Luke 8:43-48
David A. Davis
February 25, 2018
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We are spending these Sundays in Lent together in the Gospel of Luke. We are looking at some conversations Jesus had along the Way. This morning’s conversation is actually a conversation within another conversation. In the eighth chapter of Luke, it is a story framed by another story. One healing tucked inside Luke’s telling of another healing. Though the healing story appears in all three synoptic gospels and is surrounded in each gospel by the other healing, it is, nonetheless, a unique literary form, technique. A rather striking literary device: a healing within a healing.

Our text from Luke’s gospel this morning tells of the healing of the woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. The healing that brackets these few verses you are about to hear is the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Jesus had just returned from the other side of the Sea of Galilee where he had healed the Gerasene demoniac and sent the poor heard of the pigs over the cliff into the water. Upon his return there is a crowd waiting for him. A synagogue leader named Jairus comes to Jesus, falls at his feet, and begs for Jesus to come to his house and heal his twelve-year-old daughter.

Along the way, and after Jesus stops for the other healing, news comes that that the girl has died. When Jesus hears it, he tells Jairus and probably anyone listening, “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be saved.” They get to the house now filled with grief and Jesus announced that the girl is only sleeping. Through all their tears the family members and friends laugh at Jesus because they knew she had died. Jesus takes her hand, calls for her to get up, and Luke writes, “Her spirit returned, and she got up at once. Then Jesus directed them to give the girl something to eat.”

Our reading for this morning begins in the second part of the 42nd verse of Luke, chapter eight. It begins just as Jesus was on the way to the home of Jairus.

[Luke 8:42b-49]

Jesus noticed her. Jesus noticed when no one else did. She had been sick as long as that little girl had been alive. Twelve years. She had spent everything she had on trying to get well. That’s all detail that the reader is given. That’s it. Sick for twelve years and nothing left to live on. No reference to family, whether she ever had children before the bleeding that wouldn’t stop, whether she was married. No age. And of course, no name. Just another face in the crowd.

Just a few chapters earlier, Luke mentions the crowds, how they were coming from all over, even Jerusalem. “They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.” (6:18-20) Crowds. Healing. Power coming out from him. Luke doesn’t say anything there about Jesus noticing any of them, Jesus noticing anyone. Just her. And she’s just one of the crowd.

When Matthew and Mark tell her story they want to make clear it’s about her faith. Both record that the woman said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Not so much in Luke. She was sick. She had nothing. She had nothing because she had already been to every doctor she could find. Jesus wasn’t her first try. She had tried everything. Luke is rather mum on any presumption of faith on her part. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t pray anything. She didn’t tell herself anything in Luke. She just came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes. And Jesus noticed.

Theories abound about any meaning that might come with this unique literary structure of an embedded healing. On the face of it, Jesus stopping to heal the woman and the resulting delay sets up the much more described, more detailed, and therefore seemingly more important raising of Jairus’ daughter. Perhaps it is a kind of stacking of meaning for emphasis. Both instances involve healings of those who are ritually unclean. It’s Jesus crossing a boundary times two. Jesus healing a female times two. Jesus healing someone who was sick for twelve years, healing someone who had been alive for twelve years. Biblical number twelve. Twelve. Two healings intended to signal all healings.

But with her healing stuck inside the telling of the healing of the daughter of the synagogue leader whose name is Jairus, it is sort of like the gospel writers don’t really want the reader to notice her either. Or when you do notice, it is as if she is an interruption, a distraction, an intrusion, a bother, a nuisance. She interrupts Jesus along the way when he certainly just could have kept going. Peter just tried to move him along, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” Let’s just move on. The crowds. All the people. It could have been anybody, anybody who is a nobody. Touching. Pressing. Surrounding. But still, Jesus noticed.

As Luke writes it, Jesus noticed the power had gone out from him. “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” That sounds like such Bible-speak. Such a “gospely,” first-century kind of expression. It makes Jesus sound like some sort of superhero who knew his secret power button had been switched on. Like his x-ray vision had been invoked, his super-duper strength had been called upon, some kind of healing magic balm suddenly leaked from the fringe of his garment.

He knew that power had gone out from him. Mark puts it this way: “Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in then crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ” But Matthew, for Matthew, Jesus just turns and sees her. Matthew refers all through his gospel to Jesus’ deeds of power. But when it came to her touch, all he did was turn and see her. Nothing like, “I noticed the power had gone out from me.”

It is fascinating in Luke to read that before Jesus notices her, he notices himself. He became aware, self-aware of some kind of emanation, something coming from him. So that, before it was about her, for Luke, it was about him. To put it more plainly, he didn’t notice her, he noticed himself.

You see the irony? That this Jesus of the gospels, this Jesus who taught so much about caring for the other, and putting others first, and being a servant of all,  this Jesus who was ultimately to deny himself and give his life for others, this Jesus, who “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…” (Philippians 2) — that this Jesus would notice himself and not her, notice himself first before her?

No, that makes no sense. No theological sense. No “this is the Christ of the gospels” sense. How about Matthew? Matthew with the unadorned language and little worry about the power. Jesus turned and saw her. That was it.

It’s more than being theologically, Christologically inconsistent, that Jesus would notice something about himself first, notice himself first before noticing her. It’s how you know that the gospel writers and the scribes that came after were men. Because they wanted to make sure their reader noticed him, not her. And they wanted to so minimize her agency in the encounter and so maximize his.

They want to skip over her and get to him. They portray him as being stopped by a nameless woman in need who has nothing and is little more than a face in the crowd, him being interrupted by someone who dares to reach out in a culture that has already made her disappear, and yet thinking of himself first, his own power first. Well, that’s sort of a guy thing. Thinking of yourself first, your own power first, apparently that’s a guy thing that never stops.

The Jesus of the gospels that we have come to know was indeed tempted in every way as we are, but was without sin. So yes, I go with Matthew on this one. Matthew’s minimal, non-editorialized description. Jesus turned and saw her. He noticed her. Jesus noticed her when no one else did. There was something about her. About her.

When Jesus noticed her, she came out trembling, and fell before him. According to Luke she “declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.” She didn’t just say it, she declared it. She announced it. She proclaimed it. This wasn’t just the woman now telling her story. This was more like a testimony. Her testimony. She declared in the presence of all the people.

I, for one, have always thought of and preached about the women at the tomb as being the first proclaimers of the message about Jesus. How they went and told the disciples that “Christ has Risen!” We long ago figured out what such a broad swath of Christian tradition today has yet to figure out that the first preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ were women.

But before there was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, before those three that first Easter morning, there was her. She wasn’t just telling her story, she was preaching. She declared. In the presence of all people. She declared all that Christ had done. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace,” Jesus said.

And to think how easy she was to miss. How unbelievably easy she was to ignore. How pretty much everything in her world and in the world of the Bible was set so as not to pay attention. How everyone else was not going to, was never going to, would never have noticed her. But not him. He noticed. Jesus noticed. Jesus noticed her. Because she wanted to be well. Because of her suffering. Because she had nothing. Because she had no one. Because she was invisible. Because no one would listen. Because she was so vulnerable. Because she was sick. Because she was in need. Because she needed help. Because she was bold. Because of her courage. Because of her persistence. Because she was there. Because of her reach. Because of her touch. Because of her.

The invisible. The suffering. The sick. The ones who have so little or even less. Those who have no one. The ignored. Those no one wants to listen to. Those everyone wishes were not around. Those who others wish would just stay quiet. Those who just feel like an interruption, an intrusion, a problem that won’t go away. Those left behind by this system or that. Those whom everyone just passes by. Those nameless who don’t even qualify as a face in crowd. You have to notice. Because he noticed. When you walk along this way with Jesus, you have to notice and then work for, pray for, speak for, advocate for, long for a kingdom where all are served and made whole.

That was going be the end of the sermon, right there. That you have to notice because he noticed. But actually, here’s a better ending. If you were listening closely, you will agree with me, I think. To a better last thought.

When you walk along this way with Jesus, you have to notice and then work for, pray for, speak for, advocate for, long for a kingdom where all are served and made whole.

You have to notice because of her.

© 2018 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Luke 7:1-10
David A. Davis
February 18, 2018
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It is difficult to imagine Jesus being amazed by much anymore. This week the Jesus that fills my heart and nurtures my soul, that Jesus can’t have much to marvel at. Amazed, marveled, astonished. Those aren’t the adjectives that resonate when pondering the Risen Jesus, Son of God, Savior, Messiah, when pondering Christ cradling the world in his arms these days. The Christ who slings our humanity over his shoulder like the shepherd who left the other ninety nine and went out and found that one lost sheep. Amazed. Filled with wonder. Breathlessly in awe. No. Not now. Not this week.

Heartbroken seems more like it. 17 more. 17 more killed at school. Kids just like our kids. Alyssa. Martin. Nicholas. Jamie. Luke. Cara. Gina. Joaquin. Alaina. Meadow. Helena. Alex. Peter. Carmen. Different backgrounds. Different ethnicities. Different faiths. And then the teachers, coaches, administrators just like ours. Chris. Aaron. Scott. Wrestling. Football. Cross Country. I watched a gut-wrenching video clip of the first vigil that was held with tears in my eyes. That father whose daughter was killed, half shouting, have crying, mostly pleading, “I am broken”, he said. He is every father, every mother. Jesus must be heartbroken, just like him, just like them.

Heartbroken…and irate, and angry, and completely fed up. So much more angry than when he tossed the tables on the money changers in the temple. So much more disgusted than Moses must have been when he saw that golden calf and smashed the law tablets there at the foot of Mt. Sinai. The utterly sinful worship and idolatry of the Second Amendment. A lust for violence that infects everything in the culture from film, to video gaming, to sport, to social media. The unbelievably magnified selfishness that fuels the all about me paranoia that someone is coming to take all my guns away. Jesus must be angry. When leaders of a nation clearly going the wrong way on the crisis of gun violence continually offer a call to prayer rather than acting themselves and then act deaf to a people’s plea for help as if their hearts must be harder than Pharoah’s, whose vindictiveness leaves hundreds of thousands of our own young people who have lived in this country pretty much they’re whole lives now living in fear and hopelessness, whose professional life and election depends on money given always for self interest rather than the common good. A system so broken. Jesus has to be something other than amazed by it all, by all the brokenness. The absolute brokenness of humankind.

Truth is, Jesus is not amazed all that often in the four gospels. There is this occasion from Luke that I read to you. One other time in Mark. When Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth and the whole town took offense at him and Jesus said “Prophets are not without honor except in their home towns, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Mark records that Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. If I did all my homework, that’s the only other time Jesus is amazed in the gospels.

The gospel writers often write of Jesus’ reaction, his thought, his emotion. Matthew tells of Jesus being moved by compassion when he saw all the crowds and the disease and the sickness. He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless. John writes of Jesus being greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved as he saw Mary and Martha weeping at the death of their brother Lazarus. When the man with the withered hand came to Jesus on the sabbath in the synagogue, Mark describes Jesus as being angry with the Pharisees because they were trying to trip him up on sabbath law and Jesus was grieved at their hardness of heart toward that man in need of healing. Plenty of adjectives, emotions, reactions attributed to Jesus, just not much amazement.

This morning in Luke, Jesus finished offering that long stretch of teaching and proclamation called “the Sermon on the Plain”. Jesus then heads into Capernaum. There in Capernaum, a centurion (a Roman, gentile soldier with a rank that had him in charge of others) had a servant who as very ill and close to death. He had heard about Jesus and he knew some well-connected leaders in the Jewish synagogue. He had quite a network. So the centurion asks them to ask Jesus if Jesus would come to the house and heal the slave. The Jewish elders go to Jesus, and in a kind of unexpected way, they vouch for the centurion, for his character, for his love for the people, for all that he has done for the Jewish community in town. Jesus starts to follow them on the way to the centurion’s house. For whatever reason, maybe he was embarrassed to even ask, or he didn’t want to put Jesus out, he didn’t want put Jesus in an awkward spot religiously, or he hadn’t cleaned up his house, the centurion has some hesitation about the actual visit and he sends some other friends to interrupt that journey toward his house and to tell Jesus that he didn’t have to go the trouble to coming all the way over. Because this Gentile knew he certainly wasn’t worthy of the visit. As a military guy, he understood authority and how it works, and he knew that all Jesus had to do is say the word, and it would happen, it would be done. It was a chain of command kind of thing. When Jesus hears that, hears the message about what the centurion was thinking, hears what the centurion wants him to know, hears what the centurion believes could happen, hears that all he wants is for the servant to be healed, Luke tells us that Jesus was amazed. He was amazed at that man.

That’s all it took. That’s all it took for Jesus to be amazed. No loud shout out like one of those from the demons who recognized Jesus. No strong affirmation of faith from the Gentile soldier “Jesus Son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner”, just a few words about command and authority. No extra effort of cutting a whole in the roof or reaching out for a garment, just a humble “no, you really don’t have to come all this way” second thought. Not much at all from the Centurion. And Jesus was amazed. The servant was healed.

When it comes to the four gospels, Jesus wasn’t amazed all that often and as it turns out, when he was amazed, it didn’t take all that much. Just the Centurion’s slight inkling, kind of half-baked notion, something other than a full formed expectation that somehow this Jesus could make that servant whole. Jesus could heal. Jesus could heal what was broken. Jesus would care for what is broken. Jesus was amazed that a far from religious, foreign, powerful, man with authority could show some sign, some intuition, some nudging inside, some belief still not put into words that Jesus and brokenness go together.

That conversation with the Centurion along the Way, it is the gospel attestation, the good news of the gospel, that this Christ send from God above, this Son of God and human brokenness, they were meant for each other. It’s not a coincidence that Jesus was astonished at the selfless, compassionate, empathetic longing for wholeness for the broken, dying, nameless, other. Hearing about the heart of the Centurion, that’s sort of, kind of like Jesus looking in the mirror. Jesus was amazed.

God, Jesus, and the brokenness of humankind. God sending Jesus smack into it all. It’s what John Calvin refers to as God’s accommodation. God in Jesus Christ coming all the way down to our humanity, all the way down to the sinful brokenness of it all. For Calvin, that’s why God through the command and promise of Christ, instituted the sacrament of communion and baptism. Because our faith itself is part of that brokenness. As Calvin writes “Our faith is slight and feeble unless it be propped up on all sides and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters and at last gives way.” So God, by God’s mercy, and in God’s infinite kindness, so comes down to us, so tempers Godself to our brokenness, that God provides this means of grace, this taste of God’s promise, this elixir of Christ’s presence. To lift us and heal us and fill us, when all is so broken.

Calvin defines a sacrament as an outward sign by which God seals in us the promise of God’s good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith. And, for Calvin, it is the chance for us, in turn, to attest to our faith. That partaking in this meal is actually an act of faith. And opportunity to attest to our faith before God, before the Savior who invites us to this Table, and indeed before the world. To attest and lift our feeble, not yet fully formed faith, our wordless, meager inkling, half-baked notion of faith, to lift our hearts before God in our eating and in our drinking. If only to show that intuition, that nudging, the longing deep within us that Jesus cares for what is broken in our lives, in our world, in our humanity. That Jesus and all this brokenness were meant for one another. That he was meant to heal all this.

Years ago after I first came to Nassau I remember a conversation with a member who wanted to express concern about communion and how we were going about it. It was actually a concern about how I was leading and inviting and directing. To be fair, it was a lovely, warm, non-critical, non-judgmental conversation. As I had always done when celebrating communion in my first congregation, I invited the congregation to hold the elements so that we might all partake together. The Nassau member wanted to point out to me that the prayer time after taking, eating, and drinking was a significant part of communion and when we partake together we sort of move on too quickly. Point well taken. In a light hearted, pastoral way, I sort of joked that you could offer the prayer before eating and drinking. “Oh, it’s not the same!” was the gentle response that came with a wave of the hand.

After this week and all the suffering and the heartbreak and anger, after the Centurion and his far from fully developed acclamation, or acknowledgment, or testimony, or prayer…after Jesus and his amazement at the slightest yearning for him to make us whole, don’t you think that eating and drinking itself is the prayer? That when nothing else comes, nothing else can be said, our eating and drinking itself is a sign of our belief, our feeble, trembling belief, that Christ comes all the way down. That Christ was made, was sent, for our brokenness.

It’s difficult to imagine Jesus being amazed by much anymore. So would you please, please, please, take and eat and drink… until he comes again.

© 2018 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Mark 9:2-9
Hminga Pachuau
February 11, 2018

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© 2018 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Mark 1:21-28
Lauren J. McFeaters
January 28, 2018

© 2018 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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