Snapshots of Grace
July 1, 2012 | Anita Retzlaff | Lamentations 3: 22-3, Psalm 30, 2 Corinthians 8: 7-15, Mark 5: 21-43

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.  How do you explain the miracle stories of the Bible?   I know that I have really struggled with the meaning of miracles and whether or not they are true accounts of what actually happened.  Most miracles are beyond rational explanation, beyond what we can describe and define but are they beyond belief? In the 21st century we are pretty uncomfortable with talk of miracles because we like to have a reasoned explanation for most things. However, if you stop to think about it, there are all manner of phenomena in our world that are extraordinary in their occurrence and so we shouldn’t be too put off by such mystery, those things which are difficult to explain. When the outcome of an inexplicable event is a good one, we are inclined to classify it as miraculous. We do use this kind of language all the time.

However it is not the magical or paranormal quality of miracle that is the focus of Jesus’ deeds in the Bible stories. The central urging of the miracle stories is not about the “how” of these things but is rather oriented toward the “why.”  Why does Jesus chase demons into a herd of pigs, or heal skin diseases, calm storms, multiply bread and fish enough to feed 5000 or bring people back to life from death? What is being communicated in these abnormal encounters? That is our concern this morning as we reflect on two miracles from the bible. They are truly extraordinary in several significant ways.  They are snapshots of God’s grace in a rule-bound world.

So let’s begin with the rules. Matthew Thiessen whose young family worshipped with us for 2 years  - Matthew, Jenn and baby Solomon - Matthew taught a class last month for pastors and anyone interested.  He talked about the rules of Jesus’ day, the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and the temple-centered theology of the time.  Matt maintained that Jesus attacked these systems, by-passing them, the purity code of what was clean and unclean and all the religious protocol that went with it. Jesus made access to God a thing of grace not rules around purity and the resulting sacrifices that became necessary to keep things on an even keel. I want to try to explain this a little. The rules that governed Israel’s relationship to God were focused on making sacrifices at the right times and under appropriate circumstance so as to keep people in touch with God. For example, you gave an animal to God through burnt offering if you had a particular kind of run-in with your neighbor. It was a form of social control and religious awareness. We read a lot about sacrifices in the Old Testament.  It wasn’t a useless entity, this detailed sacrificial system but rather a way of keeping the people organized and connected to each other in community and constantly aware of God’s presence – that is the key – being aware of God!

So we read of women who are considered ritually impure during their menstrual cycle and after giving birth.  Being ritually impure is not the same as being contaminated or contagious it just means that because blood has issued from a woman’s body a cooling off period is required so that the person might again come into God’s presence and the presence of the rest of the community.  Touching a dead body requires the same kind of cooling off period.  This may sound archaic to us but for Israel at that time blood was considered the life force given by God and was to be treated with great care and reverence. Losing blood was a serious thing that had to be dealt with appropriately. It was expected that at times in everyone’s life they would be ritually impure; it was a given and not necessarily a thing to abhor.  It just was! In practicing the rules around purity the people are honoring God and each other.  Impurity that is not properly treated leads to death but purity, the proper practice of things in the sight of God is holiness and signifies life. That is the system in place in Jesus’ day and it is directly related to the miracle stories at hand
Jesus comes in contact with two females: an older woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and a 12 year old girl who dies.  Do you see what is immediately at issue?  Impurity! Jesus touches them both and defies the consequences.  In the old system Jesus would have been impure and out of relationship with God until he had passed the ritual tests.  No longer!  Not only does Jesus touch these women but he heals them, restores them to relationship with their community and with God without any reference to the traditional system involving the cooling off period.  Can you imagine the fallout?  Those in charge of maintaining the sacrificial system would have been scandalized and most of the people will have been stunned to see this and hear about it.

As I had suggested earlier the miracles that Jesus performs are extraordinary in several ways.  First of all as we have already seen Jesus totally dumps the temple and sacrificial system on its head.  That is no small thing for it had been the way of God with the people of Israel for many generations.  Now suddenly there is a new way of staying connected to God.  Second, Jesus pays little attention to social class and heals both wealthy, religiously connected folk as well as the outcast, poor and ritually impure.  He restores them both to wholesome life and to their communities.  In the case of the woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages she is now called “daughter” and included as legitimate family.  Third, these miracle stories are a clear message to God’s people, Israel.  The number 12 is significant in both stories; the little girl is 12 years old and the woman who suffered from hemorrhages has been afflicted for 12 years.  Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel.  This is a message aimed directly at them.  God’s people are about to learn something new.

This new thing is quite simply, faith.  By faith, by believing that God has power to heal and restore in other ways than through purity laws suddenly there exists tradition-shattering and bold new possibility.  Jesus says to the woman after she approaches him and touches his clothing, “Your faith has made you well.”  Her faith; simply her belief that Jesus has the power to heal her, this is what makes it possible for her to be made whole and to go in peace.  The miracle for me is as much that she believed this to be possible as is the healing itself.  Who of us sees the possibilities from the deep center of our tradition?  She is brave and open and trusting of God’s healing as it comes in a new way.  This is faith; faith that God has the power to do things differently than what we might expect.  Jesus is trying to get the disciples to see this but they don’t understand. Rather it is those marginal ones in dire need who have little left to lose who fall upon the grace of Jesus.  They are the ones who first catch on to the gift of grace.  Grace is the free gift of God. Jesus’ mission is initially directed to the 12 tribes of Israel announcing to them that the system of sacrificing to make things right is no longer needed. God has the power to offer grace more directly; through those who have faith. Jesus’ mission is now directed toward us and becomes the challenge that we now face.  Do we have such faith? 

The miracles performed by Jesus in these two stories are snapshots of the grace that God offers us today too. From within the traditions in which we are nurtured come new applications of what it means to be faithful. In other words, we need to be watchful of the ways in which God breaks into our lives through acts of power, through miraculous presence and in snapshots of grace.  The landscape is ever-changing and it is God who is always actively reaching out in new ways.

Some of us went to a one day conference in May called “The Survival of the Weakest.”  One of the main presenters was Leonard Sweet who talked about the way in which we must re-imagine our life with God.  He used the image of a swing.  We have all enjoyed the feeling of exhilaration of pumping ourselves higher and higher into the air on a swing.  For some of us that may have been decades ago but I think most of us remember the rush!  In order to make progress and go higher one leans backward first and then pushes forward.  It is the same with us in finding fresh ways of understanding God’s work and mercy.  We first lean back into our tradition but then kick forward into new space and exhilarating possibilities.  Lean back into tradition and kick forward into the future: it is a useful image for us in the church as we work in our communities.

Today is Canada Day, a day on which we remember the traditions of immigration and settlement, of placement and displacement.  We live in a wonderful country that has a social history of caring for its poor and frail.  However, as we have become more recently aware, our First Nations people are not the beneficiaries of much of the good life that Canadians enjoy.  It is somewhat like Jesus making an appearance and shaking up the structures to expose the truth that not everyone has been included in the system of grace.  We have marginalized our neighbours and haven’t even been aware of it.  The Truth and Reconciliation event that took place in Saskatoon last week purposely put this before us.  We must throw off the chains of old oppressive systems and attitudes and start fresh so that all may be included in the life and health of our nation.  The old system is gone.  We are kicking forward to a new plane of relationship and partnership with our First Nations neighbours.  How that will all unfold is not clear yet but the Mennonite Church locally will be intimately involved in this snapshot of grace.  We must see to it.

Just as Jesus introduced a new social order to the 12 tribes of Israel, who by the way were no longer tribes in the sense that they once were, so too a new social order is being introduced to us in 21st century Canada.  Are we open to a new structure and new relationship with those whom we have marginalized? And we know who these are – the ones whom we tend to exclude and avoid. Do we really believe that faith can make all people well, that believing in the power of God’s saving grace can change our world?

Because the bottom line of God’s grace through Jesus Christ is that death is defeated.  Death need no longer be our biggest fear because God’s reign is about life and everlasting connection.  Living in a loveless way should be our biggest fear, not death.  Helping to heal division, to make whole and included, that is our life’s mission under God.  Jesus announced a new world and then performed it through the snapshots of grace, the miracles of power that made people whole and interconnected, one with God and full participants in the Kingdom that has no end.

We have been richly blessed this day.  For we know of God’s power to save us from fear of death and to make us whole as servants of grace to the world. Just like the image of the swing we lean back on God’s grace and kick forward into new ways of being followers of Jesus Christ. On this day of national celebration and on this the Lord’s Day we give thanks and praise that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. AMEN