected. First lesson: When we ask God for help, there may be a surprise. Maybe even a miracle.

     What’s a miracle, anyhow? The word comes from Latin miraculum, “something to be wondered at.” It belongs with the words “mirror” and “admire.” A mirror enables you to admire yourself, to wonder at your good looks. Or wonder where the handsome young person went since the last time you looked. A miracle is something so unusual that we wonder at it.
     However, the word miracle is not used in the Bible. The usual English translation of the Bible’s word is “sign” or “work”. These signs and works are evidence of Divine attention. And when God pays attention, strange things are likely to happen.
     That’s one reason why miracles fascinate us so much. Think about an unexpected recovery from a very serious illness. It’s unexpected because it rarely happens. So of course we wonder at it. We may wonder at it so much that we hardly take time to be grateful. The recovery becomes news and gossip because it’s unusual, not because it makes someone happy. After all, very ordinary events may make someone happy, too.
     We love amazing and unusual events The internet is infested with videos and stories about amazing things. They’re called clickbait. If you’re on Facebook, you know what I mean. Some people make a good living creating clickbait.
     Some of these events are amazingly good, of course, but that’s not why they go viral. They go viral because they are rare. They happen somewhere else, to other people. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be there in person, to actually see it happen! Instead, all we have is a shaky video taken with a cellphone.
     Jesus understood human nature inside and out. He knew perfectly well that his healings and other works would attract attention. He also knew that the attention to his unusual works could and too often would distract people from what really mattered.

     What mattered was the significance of what he’d done. What mattered was that he’d healed someone. What mattered was that he showed that the Kingdom was at hand, that it was right there, that the work of the Kingdom was to heal. Jesus did not want to be an entertainer. If Jesus were among us today, I’m pretty sure he’d tell us our cell phones are a distraction.

     The significance of today’s stories is that they are about healing and trust. The woman trusted that he would heal her. Jairus trusted Jesus to heal his daughter.
     Your faith has cured you, Jesus told the woman. Do not be afraid; have faith, he told Jairus.
     Healing and trust. They go together. They go together so much that we have the placebo effect. In every trial of a new drug, half the patients get the real thing, and half get a dummy. About one third of the people who get the dummy get better. This is such a regular effect that the real thing has to do much better than that.
     What causes the placebo effect? Trust. The patient believes they are getting the real drug, and that somehow makes the body better able to heal itself.
     We also have the opposite effect. How we feel about our illness may affect how fast and how well we heal. If we don’t trust the medications, if we don’t trust the surgeon, if we don’t trust the caregivers, we won’t recover as well as when we do trust them.
     Healing and trust. They go together. Trust is in the mind. Healing is of the body. Mind and body are one.

     Jesus came to heal us. He came to heal us from the sickness that we ourselves have created because we have not cultivated wisdom as much as we have cultivated cleverness. We call that sickness sin, and define it as the refusal to do God’s will.
     We are a very clever species. We can figure out all kinds of things. That’s what has made us the most successful organism on Earth.
     We invented social systems that enabled us to co-operate more than any other species. We invented technologies that enabled us to survive in strange and hostile habitats. With those social systems and technologies we have subdued the Earth to our purposes. The result is indifference to the Earth, and the harm that we do to it.
     We invented money, which enabled an economic system that produces more than we can use. The result is that greed governs our choices.
     We invented politics, which enabled us to work together on an ever larger scale, and create secure spaces for ourselves. The result is war, driven by the fear of those who are different from us.
     What we have not done is to acquire wisdom to match our cleverness.
     We haven’t been able to accept that it’s not enough to be clever. We also need to be wise. Two thousand years ago Jesus showed us the wisdom that we need: Love God and love each other, he said.
     Trust me, said Jesus. I bring you the Good News of the Kingdom, of more abundant life, of purpose and meaning. Ask, and it will be given to you. Knock, and the door will be opened.
     What does it mean to love God and do his will? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand the consequence of our cleverness, and be wise enough to make those choices that will preserve God’s creation.
     What does it mean to love each other? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand how what we do affects each other’s welfare, health, and happiness, and be wise enough to make those choices that do good and prevent evil.
     What prevents us from acting wisely?
     Fear.
     The fear that we won’t benefit, that we will be in peril, that things won’t go well, that they will not go as we expect or wish them to go.
     Have you noticed how often a messenger from God says Do not be afraid?
     Don’t be afraid, Jesus said to Jairus. Have faith. The woman was afraid, and Jesus calmed her fear.
     Like the woman and Jairus, we must trust that God will work things for our good.

     It’s risky to trust. To trust someone or something means that we don’t know for sure. There’s fear hidden inside trust, the fear that our trust will be betrayed. Safer to not trust anyone or anything, right?
     Well, maybe so. But without trust, the woman would not have been cured. She risked not being cured at all, but that was a risk worth taking. Without trust, Jairus’s daughter would not have been cured. Jairus risked losing his daughter if Jesus couldn’t heal her. That was a risk worth taking.
 
     Can we trust in God’s promises? Yes, but we take a risk. We don’t know how God will work things for our good, and ignorance is a powerful motive for fear. How can we trust God when we haven’t a clue about what will happen next? How can we be confident we’ll get help when God expects us to recognise the help he offers, no matter how different it is from what we expect?
     How can we trust God when he says Love each other? Because he’s asking us to give up the security of our material wealth, of our comfort and convenience. He’s asking us to risk everything on the promise of being healed. He’s asking us to learn the wisdom of doing what we know is right.

Let us pray.

Lord God, by your grace enable us to trust in your promises, that we may act wisely, and by doing your works of love may glorify your name. We ask this the name of one who trusted you even to his death on the cross, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.