One Step at a Time
The
Pastor Roy B. Grubbs
4th Sunday after Pentecost Mark 5:21-43
This
week, Gina, RJ, and I will be going to
Year
after year, we add to our experience of the world, pushing against our limits to
find out what will budge and what will not, gradually gaining a sense of our own
power. We find that we can make
certain things happen and we can prevent other things from happening.
We can make friends or enemies; we can say yes or no.
Some
of us get so carried away with these discoveries that we begin to think we are
in total control of our lives. We
come to age and we decide what to be. We
open bank accounts and make five-year plans.
We take our vitamins and work out three times a week.
We space our children two years apart and raise them by the book.
And nine times out of ten, it all goes according to plan.
We begin to believe that if do everything right, then everything will
turn our all right.
Until
something happens. The income
evaporates, the doctor finds a spot on the X-ray, our child’s grades go down
and down, and it is like being trapped in a fine automobile when the brakes
fail. In a split-second, everything
changes. “I’ve lost control!”
That is often one thing good people will say when bad things happen to
them. I have said it myself.
But human beings do not lose control of their lives.
What we lose is the illusion that we were ever in total control of our
lives in the first place. So when
something happens, many of us have to go back to the blackboard again and again,
because we think there must be some way to work it out, some way to master the
human condition – so that there are no leaks, no holes, no scares.
But
as far as I know, this cannot be done. Maybe
that is why it is called the human condition.
It is something we live with – splendid in most respects, but with
certain built-in limitations. Some
things will budge for us and some will not.
We cannot fly; we cannot live forever.
We cannot control everything that happens to us.
That is the human condition – and it can be frightening.
All we can really choose is how we respond to circumstances.
This is why it takes a lot of courage to be a human being.
Last
week, we heard the story of the disciples fear when the storm began to overtake
the boat. The wind and the sea were
beyond their control. Jesus stands
up and says “Peace! Be still!”
In our gospel reading today, Jesus has not been on shore for five
minutes, when one of the leaders, Jairus, falls at his feet.
He too is suffering from the human condition – a threat against the
life of his child. His little girl
is deathly ill and there is nothing he can do, nothing but lie in the dirt and
beg: “Come lay your hands on her,
so that she may be made well and live.”
But
before Jesus can follow him home, the worst possible news comes.
It is too late; she is gone. Jesus
turns to Jairus and offers the shortest sermon of his career:
“Do not fear, only believe.”
This
message is not just for Jairus, but for all of us who suffer, all who are up
against things we cannot control. But
the words disturb us. Believe what
exactly? Believe that things will
turn out the way we think they should? Believe
that we will get what we want? Well,
isn’t that the way it seems to work in these stories?
People call on Jesus and they get what they want – the storm stops, the
woman stops bleeding, the young girl comes back to life.
So naturally, we try to figure out what these people did right so we can
do it too, so that the same thing will happen to us.
Only
that is not what the stories are about. They
are not about how to get God to do what we want, which is just another way to
try and stay in control. Instead,
they are stories about who God is and what God is like.
Jesus is the Son of God, Mark tells us.
Believe it!
Mark
wanted people to believe so that they would have strength to meet the days to
come, so that when he was gone, they would not lose heart.
Even when Jesus could not talk to them face-to-face, he still had the
power to calm their storms and restore them to life in new and different ways.
And his power continues today.
By
dying for us, by consenting to lose control of his life, Jesus changed
everything for all time.
“Do
not fear; only believe.”
Fear
is a small cell with no air in it and no light.
It is suffocating inside, and dark. There
is no room to turn around – you can only face in one direction.
There is no future; everything is over; everything is past.
Tomorrow is as far away as the moon.
People can stop by and tap on your walls.
They can even bang on the door and show you where it is, but you may be
afraid to open it up. They might not
be who they say they are – they may just make matters worse.
It is safer to stay just where you are, where you know what is what, even
if you cannot move, you cannot breathe. That
is how fear feels.
Belief
is something else altogether, but not what you may think.
It is more like a rope bridge over a gorge.
It swings back and forth with plenty of air and light.
There may be little to hang onto, except the stories you have heard, but
it is the best way across, the only way possible, and it will bear your weight.
That is belief.
Sometimes
fear and belief come together; they are not a clear choice.
Sometimes, they come at the same time and coexist in a strange way.
All you have to do is believe in the bridge more than the gorge.
And fortunately, you do not have to believe in it all by yourself.
There are others who believe it with you, and even some to believe for
you when your won belief wears thin. They
have crossed the bridge ahead of you and are waiting on the other side.
You can talk to them if you like, as you step into the air, putting one
foot ahead of the other, taking just one step at a time.
It
takes a lot of courage to be a human being.
But as Jesus shared with us just who he was, we know the bridge will
hold. Believing in him will not put
us in charge, or get us what we want, or even save us from all harm, but
believing in him, we might gradually lose our fear of our lives.
Whatever the human condition we find ourselves in, we may finally learn
to live it, maybe even to love it, if only because we believe he lives and loves
it too. Amen.
‘*
B. Taylor, 1993