Healed, Restored, Beloved.

5th Sunday after Pentecost

Today's Readings: 2 Cor. 8:1-15; Mark 5:21-43

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning I want to talk a little bit about healing. Healing is a central theme in Mark’s gospel. Mark’s Jesus spends a LOT more time traveling and healing than he does giving speeches or talking in parables. These healings look like: casting out demons or unclean spirits, soothing fevers and leprosy, raising the paralyzed to their feet, curing a withered hand, and as we heard this morning: restoring a girl to life and healing a hemorrhaging woman. I wonder, what do you imagine happened when Jesus healed?

Many of us might imagine that these people were physically healed, but we know that our Creator isn’t just interested in the body, but also the mind and spirit – the heart and soul. In order to see this side of the healing, we have to dig deeper into the text and the context. Someone who was in some way ‘out of their mind’ in Jesus’ time might have had a mental illness that scared or harmed other people. Because of this they were often hidden away from the community, or even in one instance Mark tells us about, held in chains. Someone who had a contagious disease like leprosy or something having to do with blood like the hemorrhaging woman, would have been seen as unclean and people would have literally cringed at the sight of them and (dare I say) avoided them like the plague. People who were paralyzed, crippled or otherly- abled were discarded as useless. When Jesus healed them, he surely healed them physically, but he also gave them their lives back. By restoring their

body, Jesus restored their mind and spirit. They were once again, or maybe even for the first time, not seen by the community as a burden, as a death threat, or as useless. They could now be known by their name; they could now return to society, to relationship, to LIFE.

Take the woman from this morning’s text: She doesn’t have a name. She had endured 12 years of hemorrhaging. She spent ALL that she had in medical expenses, but got worse instead of better. She is desperate when she meets Jesus. She is desperate and afraid and so ashamed that she doesn’t even face Jesus; she secretly touches his clothes. She puts every ounce of hope, of FAITH that she has left into this man from Nazareth who just maybe could be the Messiah she’d been waiting for. Jesus of course feels this, even in a crowd with people touching him from all sides, and seeks to know her. He seemingly stops heaven and earth to see her face to face. She falls before him, spilling out the truth and what does he do? He calls her DAUGHTER. This woman whom the world had written off and cast aside, this woman who couldn’t go anywhere or touch anything without grimacing glances and people cringing before her.. she is now not only ‘clean,’ but a member of Jesus’

immediate family!! Jesus HEALS her body, mind and spirit. He puts her back together again, restores her dignity and worth, and reinstates her identity as a child of God. This is healing. THIS is WHOLENESS.

God welcomes the fullness of who we are – which makes incredible sense, because God created us. Our identity is rooted in who God says that we are: beloved children of God worthy of a life of abundance. We may all be born this way, but over time our identity gets confused by other people who tell us who we are or should be. Sometimes these aren’t bad things.. we might be told, ‘you are nurturing – you’re a caregiver.’ Or ‘you are a talented singer – you’re a musician.’ Sometimes though we are told we are a burden, a freak, an outcast, a mistake, an abomination.. Whether it’s positive or negative we tend to internalize those statements and hold onto them our whole lives. Positive or negative, when we tell other people who they are it can be like trading their freedom for chains. This especially happens when we ‘should’ on other people; I vote we make an 11th commandment: ‘Thy shall not should on other people or thyself!’

What I’m saying is that we are born perfect, as beloved children of God with inherent dignity and worth, whom Christ loves to DEATH. That is our truest identity. But from that moment on we are subjected to the identity the world bestows upon us and some of us spend our entire lives trying to shake off those shackles, to shed those added layers of skin, to get back to our God- given foundation. And that is what healing looks like.. it’s messy and it’s uncomfy.. and it’s hard and often painful, yet it is holy.

On this day, the last Sunday of Pride month and 52 years after the Stonewall Riots in New York City, I am thinking about healing for our LGBTQIA+ siblings. I am pondering what Jesus would say or do if this story had a transgender individual who reached out to touch Jesus instead of a hemorrhaging woman. Those who do not fit our heteronormative standards

have historically (and continue to often be) cast out by society, pushed to the margins, denied their inherent dignity and worth, identified as abominations. Many queer individuals have reached out in desperation for just a touch of Jesus’ clothes and had the doors of the Church slammed in their faces. Many other queer individuals have grown up in Church pews and did NOT hear their identity affirmed as wrapped in God’s belovedness.

My friends, LOVE is never a sin. Love, God shows us, knows NO bounds. And celebrating Pride is all about celebrating love and belonging. We ALL have the desire to be loved and to belong.. to be known, seen for who we truly are, and accepted unconditionally, judgment free. That is what God offers each of us, yet what we find hardest to offer to one another and sometimes even to ourselves. God in Jesus shows us how to live this way – centered in love and relationship. Jesus leads by example, paving the way for us to do the same.

Jesus heals body, mind and spirit. Jesus’ healings restore identity and reconcile relationships. This world needs a LOT of healing. The Church needs a lot of healing. Where we (the Church, big C = universal) have contributed to the tearing down of our neighbors, especially to the severest of examples where hatred led to murder or to suicide, may we repent and turn from our hateful ways toward life, liberation and love. May we seek to know our wonderful and diverse siblings, seek forgiveness, and see God’s divine image in their faces and God’s birthrite inscribed on their hearts. May we choose love above all things. For if we have everything in the whole wide world, but we don’t have love!? We have nothing at all.

I am proud to be a part of a denomination that proclaims the sacredness of all lives. But there is certainly a lot of healing that still needs to be done here, on earth.. there is still a lot of hatred to overcome with love, judgment to cast out with radical acceptance, and welcome to be extended to those who feel as if they don’t belong. None of this can be done apart from God. Let us pray for the Spirit to stretch our minds and the capacity of our hearts. Let us lead with love, lift up love, and honor the core identity we all share. Amen.