Sermon Title: “If I can just…”
Sermon
Text: Mark
Sermon
Date:
25And there
was a woman in the crowd who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years. 26She had
suffered a great deal from many doctors through the years and had spent everything
she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she was worse. 27She had
heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched the
fringe of his robe. 28For she thought to herself, "If I
can just touch his clothing, I will be healed." 29Immediately
the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed!
Sermon
Twelve
years. Twelve long years she has
suffered from hemorrhages, to be sure, but she suffered from more than the
physical pain.
Twelve
years of a downward spiral which places her at the bottom of the social and
religious ladder. This illness labels
her as unclean too. In fact, she has no
business being in the crowd; she literally risks her life by entering the crowd
and coming into contact with others.
Betrayed by the medical system, lost all her money and she is not only
no better, but she is worse. She
literally has nothing left to lose. (The Lectionary Commentary: The Gospels)
What
she has is a bit of hope having heard about Jesus. “If I can just touch his clothing, I will
healed.” She has that and it is
enough. Plowing headfirst into faith she
is healed. She knows and Jesus knows it
too.
Let’s
take a moment to think…. How many times
have you said, “If I can just…..(you fill in the blank), my life would be
perfect.”
If
I can just find the right job, house, or spouse then my life would be
complete. If I could just get well, go
to college, pay off my bills, or move to the right town, my life would be
perfect.
For most
of us, a part of our brain knows that is not true. A part of our brain knows that we can find
healing and wholeness regardless of our circumstances, but let’s face it….not
all of our brain or our heart believes that.
Too often we wait for life to begin by waiting for what we consider “the
right circumstances” – the “whens.”
When I can marry, I’ll travel or
buy a house or have children.
When I can get out of debt I’ll
start giving more to the church.
When I can lose weight I will walk
the Appalachia Trail.
When the kids ever leave home, our
marriage will get better.
When
we say or even think these kinds of things we are postponing life. The woman in today’s story wants us to know
that we must not let that happen. She
probably would have liked the words of the “Serenity Prayer.”
“God, grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I
can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
This prayer,
widely used by Alcoholics Anonymous, was written by theologian Reinhold Neibuhr
on
In other words…don’t postpone life
waiting for the perfect circumstances to show up. Make life happen – like she did.
Can you imagine what courage it took
for her to go into that crowd, to push her way to the front and reach out and
touch Jesus’ robe? After twelve years of
this bleeding, the people in town had to know.
They may have been shocked to see her out. Who knows but there were those trying to stop
her? But they didn’t. They couldn’t. She was determined to take her life into her
own hands or at least put her life into Jesus’ hands. She was determined to not waste another day
when she could do something about it.
She was determined never again to say, “If I can just…..”
In
family systems therapy there is a concept called “The Identified Patient.” In a nutshell a family in conflict often
identifies one person as the reason for their trouble, when in truth the
patient may be reacting to the trouble already there.
In
seminary I worked with a family who fit this to a tee. If only Natalie, the oldest daughter, would
act appropriately everything would be fine, the mother told me. The other three children were perfectly well
behaved so it couldn’t be her fault that Natalie was acting out.
Unfortunately
she forgot that she was a meek woman married to a very controlling man. Coming to church at all was a privilege in
his eyes. He didn’t see why his wife or
children should ever leave home. He was
the center of their existence, right? He
had brought his wife from a foreign country.
She owed him. And she paid. She paid with obedience even when her
children were injured in the process.
And finally his abuse took its toll on Natalie and she ran away. Still, her mother said, “if only Natalie
would act right, everything would be okay.
It is all Natalie’s fault.”
You
probably know a family or organization like that too. Rather than look at the real problem, it is
easy to assign the blame to just one person.
And
we in churches do the same thing. Let’s
be honest. We complain about schools
having sporting events on Sunday. We
lament that more and more people opt to do other things than attend church on
Sundays or that they are working. If
people would just come to church everything would be all right.
If new
people would come, things would be like the old days when churches were
filled. If young families would come we
would fill the Sunday school rooms. If
people would give more we wouldn’t have to worry about the budget.
And
of course there is truth in all of that.
But when we have this mindset we too have identified the patient as
someone other than ourselves.
Let’s
face it. Life has changed. More people are working on Sunday than ever
before. More churches exist than ever
before. There are more things to do on
Sunday than ever before, and we really can’t complain too loudly because we are
sitting in restaurants after church waiting to be served by people who are
working on Sundays! We go to the movies
or shop on Sundays. We buy gas on
Sundays. We want the newspaper delivered
on Sundays too. We even want to watch
television on Sundays and someone has to work to make sure that happens. Quite frankly we don’t want life to stop on
Sunday either.
So
instead of looking at “identified patients” who won’t or can’t come to church
on Sunday, how can we let them know that we care about them for what they would
get out of faith in Jesus Christ, rather than what we can get of them being
here????
Donna
Pridemore of Hippensteel’s Funeral Home told me at their recent golf outing (we
were the only women playing) some words from motivational speaker Zig
Ziglar: “Give people what they want and
you will get what you want.”
Or
put the needs of the people first. Jesus
says to put the spiritual needs of people first. Friendships and fellowship are important,
absolutely, but our spiritual growth is the critical part of our walk with
Christ. How do we grow as Christians and
how can we offer opportunities for spiritual growth to you, here in the church,
but also to others in our community?
Are we willing to explore the changing idea of what church is in order to reach out to others? Are we willing to accept that we can be the church on Monday too? And in more ways than worshiping in our beautiful sanctuary. Are we willing to move beyond “if we can just” to “we must” if we want others to experience the love and grace of Jesus Christ. There are plenty of people outside of our doors who don’t know Jesus, really know him, and it is the role of the church to help them find him.
When I preached at “Worship in the Streets” I talked about a book
called “Excellent Protestant Congregations” by
Paul Wilkes. He is Project
Director for the Parish and Congregation Study at the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington. In the book he
tells us about nine churches that are doing great things. Churches from Episcopal churches to warehouse
churches deliberated created to transform a city.
Here are a few of their common traits:
There are numerous other traits but one thing is clear about these churches. They are doing church on Monday morning and all the rest of the week in order to meet the needs of people. Doors are open to meet the physical needs of people, like day cares, credit unions and free clothing for people trying to get a job. Doors are open to meet the spiritual needs of people, like small groups for folks at 7:30 a.m. for folks who just got off the night shift. Doors are open to allow the artists in their community to have places to paint, practice and perform. Gathering at the site of a murder to pray and reconsecrate the space. The possibilities of being an excellent and imaginative church are endless.
We downtown churches have stood the test of time for a reason. And everyday we are given opportunities to be imaginative, creative and excellent. And being imaginative and creative people we can use our gifts in new ways for others and more importantly for Jesus. We are here because there is more work yet to do. And the question we must ask of God is not “how can we attract more people to our church?” but “God, what do you need us to do for you and your people? What do you NEED us to do for you?”
As individuals we must ask the same question – “God, what do you need me to do for you?”
How can we as individuals and the church move from “if I can just” to “Here I am, Lord, send me”?
What a world it would be if each of us used even one of our gifts to serve God through Jesus Christ …for our world…for our church….for our neighbors and for ourselves. By the way, the Appreciative Inquiries we are asking everyone to participate in are designed specifically for that purpose - to help each of us to know how to use our gifts for the Kingdom of God.
When we use our gifts for God, we move outside of ourselves and into the world where others live instead of expecting them to come to us. We too can push forward in the crowd and reach out and touch Jesus.
Did you know that there is a full version of the Serenity Prayer? Let me leave you with these words to help us
move away from “If I can just…”
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I
cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and
the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not
as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right, if I
surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Let this be our prayer in all the days to come.