Sermon for June 27, 2021 - The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B, The Rev. Elise A. Feyerherm

The gospel for today, you may have noticed, forms a kind of sandwich – the encounter with Jairus and his daughter forms an outer layer around Jesus’ encounter with the woman who has a hemorrhage. This is no accident – the two episodes are meant to be heard together, shedding light on each other, intertwining to convey a complex and compelling message about Jesus. 

Structure is important in the gospels, and indeed, in much of ancient writing, especially writing that was meant to be delivered orally. It was important to those telling and hearing the gospel all those centuries ago; and it is important to us today, as we seek to receive the good news of Jesus Christ in our own lives. Once you realize that these stories are meant to work together, you begin to notice all sorts of parallels, echoes that help us know where to look, where to wonder, where to pray. 

For instance, in both episodes, the crowd is pressing in – when Jesus lands on the shore, and when the woman with the hemorrhage touches his garment. 

Both the little girl and the grown woman are described as “daughter” – a literal fact in one case and metaphorical in the other; but an expression of compassion and connection in both. Daughter – the girl and the woman are loved, cherished, children of God and of humans.

The girl is twelve years old, and the woman has had her affliction for twelve years. In the same year, a girl is born and a woman begins to bleed – a short time for a human to be alive, and at the same time an eternity of suffering.

We note also in both stories the scornful response to Jesus – the disciples are incredulous and maybe even disdainful when Jesus asks “who touched me?” And when Jesus tells the crowd that Jairus’ daughter is not dead, but only sleeping, they jeer at him. Jesus seems a fool to those around him.

There are other parallels – but the one that has grabbed my heart this time around is this: that both the panicked father and the determined woman at some point fall at Jesus’ feet. It is their physical posture, the vulnerability and abandon of their bodies and souls that sets my soul vibrating with recognition and wonder. And I find myself asking: what if “faith” – the kind that in the gospels over and over makes people well – is mostly a matter not of standing up, but of falling down?

Faith as falling down. Falling down as faith.

Both Jairus and the woman with the hemorrhage have had resources during their lives to help themselves, but now they are at the end of their rope – they are desperate, without recourse. 

For Jairus we don’t know how long the crisis has been going on, but we do know that there is no earthly help. The only thing he can do, when Jesus arrives, is fall at Jesus’ feet and ask for help. 

Jairus is a man of influence of stature – he is a religious leader in his community, someone for whom God and community matter, and presumably someone who is an example to others of religious commitment. Yet he comes to Jesus not with self-assurance or power, but with humility and weakness. Jairus’ faith has not so much made him strong as it has helped him to know the limits of his strength. And he is not afraid to show his weakness – his daughter’s life is at stake.

The woman also had resources once upon a time, but all that is gone. For her, it has been going on for twelve years – an eternity of suffering and abuse at the hands of physicians. I can’t help but think of friends and others I know with chronic fatigue syndrome who have spent years trying to convince medical professionals that their exhaustion and pain are real, to no avail. I think of so many whose suffering is not recognized by the world – suffering from trauma, or racism, or sexism, or mental illness, or the crushing burdens of just trying to survive in this world. And I wonder what it must take to ask for help one more time, when you have been scorned and rebuffed for what seems a lifetime. And I begin to understand what faith really is.

Maybe faith really is about falling down – being willing to say, I can’t do this. Please help me. Over and over and over again.

One of the hardest things for me to do is ask for help – I usually leave it until way too late. Not only in “earthly” matters but in spiritual. Virtually every spiritual director I have had has asked me on numerous occasions, “Have you asked God about that? Have you asked Jesus to help you, to be with you in this?” You already know my answer to that – “No, I haven’t!”

What is so hard about asking Jesus for help? Why is it so hard to fall at Jesus’ feet when we can’t do it ourselves? I’ve got a string of answers to that – the first is that I never think of it at the time. Or it seems corny, too pious. Mostly, it’s this – I’m afraid I won’t get any help. I’m afraid it won’t make a difference. And then I’ll know that my whole religious life is a fraud, that Jesus isn’t really there to help, and I will be just as abandoned and lost as I was before, only worse, because there’s no hope.

I have needed Jesus a lot over the past year, and I haven’t asked for much help. A little prayer now and then tossed into the crowd where I think Jesus is, but it’s been pretty haphazard.

But then I think of this woman with the hemorrhage, how she didn’t do a full-throttle falling at Jesus’ feet until much later, how she crept through the crowd just hoping to catch a corner of Jesus’ garment, and hoping that might help. How it doesn’t take much, only a feeble arm stretched out. How even then Jesus knows we’re there, feels the power surge from him to touch and heal our weakness and sickness to death of everything. How Jesus is always there, letting his fringes hang down where we can reach them. Or how, when we’re unable to get out of our bed, the prayers and beseeching of someone like a father or mother or friend or sibling or some unknown person praying for all the sick and hopeless in the world falls down at Jesus’ feet on our behalf and brings him to our bedside. How faith is not always standing strong, but falling down.

How I wish that everyone in this world could know that and be willing to ask for the love and care and healing they need. Friends, I can at least start with reminding you and myself of this.  The good news is that as the crowd presses in, as the world spits scorn and rejection, Jesus continues to offer the power of God, the possibility of healing, the enduring message that you and I are loved beyond measure. 

Sometimes – most of the time – the only way we can know this is by falling down at Jesus’ feet, and letting him raise us up to new life. Faith just might be mostly about falling down at Jesus’ feet, whether in sudden tragedy or lifelong suffering. Then, we are promised, we will hear Jesus’ reassurance. I don’t know about you, but I am longing to hear those words: Child, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed. May we be willing to fall, and open ourselves to these words of love and hope.