Mark 5:21-43 Is life playing with me?
Prayer: God, increase our understanding of life and of you so that when we leave this place today we will be better equipped to face the challenges that face us.
In the middle of the night, as a full moon illuminated the sky, a mother werewolf watched as her son chased a man through the woods. Every time the man was about to get away the little werewolf would dart in front of him, block his path and the man would scream and run off in a different direction. The little werewolf would give him about a twenty five foot lead, and then race in front of him, block his path, the man would scream and turn and run in a different direction. This went on nonstop for about twenty minutes when finally the mother werewolf snapped at her son, “Larry,” she said, “for the thousandth time, please stop playing with your food!”
Do you ever feel that life is playing with you? Like you’re a pawn in a cruel game and all you can do is let the game play itself out? That’s what I’d like for us to think about today. When we feel trapped – what do we do?
Regarding the woman in our Gospel text: her predicament is almost insurmountable – she’s a woman, she’s unclean moving through a crowd of people – something the law prohibited. She is going to risk everything because she has to – she’s got no hope left elsewhere. Have you ever been there? Think her twelve years of bitter struggle, pouring all her resources into trying to survive, trying to be made whole. Her life is precarious, nothing she’s found has become a reliable source of support or health. She is driven to Jesus out of desperation. Her story is an example for us as we face ongoing times of scarcity, fear, or even shame.
We, as we move through life, from time to time, will find ourselves stripped of resources—maybe it will be the breakup of a relationship, maybe it will be the death of a loved one, maybe a career that is in shambles, maybe financial ruin. Maybe it’s a family that rejects us, maybe it’s broken health, maybe it’s some catastrophe that hits us out of nowhere – and we ash ourselves, “How are we going to make it?” This is bitter – and that is exactly where this woman found herself.
Some people in her position would have groused and complained, despaired that there was no hope. Instead, look what she does – she reaches out to the Lord. She touches Jesus’ clothes and is made whole (people in the ancient world often believed that the power emanating from a holy, spiritual person was transferred even to their clothes – perhaps God met them there in their beliefs, just as God does with our faith in medicine today). She reached out to the Lord and was saved. This is a fairly simple Bible story, and sometimes they contain some of the most profound lessons for our lives – and the lesson here is very straightforward, it seems to me: God changes our bitter lack into sweet wholeness.
The next time you find yourself in one of those places of great distress, instead of yielding to the temptation to become negative, putting your head down, and being filled with stress–what would happen instead if we lifted our eyes and looked for God, saying, “It’s bitter and its difficult, but I am going to reached out to you here in this place, waiting patiently in the confidence that You will turn this bitter situation into something better – into something holy and good.” By the way, this is one of the most basic motifs of Christianity, one of the most foundational lessons we must learn if we are to live as people of faith: when a Christian drinks bitter waters, she says, “Ah, sweetness is just around the corner.” When a Christian walks into thick darkness, he says, “I know that in this place I am going to find
the light of God – because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.” When a Christian encounters even death itself, she says, “I know that in this, somehow, I will find new life.” It’s what Jesus came to teach us: the basic pattern of Christian living, death and resurrection. When we find ourselves in that bitter place and we look up.
A married couple was traveling on a trip, they were traveling on the highway at about 60 mph – the wife was driving, when out of the blue the husband says, “I want a divorce. I know that we’ve been together for 25 years, but I’m tired of this – I want out.” Amazingly, she says nothing – she just accelerates a little faster. He says, “Don’t even try to talk me out of it – I’m having an affair with your best friend, she’s a better lover than you are.” Still, she says nothing, but by now she is going around 75 mph, gripping the streering wheel a little tighter. “I want the house, and the vehicle, and the boat – and all of what we have in the bank,” he says. Still, she says nothing, now going about 85 mph. Finally, he says to her, “Well, what about you – don’t you want something?” She says, “I have everything I need.” “”Oh really,” he says, “what do you have.” She smiles, “I have the air bag!”
That’s not a bad statement to remember when you find yourselves in the middle of a bitter breakup or some other great loss in life, to say to yourself: “I have everything I need.” Do you remember the old Christian hymn “It is well with my soul?” “When peace like a river attendeth my way, or when sorrows like sea billows roll – whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.” In even the most bitter experience, this can be true.
I have a friend who was facing the issue of coming out. He grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and had just moved to Indianapolis. I was introduced to him through mutual friends who knew that I had taken a similar journey, and was part of a Church community, an Episcopal Church, in Indianapolis where there was support and love. Upon meeting him, he told me that he had been away from the church for several years, but had recently moved to Indianapolis – and having no friends or family, and being honest with himself about who he was, just felt very lost and confused. He told me that he sat down on his couch only a few nights before I met him and prayed, “God – I miss you. I miss my spiritual life. I feel terrible, and lonely – and I need you to direct me to where I need to be.” When we met he and I began talking about the Episcopal Church, he was amazed – he’d never seen a place actively welcoming all people, even gay and transgendered people, Black, white, Asain, Hispanic, young, old, rich, poor. He was thrilled that it was a church that was passionate about God and Scripture, open and welcoming to diversity and independent thought – he started to cry, “Who would think I’d find a church like this, especially in Indiana!” He showed up at church the next Sunday – and I’m happy to tell you that he was confirmed just this Spring.
Sometimes the very bitter circumstances of our lives channel us so that we are in the right place at the right time to experience renewal. I suspect God would like to use some of us to help turn someone else’s bitter circumstances into something better. Are you willing to be used by God in that kind of way in somebody else’s life?
Even in something as bitter as death, people of faith can find points of sweetness. I don’t know about you but I miss my grandmother. I miss some of my dogs and kittys I’ve had – that may sound silly to you, but I bond with my animal friends. I miss them. But even in the bitterness of their absence, I am comforted knowing that they are in the presence, the radiance of God’s light – that they are whole again. And that someday I will be with them again. In something as bitter as death, we can experience sweetness – God does that, when we are open to it.
Oh this sweet sadness
This glorious madness
That brings me to my knees
This crazy, tragic, sometimes magic
Aweful, beautiful life.
That’s the way it is: every one of us is going to experience bitter sweet. So don’t get stuck in the bitter. See to it that no root of bitterness springs up inside of you. (Heb 12:15). Don’t get stuck there. The next time you find yourself in a bitter place, remember the example of this woman, life your eyes to the sky and say, “God, I am reaching out to you – because I believe that whenever I encounter such bitterness that You can make the difference.” I had fainted, the psalmist says, unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, and be of good courage, and God will strengthen your heart. Amen.
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