The Thinnest Thread

Today is a big day.  And before even getting started on the sermon for today, I wanted to first say thank you to so many of you who have been a part of getting to this Sunday.  I’m thankful to Greg and all of the PNC for caring for me and my family and helping us understand who you all were and that this was the place for us to call home.  I’m also thankful to all of the folks who helped plan and participate in yesterday’s service.  Perhaps more than anything, I’m grateful that this moment is no longer future tense, but the present.  And I’m deeply excited for all of us to continue to move forward faithfully as a congregation to serve one another, this community, and all ends of the earth.

One of the things I have been so thankful for in beginning here is that I had the last month just to be a member of this congregation. I could focus primarily on learning some of our early stories.  I got to run around and help 50 youth remember that Jesus loves them through Vacation Bible School.  And, by extension, I got to be a part of the work camp trip as I listened to Lindsey’s stories about all the good work done along the way a couple weeks ago.

But what was particularly striking to me were the youth that spoke at our youth Sunday last week.  Hearing their stories about how they experienced the week were deeply moving and struck me deeply in my heart.

In particular, I was moved by one of our youth, who was brought to tears by the experience.  It had been meaningful, she said, because she was struggling to find hope.  It was hard to find hope.  As she continued to speak about her experience, I found that the first sentence still sat with me, resonating in me.  I know that feeling.  You probably do, too.  It sits in our stomachs.  We want to believe that there is resolve, that the brokenness of this world is not pervasive, but there it sits.  We seek but we cannot find.  It’s hard to find hope.

It shouldn’t surprise us that our youth give us the gift of a distilled truth that I believe is part of each of our lives, perhaps now more than ever - our reservoirs of hope are perilously empty.  I spent a little bit of time in preparing for today looking at different news websites to see what were the most viewed news stories - in other words, what were people most interested in knowing about?  It wasn’t heartwarming.  Stories of people dying in newsrooms (NY Times, CNN), of people feeling like their livelihoods are attacked because of religious beliefs (Fox News), and more political infighting (NPR).  In fact, it took until about the fourth or fifth website I had looked at - Al Jazeera - before I found a hopeful statement about peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea.  So, maybe we don’t look at the news then.  We look to our friends on social media… and that may be worse, because when we have friends who need to argue which children are more devastated by being torn from their families, as if we have found a political formula to quantify the validity of pained cries of toddlers, well, we may honestly be a bit forlorn. And so, we keep hoping for hope, seeking but struggling to find a source, and all the while that feeling still sits at the pit of our stomachs.

It can be even more disconcerting that even in what are high moments, the specter of hopeless still is nearby.  This feeling cannot be waved off as merely as clinical depression as we may wont to do.  In our Old Testament reading, we are set right at the beginning of 2 Samuel, as Saul - the failed king, rejected by God - has died and David has begun to ascend to the throne.  This should be a time of celebration nationally - the true king is here!  But this also, we could surmise, is probably a pretty good moment for David too - Saul tried to kill David and was saved by Saul’s son Jonathan.  We could understand if David wanted to weep for his close friend while not worrying himself over the fate of the previous king.  Yet, as we read, the lamentations were for both Saul and Jonathan.  The celebration of victory and the hope for the future is still tempered by the reality around David.  This is, admittedly, something that has been on my mind over the last few days leading towards this Sunday.  We celebrate today, but I’m mindful that there are some of you that will not be with us always.  Some of you may pass away, while others of you may find me unpalatable as a pastor and move to another church.  There will be some arguments.  We will not always get along.  And I mourn that, even now.  And of course, that doesn’t mean that I am not so deeply excited to celebrate all of the beautiful and deeply joyful things that will come our way, but the realities of people living in community is that the makeup of the community changes, and we will experience it all - good, bad, or indifferent.  Our hope feels constricted.

But, it is perhaps here, in the reality of opaque hope that we witness something else.  In our gospel reading today, we encounter two people.  The first we meet is Jairus - we can imagine that he’s an elder here at the church.  We can imagine he’s had a tough time attending church lately - his daughter has taken ill. They had hoped she’d get better - she’s so young after all - but she hasn’t.  When we meet him, Jairus no longer is worried about how he looks to others: he falls to the ground and begs for help.  Whatever hope he carries within him is prostate at the feet of the son of a carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. 

Mark has us leave for a moment, and our gaze is meant to move another figure - a woman within the crowd.  Mark gives us extended detail about her.  If she was a member of our community today, her troubles would have begun in 2006.  One morning she awoke, was getting ready for her day, and suddenly started bleeding. Not just something small, but profusely - the Greek literally means a ‘fountain of blood’.  She was scared.  She likely did not know what would happen in the next few minutes, hours, and days.  In her panic, she went to the emergency room.  They tried to help her, but the bleeding would not stop.  Once the doctors realized she was not in an immediate danger, she starts to go see specialists.  The word we translate as “endured” softens the intent here by Mark - the woman who is bleeding suffers as she goes from one doctor to another, hoping for healing.  She has insurance, sure, but it only covers so much - every year that goes by, more of her life savings dwindles.  When she meets us here, today, in Mark, she’s no better and from the intervening years and is actually worse.  Twelve years of poking, prodding, spending with no answers and no solutions - her hope is likely constricted too.  But she decides that perhaps, even if she merely just touches the clothing of Jesus, she will be made well.  Not talk to him.  Not even to be touched BY him, but simply to touch his clothing - her hope had been reduced to one final reach.

We can even witness here how the world tries to push back upon the hope.  When Jesus recognizes that the woman had touched his clothes and wants to speak to her, the disciples find him ridiculous.  Jairus’ colleagues - other session members, if you will - say to him in a completely rational way “Jairus, your daughter is dead… why would you even think it’s worth talking to Jesus?”  Even the woman who had nothing left but hoping for healing with a touch of clothing was afraid when she lived into her hope and was healed.  What stories must she have heard to be fearful of telling the truth about the one thing she hoped would change her life? What must her friends have told her? I’m convinced that if, again, this story was in 2018, these words would be all over Facebook and Twitter - the unavoidable hot takes of someone else’s audacious belief that perhaps even the slimmest hopes can be transformed.  But even the most outrageous hope - raising the dead to life - no matter how lightly held or thinly seen was responded to by Jesus Christ. The woman was made well. With two simple words - talitha cum - Jairus’ daughter is brought back to life.  Simple actions that lead to life-altering restoration.  And it was Jesus, who also carried the greatest hope for those who were bringing so little.  

So how can we live today, in the midst of our own fight to find hope?  How are we able to reach out to touch the clothing of Jesus and not fear what may happen if we hope beyond our doubts?  I believe we find it here.  When we celebrate at table like we did yesterday and today, we are reminded of who Christ is - we celebrate life over death - perhaps the most audacious claim of all.  When we remember our baptisms, and pour the waters again, we are also reminded that we do not face this world alone, but our bound into a holy family from all time with all people - past, present, future - who have claimed Jesus Christ as their savior.  When we care for the marginalized - the poor, the outcast, the inconvenient - we share the same hope that we grasp.  And as we walk together in faithfulness, our thin threads of hope weave into the clothing of Christ, to heal and restore.  What better way for us to be the church then the woven threads of hope that the forlorn of the world, desperate and bleeding, sick and dying, fearful and trembling, can touch and hear that they may be made well.  Thanks be to God, who holds us together, even in our thin hope, and brings us life.  Amen.