A truer vision of God's abundance. July 29, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

John 6:1-21, Ephesians 3:14-21

Is the glass half full or half empty? We probably all know what the “right” answer is.  Half full, of course.  Because half-full people are thought to be optimistic.  They seem to bounce back relatively easily from setbacks.  They are grateful and generous.  One study suggests that they are even healthier and wealthier.  Goodness!  Who wouldn’t want to be one of them?   But honestly, if you put a glass in front of me that’s filled halfway, I can’t help myself, I tend to focus on all that space that’s not filled up.  And in my head I think, half empty.  But at least I’m in good company for it seems that at least two of Jesus’ disciples think the way I do.     

In our reading today we hear the well-known story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.  The Gospel of John tells us that when Jesus looks upon the mass of people he turns to Philip and asks, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?"  Now Philip had been at this disciple thing for a while.  He probably had some idea how Jesus worked with miracles and all.  I wonder if Philip might have known the “right” answer to Jesus’ question - something along the lines of, “I don’t know where to buy enough bread, Jesus.  Why don’t we offer what we have and trust that God will work it out?”  Instead, though, whether Philip knows what the right answer is or not, he clearly cannot help himself.  His focus is on the overwhelming need in front of him so he responds, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."  Then Andrew jumps in with his own answer, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”  Now if Andrew had just stopped here it would have been a win.  But he doesn’t, he continues, “But what are they among so many people?"  Both speak from a glass-half-empty point of view, a sense of scarcity - that there just isn’t enough, in this case, not enough money or food to meet the need.

But Jesus doesn’t lecture.  Rather he shows rather than tells.  After everyone is seated Jesus takes the seemingly meager offering of the boy’s bread and fish, gives thanks, and passes it out.  5,000 people eat to the point that not only are their stomachs are full, but there are leftovers to boot.  Yet as amazing as this event is, it is more than just a miracle story that we are supposed to “ooh” and “aah” over from the sidelines.   There’s more going on here than just a feeding to behold.  At the heart of this story, Jesus is trying to shift the disciples - and us - from one way of seeing and experiencing the world to another - from what feels like a natural view of scarcity to a truer vision of God’s abundance.

Because what lasts from this miraculous feeding is not the full stomachs but the good news that in Christ and with Christ there is always enough.  In fact, there’s more than enough.  But I don’t think that I mean that all the problems of scarcity in our world can be solved by simply lifting our hands to the sky and whatever we need, God will make magically appear.  What I am saying, though, is that divine abundance is seen and known in our lives and in the world when we offer whatever we have, no matter how meager, for God’s purposes.  Take note - in our gospel story this morning Jesus doesn’t make something out of nothing.  He uses what’s offered.  Without the boy’s food, nothing happens.   So too, on many occasions, without the offering of our gifts, our resources, ourselves, nothing happens.  If we operate with a sense of scarcity, nothing happens, and the flow of God’s grace in our lives is constricted.  But if we are willing to take what might feel like a risk and trust in God’s abundance, giving thanks for whatever we have, God will take it, no matter how small, and turn it into something we can share.  For God says to us over and over again, “Just give me what you have and let me worry about the distribution issues.” 

So is the glass half full - does God’s abundance really abound?  Or is the glass half empty - that as nice as it sounds, there’s just not be enough to go around?  It’s one thing to know the right answer and another thing to be able to live it especially in a world that’s constantly sending out messages of fear and insecurity.  How then can our minds, hearts, and spirits let go of a sense of scarcity and operate from a place of boundless mercy and grace?

Honestly it’s a challenge.  It was for Jesus’ disciples long ago and it is for us today.  Our only hope is constant, sustained conversion.  I mean that’s why we come here Sunday after Sunday, isn’t it?  To be refreshed and renewed in a love, a grace, an abundance that we already know, but want to know, need to know, more fully and deeply in our lives?  It’s the ongoing personal experience of the unconditional, unearned, boundless love of God has the power to transform us.   Our reading from Ephesians calls it being “rooted and grounded in love.”  And the writer goes on, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

God is always opening her life, his life up to us.  And being filled with that fullness of God, that divine abundance, was Jesus’ way of being in this world.  And he wants it to be our way as well.  So let me ask you, what would you do if the fear of scarcity didn’t hold you back?  What is you knew there was enough - enough love, enough resources, enough opportunities, enough hope - what might you be willing to offer to God to share?  What would your life look like if you lived with a sense of God’s abundance?  I mean, that what God wants for you and for everyone - to know abundant life.  Because it’s really not about the glass being half full or empty.  Rather it’s trusting that with God the glass will always be refilled. 

Where are they now? Past COOS clergy and what they're up to! July 25, 2018 Carolyn Voldrich

Church of Our Saviour has been blessed with many fine clergy throughout the years. Here are some of them that you may remember!

The Rev. Allison Lyles (Assistant Rector, 2015-16). Allison is the executive director of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and the assistant editor of Grow Christians. She lives in Dallas, TX.

The Rev. Mary Staley (Assistant Rector, 2006-2010). Mary is the priest-in-charge at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Put-in-Bay, OH.

The Rev. Ann Hallmark (Interim Rector, 2004-2005). Ann is the Canon Missioner to the Diocese of Western Michigan. She & Stephen live in Traverse City, MI.

The Rev. Jane Sigloh (Interim Assistant Rector, 2003-04). Jane just retired (again!) from Emmanuel Greenwood, where she served as interim rector. She lives in Charlottesville.

The Rev. Charles LaFond (Assistant Rector, @ 2001-2003). Charles serves as the Advance Director of Heading Home, an organization that finds homes for the homeless in Albuquerque, NM. Charles continues his work as a potter.

The Rev. Halley Willcox (Assistant Rector, 2001). Halley serves as a supply priest to churches in central Virginia.

The Rev. David  May (former Assistant Rector,). David is now the rector at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Goochland, VA.

The Rev. Scott Hennessy (former Assistant Rector). Scott is rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Norfolk, VA.

Three-dimensional faith. July 22, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Ephesians 2:11-22

So we were shipwrecked last week at Summer Celebration VBS on a deserted island where we learned about the ways Jesus rescues us when we are lonely or struggling or powerless. And, as you can see, it was an immersive, sensory experience, with videos projected onto the sail of our ship, craft projects, games, participatory Bible lessons, creative snacks, and lots of singing and dancing. And it will be an experience that many of those children will always remember. I know this because I can still vividly recall the first VBS I ever went to, the summer after second grade. It was not nearly as elaborate as ours, but it was still tactile and engaging. And in particular I remember playing with  a model of Jerusalem and eating figs. I had never had a fig before, and Fig Newtons had not prepared me for the real thing. And it was all so real and so cool. Arriving there in the morning felt like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the movie switches from black and white to color. Or maybe a better way to put it was that my sense of God and faith went from being a flat, two-dimensional picture to being a full, three-dimensional reality.

We want that for our children, of course, but we need that for ourselves as well. It is easy to settle for a flat, two-dimensional faith. One way that some people do that is to treat religion essentially as a system of rules, with rewards and punishments. In that system, we have the rules spelled out. If we obey them, we get rewarded; if we break them, we get punished. And in that system, Jesus becomes the chief law enforcer, the one who will judge how well we follow the rules. And, of course, rules have their place: religious laws at least give us an idea of what is good and wholesome, and what is wrong and destructive. And, what’s more, we know the rules: the basic rules have been remarkably consistent down through the ages and around the world. We know we’re not supposed to lie and steal and kill. We know we’re supposed to behave well: some version of the Golden Rule (Do to others what you would want them to do to you.) can be found in every major religious tradition. And we don’t even need Jesus to tell us what the rules are: when he sums up the law in the two great commandments to love God and love others, he’s just quoting the Old Testament. If religion is just about knowing and following the rules . . . well, we have all the information we need. We don’t need Jesus or the Holy Spirit; we certainly don’t need to be here now.

But such a flat, two-dimensional approach to faith fails miserably. Obeying religious rules is merely a first step. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul describes the Law as our paidagogos, our babysitter, whose purpose is to watch over us until we are ready for the Real Thing. You’ll notice that in the Gospels, Jesus is often a rule-breaker: he heals on the Sabbath, he eats unclean foods, he hangs out with notorious sinners. His major issue with the religious authorities of his day was that they used religious laws to oppress people and to actually hide from God. So Jesus didn’t come to replace one set of rules with another. He came to set us free and give us abundant life, to help us move from black and white to color, from two-dimensional surviving to three-dimensional living.

All of this helps prepare us to understand the passage from Ephesians we heard today. Ephesians is a remarkable letter which focuses on new life and transformation. It includes one of the greatest prayers found anywhere in the Bible: I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:16-19). The letter goes on to exhort us to always be filled with the Spirit. And from that same letter, this is what we hear today: [Christ] has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he night create in himself one new humanity.

If that doesn’t shake the dust off our spiritual rafters and inspire us, then we’re just not hearing the message. God has huge plans for us, beyond what we can even imagine, Jesus didn’t die and rise again to create a bunch of passive rule followers: he died and rose to create a transformed humanity — women, men, and children filled with the Spirit of God. Now the particular transformation addressed in this passage concerns the relationship between Jews and Gentiles: some Jewish Christians were using the rules to keep themselves separate from Gentile believers, but the Apostle Paul would have none of that: the cross of Christ blows all such distinctions away. All walls crumble before the love of God, who calls us to embrace all people. That was the transformation those early Jewish believers had to go through, and that is still a pertinent message for us. We live in an increasingly polarized, tribal society, with a lot of “us versus them” thinking. Learning to reach out and love beyond racial, ethnic, political, national, and religious lines is no doubt one way the Holy Spirit is seeking to change people and give them fuller life.

But it’s not the only way. How is the Spirit seeking to transform us, to move us beyond a flat, two-dimensional religion to a vibrant, three-dimensional faith? What is the Spirit trying to do in your life? Even to ask that question is a step forward into transformed living. Not long ago, after one of our Bible studies, someone wrote to me and told me she had never done anything like that before, and that she was enjoying it and it was really making a positive difference in her life. Now, participating in a Bible study may not seem like a big deal, but for that person, it was a big step forward. And I hear things like that regularly from people taking risks and trying new things: taking on leadership roles they hadn’t had before, trying new ways of praying, volunteering to help out at Summer Celebration or with other ministries, putting their faith into action. For all of us, the question is, “What is the next step for me?” The goal is not to be transformed overnight: we are on a journey that will last for eternity. We simply need to be open to what the Spirit is doing in our lives today, how She is seeking right now to expand our faith and enlarge our hearts and make us more open to God, more open to each other, and more fully alive. I suppose we could settle for black and white rule following, just as I suppose we could refuse to grow up. But why would we do that, when there is such an amazing reality for us to experience and rejoice in? So let’s experience it and rejoice in it. I can’t think of any other reason for us to be here right now.

Part of a bigger story. July 15, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Mark 6:14-29

In the Episcopal Church the gospel reading always ends with the declaration, “The Gospel of the Lord.”  To which the congregation responds, “Praise to you, Lord Christ.”  That’s easy to do and it all makes sense when we’ve just read something about Jesus say, feeding the 5,000 or calming a storm or healing the sick.  But with today’s reading I found saying, “The Gospel of the Lord” to be a bit of a challenge to get out of my mouth.  Perhaps you felt that ambivalence in your response as well.  To be quite honest, I was a bit tempted to switch up the punctuation here and change the period that follows the sentence, “The Gospel of the Lord,” into a question mark.  Because really, where is the gospel, the good news in our reading today?

First off did you notice the glaring absence of Jesus?  Barring one brief mention of his name Jesus is nowhere to be found.  Rather the gospel lesson revolves around two men, John the Baptist and King Herod (a Roman puppet king of Galilee) and two women, Queen Herodias, originally the king’s sister-in-law but now his wife, and Herod’s niece who turned into his stepdaughter.  To sum things up, there’s bad blood between John the Baptist and the powers that be.  Which often happens when you speak truth to power as John did publicly condemning the king’s marriage to his brother’s wife and calling it unlawful.  So it really shouldn’t be any surprise that the queen hates John for this and wants him dead.  The feckless king, though, seems caught in the middle fearing both his wife and the baptizer.  Throwing John in prison seems to be a safe middle ground until King Herod’s birthday rolls around.  A banquet is thrown during which the king foolishly swears to his dancing step-daughter that she may ask for practically anything she wants.  So after consulting her mother she requests, “the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”  And Herod, believing that he has no other choice makes it so.  And as you heard, our reading concludes with John’s disciples claiming what is left of his body and laying it in a tomb...The Gospel of the Lord?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, “no,” that’s not the Gospel of the Lord - if that’s all there is to it.  If we only look at this story alone, in complete isolation, there’s no hope, there’s no good news.  But thankfully, that’s not the way that the gospel writer of Mark intended it to be read or understood.  As in other places in Mark, the story of John the Baptist’s tragic death is deliberately sandwiched inside another story, in this case a story about successful mission.  Jesus is sending his disciples out to spread the good news - you know, the actual Gospel of the Lord - and through their efforts people have been delivered and cured from both demons and sickness.  But then this happy story of God’s power at work in the world is abruptly interrupted by the telling of the gruesome account of John’s death only then to go back to the original mission story which finishes off on a high note of the apostles’ return from their travels with a rather jolly report “of all that they had done and taught.”

It’s obvious that this placement is no accident.  By putting John’s story inside of the disciples’ mission story it does become part of the gospel, the message of the good news.  The message that yes, terrible even tragic things happen in life - and happen even when you are living right and following God, but that’s not the whole of the story.   

Now it’s a natural response that when something big happens to us or to the world around us, whether they be good or bad, that we give it our full attention.  But in doing so our view can become very small and constricted - somewhat like our lectionary readings have a tendency to do for us in church.  I mean there are definite advantages to having assigned Bible readings (one of them being that the congregation isn’t limited to just hearing the passages that the priest likes to preach on because if that was the case, I can guarantee you that you would not have heard about John the Baptist’s death this morning!),  but a drawback  to our lectionary is that by reading the gospel piece by piece, and not necessarily in order, it tends to chop up the whole of the narrative to the point where it’s easy to forget the larger story.  I remember one woman a year ago who admitted to me that although she had gone to church all of her life, it was only in her middle age that it finally dawned on her that all the individual stories she had heard Sunday after Sunday were part of a bigger story.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in what’s going on in our own story that we miss that point as well.  

But here’s the good news - that it’s not just John the Baptist’s story that is wrapped up in God’s story of grace, hope, and love - our stories are, too.  No matter what is going on in our lives or in the world at large there is still a bigger picture, a fuller truth - the gospel truth - which declares that even though pain, brokenness, violence, injustice may have its way for a time it will not always be so.  But until that time John’s story is a witness that the task of following Jesus is never easy.  The road is rocky.  And if we seek to honestly and faithfully live into our baptismal vows to resist evil, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace among all people we should not be surprised nor daunted when we are met with resistance.  That’s part of the story, too. 

God’s good news never seeks to whitewash that truth that life can be hard.  In no way are Christians supposed to look reality in the face and deny it.  Rather we are called to see the fullness of all there is - that our stories do not exist in isolation but are wrapped in a larger, greater story - God’s story where, in the end, there is only grace and mercy and peace and love.  That is our hope.  That is God’s promise.  That is John the Baptist’s story.   And THAT is the Gospel of the Lord!

 

Made perfect in weakness. July 8, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.

This past Thursday, it was my turn to make breakfast for the Men’s Bible Study. It’s a tough crowd, so I was up especially early, slaving away over hot griddles. When breakfast was done, and Bible Study was over, and I was finished cleaning the kitchen, I sat down in my office to begin working on this sermon and I read those words from Paul’s second letter to the  Corinthians, and thought, “Yes, this is what I want to talk about” — and then promptly fell asleep. So I am on it: I can preach about weakness.

And I need to. People occasionally talk to me about things they find hard to believe. How can there be a good God when the world has so much suffering in it? Did Jesus bodily rise from the dead? And what about the virgin birth? Those can be tough questions for people, and I can certainly see why they might struggle with them. But let me tell you, those are minor league issues compared to the Big One, the one which people often struggle with the most but have a hard time naming: Does God really love me the way I am, with all my sin and brokenness? Is God’s power truly made perfect in my weakness? Unlike debating some clauses from the Nicene Creed, that hits home: it’s personal and shapes the way we actually live, or fail to live, our faith. And it goes against everything our culture teaches us. We are supposed to be strong, not weak; invincible, not vulnerable. Our icons tend to be super achievers; every summer the most popular movies are superhero movies. We may be taught to pity the weak, but not to emulate them. And the idea that we are weak in very real ways is not at all comfortable to many people, even and especially religious people. Oh, we talk a good game, and we claim to have faith in a God of love and mercy, but scratch the surface, and lots of people don’t actually believe that. They believe that you need to be good to earn God’s love and you need to be super good to get into heaven. God may forgive, BUT for many people there are always strings attached: you better feel bad about your weaknesses, you better not mess up again, you better recite the right religious formulas, you better improve, you better become stronger and more perfect. There are many churchgoers who are practical pagans. I know this because I used to be one of them.

This is why Paul’s witness is so extraordinarily important. He has real gifts and strengths. And he has had profound spiritual experiences, one of of which he alludes to in this passage today, when he was caught up in the “third heaven” (whatever that means) and heard things that no mortal is permitted to repeat. But Paul is just a human being, flawed and imperfect like every human being. We don’t even need him to tell us that: we just need to read his letters! He can be super intense, overbearing, difficult, irascible, and frustrating. And in addition to all of that, he has this mysterious “thorn in the flesh” which afflicts him. We have no idea what that is. Over the centuries, commentators have offered lots of guesses: an eye disease, a speech impediment, epilepsy, addiction, a besetting temptation. I like that we don’t know what it is, because it could be anything. But whatever it is, it’s a big deal and cannot be overlooked. And what Paul says about it matters to us: God does not love him in spite of his weakness: God loves him in his weakness. God is even glad that he’s weak so that God can shower love and mercy on him. Paul grasps the Good News in a way that changes his life: God loves us as we are, even with our weaknesses, even with our sins, and proves it by working through us as we are for the good of the world.

We also have gifts and strengths, and we should use them and rejoice in them. But we should not make the mistake of thinking that they earn us God’s love. For one thing, they come from God: that’s why we call them gifts — we can’t take any credit for them. But more than that, we cannot limit God’s activity to them. God will often work through our weaknesses even more effectively than through our strengths. When I was first ordained, I didn’t really believe that. I thought I had to be super competent and good at everything I did. But I really struggled with that because I messed up so often. Years ago, for example, I preached a really terrible sermon: I got up in the pulpit, and completely lost my train of thought. I stumbled around, trying to improvise, finally had to pause for a few moments and collect my thoughts, and then lurched to some kind of lame conclusion. I sat down hating myself and thinking “I am a piece of garbage,” but after the service, a woman came up to me and told me I had said exactly what she needed to hear that day. And it was like the Holy Spirit gently shook me and said, “Get over yourself. It’s not about you or your perfectionism or your ego. It’s about my love and my grace, and I can make those flow through anyone, even you.” 

What if we really believed that? What if we really lived that? Imagine all the time and energy we would save. After all, we spend monstrous amounts of time and energy trying to be perfect or at least seem perfect, building up our image and boosting our egos, constantly defending and justifying ourselves. What if we could drop all that nonsense and just accept that God really does love us as we are, with our gifts and strengths, our weaknesses and sins? Then maybe we would actually experience the Good News of Christ. And then maybe we could actually understand this Gospel. Forget about the tunics and sandals and other details of first century travel: Jesus sends out his disciples with nothing but the authority of love: no seminary degrees, no credentials, no insurance, no protection, and no expertise. He sends them out into the world as flawed and vulnerable human beings, because he knows his Father will work through them as flawed and vulnerable human beings. His basic message to those disciples: “God loves you as you are. Go show others that God loves them as they are.” All the miracles, the healings, the exorcisms, all the changed lives and transformed people, flow out of that basic truth.

This week I ask you to practice living that truth. Everyday, practice believing that God loves you just the way you are. Everyday, practice believing that the Holy Spirit will move through you just the way you are. We don’t have to be perfect or close to it. We don’t have to achieve anything. We just need to drop our defenses, let down our guard, and trust the Good News: My power is made perfect in weakness.

Church of Our Corn Hole: A Reflection from Emily Rutledge

Installment 1 of the Asheville Mission Trip Reflections

As anyone who works with teenagers will tell you, the most dangerous time is free time.  Free time is when tears come.  Free time is when feelings get hurt.  Free time is when a trip can fall apart and a group can unravel.  This year on our mission trip to Asheville free time was when the magic happened. 

What started as a few games of corn-hole the second night of the trip morphed into a full blown tournament complete with a bracket which consumed every second of free time there was until we drove back to Charlottesville.  Students who were not playing were watching.  Students were cheering.  Students were DJing. Students not interested in playing were staying near and doing work/coloring/hanging out.  Students were practicing in the sleeping rooms (we are a competitive bunch).  Our graduate/chaperone extraordinaire (this is the true beauty of bringing a chaperone who has been on many mission trips and has the energy of a teenager and frontal lobe of an adult) orchestrated what became the most competitive bonding experience I have ever witnessed.

I was approached on day three and asked if Fr. David would consider changing the church name to Church of Our Corn-Hole.

It was a beautiful sight; a group of people together playing a competitive game with love and kindness and only a little bit of hostility when losing.  The grace of it was everyone was part of something bigger.  That's the thing about belonging... when you truly feel like you are a part of something; that you are seen and valued, others' successes don't devalue your own worthiness.  There were times that students felt left out and someone would walk away from a conversation they were engaged in or an opportunity they enjoyed to show up for the person on the outside.  There were moments it was difficult to differentiate between someone feeling exhausted from a long day or unsure if they had a place in the group: their peers would check to see which they were feeling. 

Did they benefit from showing up for the person on the outs?

No. 

On some deep and spiritual level, yes, of course, but in that moment... no.  They were missing out on the thing that would have been easier and more enjoyable to help someone else.  The collective belonging was more important than the momentary individual joy.  Knowing that when one person is left out and hurting the community slowly becomes weaker means something on a real level to these kiddos. 

Short-term mission work is a dangerous choice.  Without real thought and intentional planning short-term mission trips can become a group living into the white savior complex instead of a community seeking to understand marginalized groups and both learn from them and respond to our baptismal covenant to 'seek and serve Christ in all person, loving our neighbor as our self'.

Everyday we are faced with both small and large scale marginalization in our lives.  The person without someone to eat lunch with and the refugee without an advocate.  The newcomer in the service that has no one to pass the peace with and the single mom with no one to help her with childcare over the summer.  The mildly annoying coworker who clearly feels left out in the office and the person experiencing homelessness who isn't sure what resources are available in the town they have found themselves in. 

Showing up for the marginalized, it's missional work.  It is what I pray grows from the week long trips we take in the summer and the hundreds of times we get gather over the course of students years in the youth community.  It's big and it's small.  It's a way of life and a choice.

It's almost always uncomfortable.

Creating belonging, creating a safe-space, creating some magical moment like our time in Asheville at Church of Our Corn Hole means a person who is doing just fine has to relinquish something to be sure that those who are not just fine get a little closer to it. 

Something might be time, money, an easy conversation, the comfort of what's natural, pride, or a million other things that we can put aside in order to allow others to feel worthy and seen. 

Being Church.  Being Christ.  Being Love. It means putting ourselves aside to make room for another.  Sometimes it is through advocacy work, by being a voice for the oppressed.  Sometimes it is through feeding or legally representing or giving medical care.  Other times it is through inviting and including and welcoming.

And then there are those times it is through corn hole. 

May the God of love, who we are promised in Ephesians created us to do good works, allow us to see them as they lay before us.  That no opportunity seem too small, too silly, too insignificant to be an opportunity to reveal the beloved nature of God and the innate worthiness of every one of God's people. 

Touch goes both ways. July 1, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Mark 5:21-43, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Andy was one of the people we met on the youth mission trip we took to Asheville, North Carolina a few weeks ago.  He came to our group to share his story.  Growing up, Andy told us, he struggled to fit in with his peers until he reached his teenage years thought he had found the answer - drugs and alcohol.  They made him feel like he belonged.  Finally, he was one of the cool kids...until he wasn’t.  His peers graduated and moved on in life, but Andy didn’t.  By then he was trapped in addiction which caused him to burn all of his relationships and landed him on the street.  There he lived for years of his life.  And when reflecting on the hardest thing about being homeless Andy said it was loneliness.  “I went years,” he said, “without being touched by anyone.”

Touch, or the lack thereof, plays a big role in our reading today from the gospel of Mark.  As Jesus is on his way to Jarius’ house to heal his daughter, a woman in the crowd reaches out and touches Jesus’ clothes.  Although we don’t know her name, we do know quite a bit about her backstory.  For twelve years this woman suffered with chronic bleeding and she spent those years going from doctor to doctor paying them for their services, enduring countless “cures,” only to find herself broke and in worse shape than when she started.  But her struggle was not limited to the physical realm.  Spiritually she suffered too for her condition made her unclean.  Being unclean meant that no one could touch her or anything she touched.  One can only imagine the sense of isolation she had to bear all those years.  So it’s really no surprise when Jesus comes along that she’s desperate and willing to break any rule for a cure.  Pushing through the crowd she touches Jesus’ cloak and is healed in the fullest sense of the world.  Not only does her bleeding stop but Jesus calls her, “daughter.”   No longer is she unclean and untouchable, but healed and whole, restored to her community.

But there’s another daughter, Jarius’, who has taken a turn for the worse.  Word comes that she is now dead.  But Jesus goes to her anyway.  And upon his arrival, Jesus touches the girl who is now considered unclean due to death, but that is of no matter.  In both cases touch is the means by which healing and wholeness come.  By taking the girl by the hand Jesus calls her back to her life and to her community.   

Touch, however, can take various forms.  There are many ways in both word and deed that we can touch, have an impact on another’s life.  We see an example of this in our reading from 2 Corinthians.  Paul is passionately urging the Corinthians and all the Gentile Christians to give generously to a relief fund.  The money is for Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who are in need. But this collections is not just about addressing physical needs, it also serves as a way of touching the lives of the Jerusalem Christians with a tangible expression of love.  It’s an outward and visible sign of the community, the connection, the belonging they have with one another in Christ even if the various individuals never meet face to face. And just like in the gospel story where touch goes both ways - the woman touches Jesus and Jesus touches the girl - this reaching out by the Gentiles churches is meant to be a reciprocal relationship.  Paul explains that the one who has abundance gives to the other’s need and then, when things change as they always do, it works the other way.  As in any healthy relationship there needs to be both give and take.

And that’s one of the takeaways from our youth mission trip.  Heading down to Asheville we had high hopes that we might touch lives by helping people in need - and we did - community gardens were tended, donated clothes were sorted, hearty food was served.  But that’s only the half of it.  In addition to those acts of service we were encouraged to do something that was, for most of us, much more difficult - allow the people we came to serve, serve us.  For the same good feelings we were getting from helping, well, that should be shared too.  So when part of our group went to a cafe that served delicious, free food to anyone who sat down we were given strict instructions:  spend half of the time doing work and the other half of the time eating with patrons - and be open to what they can give to you. 

“Nice idea,” thought one youth member to herself, “but these people have nothing they can really give to me.”  And that seemed to be true until that young person met Kyla.  Kyla was a mother of three young boys.  No one asked, but it was clear that she didn’t have a lot of resources and perhaps was experiencing homelessness.  When they entered the cafe Kyla and her kids took a seat at a table where the skeptical youth sat.  At first sitting there with a stranger was awkward until the conversation turned to God and Kyla shared her faith.  She said that she knew God to be good and loving.  And that God could be trusted no matter what even when things didn’t make sense.  Now unbeknownst to Kyla, she was talking to someone who really struggled with her faith - who often doubted that God was good or loving or trustworthy no matter how many times Fr. David or I or her family or her friends told her.  But when Kyla shared that Good News it touched this young person’s heart in a significant way and she received a gift that was priceless.     

Whether it’s social barriers, or miles of land, or religious rules, or the like, God is all about crossing boundaries and touching us in unexpected ways through other people.  Each one of us, no matter who we are or what we have or what we don’t have are called to be both givers and receivers of God’s touch - touch that brings healing, wholeness, and connection in the deepest of ways.   So let me tell you about the rest of Andy’s story, the man who told us about his life on the streets.  A few years ago his life changed.  Andy now has a roof over his head.  He fell in love and married.  He’s part of a church community.  And he works as mentor to others who are experiencing homelessness.  All this, he says, happened because a pastor befriended him and touched his life with God’s healing love.  Clearly Jesus is still going about touching lives and making them whole.  As the Body of Christ in this world may our lives be open to that touch and all of its transforming power - both in the giving and receiving.