Do We Find Miracles in Our Faith or Base Our Faith on Miracles? Text: Mark 5:22-24, 35b-43 June 30, 2003, Year B, Proper 8 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi As I sat in my office, eating lunch and catching up on work, Diane called to tell me she had been called by the father of the child where Lee, our youngest son, then aged eight, was spending the day. Lee had gotten his eye scratched. The father had tracked down an ophthalmologist at lunch and arranged to meet him at his office. As the ophthalmologist's office was only a few blocks from mine, I arrived there just after them. As I entered I saw Lee's blood-soaked shirt. I will spare you the details. His friend lived on a lake and they had been fishing. As Lee came up behind, his friend flipped his rod back to cast it out. The hook had gone through Lee's eye lid. As I neared Lee, I heard him ask, "Will I be able to see?" After trying to assist Diane to help calm Lee and futile attempts to appear helpful, I sat in an adjacent chair and bowed my head (actually I had my head between my knees) so I would not pass out and be in the way, and I prayed with each breath. In this incident, I could identify with Jairus' desperate prayer. Sickness and death have a way of shearing through the veneer of our self-importance and social standings. They touch us at our most vulnerable place, strip us of our illusions and remind us that, no matter how important we are in others' eyes, we are still human - limited and temporary here on earth. But our post-modern world does not know what to do with such miracle stories. In churches today, perhaps here, we find a range of views regarding miracles. Some expect a miracle every time we pray - for everything from healing from terminal illness to getting a parking space in front of a store when it's raining. Some think miracles stopped in biblical times. Some consider biblical miracles fiction. How do we resolve that after prayers for miraculous recoveries, for every child who makes a complete recovery, another child dies? The miracles of Jesus are not just isolated displays of power. Jesus didn't do them just because he could; he didn't call the disciples together and say, "hey, guys, look at this one" - and poof! something impossible happens. Instead, Jesus' miracles are an integrated, coherent part of his ministry - of his teaching and preaching and bringing the Kingdom of God. They are all ways of saying something important about Jesus and about the Kingdom of God. The raising of Jairus' daughter is one of the ways that Mark's Gospel proclaims that God's power is greater even than the power of death, and that Jesus has authority over both life and death. Through faith in Jesus, death is conquered. That's the general point. But what does it mean? What does that faith and authority over death look like, and how do we experience that power today? What God promises us, and where our hope is to be found, is not freedom from the pain and the loss and the grief and the death that is part of our humanity, any more than it is in freedom from the joy and the pleasure, the passion and the excitement that are also a part of that humanity. Instead of removing these, or protecting us from these, God does two things. First, God encompasses all of these human experiences: God knows all of them; God lives all of them. By doing this, God sanctifies all of our lives by God's experience of them, and God joins us in our humanity. We are not alone, and we matter. God shares our life. The raising of Jairus' daughter does not promise that if you have enough faith(whatever that means), your daughter will not die. It is not about God weighing your faith, or your goodness, against the possibility of bad events and deciding whether you, or somebody else, "gets it" or not. It is not about that at all. Faith offers not a way out of reality, but a way in; not the result we desire, but a heart for facing the result we receive. In other words, God is not that large, omnipotent grownup who does whatever it takes to make the child's world safe, nor is God a jinni we keep in a bottle, only to be brought out for magical needs, but God is that companion who sets aside everything in order to love, standing with you before the child's coffin and joins your weeping. That's one thing. The other is that God promises us resurrection, a resurrection like that of Jesus. Like Lazarus, Jairus' daughter raised from death by Jesus, died again. Who knows when she died or the cause of her second death. When she did die, once again, there would be the customary mourning. They would have hired flute players and a group of mourners. Neighbors would have heard the sounds and known that Jairus' daughter had died - again. So, this story does not mean she will never die. Instead, it means that, finally, nothing will be lost. God will make something new and renewed of our lives and of our deaths, and of the lives and the death of every one for whom he died. God promises that there is both meaning and hope in each of our lives and in each of our deaths. God promises that God's word of love will be the strongest word, and the best word, and the last word. God promises us that God will make all creation new, and that we will be a part of that. This text is not an invitation to base our faith in Christ on miracles. It is an invitation that we recognize our prayers of desperation are offered only through our humility, and when things do not turn out as we desired to not be dissuaded. Even when things take a turn for the worse, until God changes the prayer in your heart, remain faithful. Mark leaves how the healing took place ambiguous. What Mark makes clear, is that Jesus was forever intruding into fixed, settled, hopeless situations and bringing life. Hear his strong voice speaking over the laments and dirges. Hear him call to the little girl, "Get up!" For Mark, for Mark's audience, for us, this story illustrates God's unrestricted giving, God's abundant generosity. It might have been enough for Jairus and his wife if Jesus had ministered to them, had comforted them in their grief and made it possible for them to remember with gratitude the daughter whom they had lost. But that is not the story Mark leaves us. Instead, Jesus restored their daughter to life and health. Our faith ancestors believed that in performing this miracle, Jesus shows that he is giving salvation and eternal life to the dead. We need to allow our faith and healing to come after the fact. Often, only later do we know whether our prayers have been answered in the way we asked. Sometimes we must distinguish between being cured and being healed. Sometimes healing has occurred but not in the way wanted. Sometimes the healing, though not as we asked, exceeded our desires. Sometimes death still occurs and we must seek healing in other ways, and acknowledge the grace we received through the life of the person who has died and through God's comfort. In hearing this story of the healing and resurrection of Jairus' daughter, was my prayer for Lee a prayer of desperation? Yes. Does God's grace and abundance permit me to make such a humble request? Yes, always. Did my prayer influence Lee's full recovery after an extended recuperation? Perhaps; I don't really know. If Lee had lost his sight in that eye would my faith have lessened? I hope not. Will the child of every parent who raises such a prayer experience full recovery? I doubt it. Does how a parent raises the prayer or how he or she has lived one's life influence whether full recovery occurs? Absolutely not. Did God's grace help me to pass through my crisis? Yes, no doubt in my mind. Do we need to hear Jesus' words to Jairus' daughter? You bet. We need to hear them as we meet with the doctor to learn whether medical tests evidenced the dreaded "c-word," as we open the envelope from our down-sizing employer, as we answer the phone in the middle of the night. What in us is dead, enslaved, trapped, fixed, hopeless that needs to hear Jesus call "Get up!"? He calls even unto us. The ultimate fantasy of hope, born in the reality of God, that evil will be overcome and new life emerge, finds its fulfilment already here in Jesus. Today's gospel celebrates this reality and the hope of its emergence for the eyes that see and ears that hear.