Faith Healing - Mark 5:21-43

 

            Have you ever been on a trust walk? Those were popular at Bible camps back in the days when I was a counselor. You divide the group in pairs. One of the pair gets blindfolded and the other one leads the blind person all over camp. After a set amount of time, the two switch roles. The idea is to get people to understand the concept of trust, of being absolutely dependent upon someone else for your well-being.

            I learned early that this exercise needed to be closely monitored. One camper returned from his walk complaining that he had been run into a tree, tripped over a large rock, and now his shoes were soaked from being led into a stream. Knowing the camper he was paired with, I guess I should have seen it coming.

What amazed me about the episode was the amount of faith the victim showed. If I’d been run into a tree, that would have been the end of the exercise for me. I would have pulled off the blindfold and there’s no way it would ever have gone back on. For some reason, though, this guy kept going.

Obviously, the exercise did not accomplish what was intended as far as learning to trust another person. On the other hand, that camper may well have learned more about faith than any of those with safer experiences. For he knew better than anyone else that faith is a risk. That there are times and situations when strong faith doesn’t do you a lot of good. In fact, it can let you down, get you in trouble, and cause pain.

 

In today’s gospel, Mark weaves two stories of faith into the narrative. Two people show unusual faith in Jesus, and it pays off for both of them.

 

 First there is Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, an important, learned man. He is experiencing one of the worst tragedies that can befall a human being: his daughter is sick and near death. In such a heart-rending circumstance, he finds that life loses its meaning. Whatever has been going on in his world doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that he is about to lose his little girl.

And because of that, he swallows his pride and begs for help. He risks the wrath of his colleagues and his standing in the community by begging for help from a person his buddies in the religious establishment cannot stand. With no other options available to him, he puts all of his chips on Jesus and rolls the dice.

It works. Jairus gets what he wants. 

 

Then there is the unnamed woman. She’s not an important person; in fact, she’s such a nobody that Mark either did not bother to find out her name, or else didn’t remember it. She’s a woman with a debilitating, shameful illness. She is bleeding all the time and in this culture that means not only physical illness but that she is unclean and not fit  associate with anyone.

 

 Like Jairus, she has exhausted all options, and now she gets up the guts to go for the brass ring. She reaches out to touch Jesus in hopes of a cure. It’s a sneaky, disrespectful thing to do, and she gets caught in the act. But it works; she gets what she wants.  

 

At first glance the point of the stories seems to be that, regardless of position and status in life, regardless of the circumstances, those who have the strongest faith will be rewarded for it. Jesus goes so far as to say to the woman, “Your faith has made you well.”

It’s one of those lessons we really want to grab onto and take to heart because the message seems so simple. There’s cause and effect. We have a very defined assignment: we are to have faith, lots of it. If we do that assignment, we reap clear and tangible rewards. Good behavior accomplishes good results. That’s exactly what moral behavior is all about. That’s why we have churches, isn’t it? To teach stuff like that.

 

Unfortunately, this interpretation poses some difficult problems for Lutherans. We learn in our catechism that getting faith is not an assignment; it’s not even something we are responsible for. Luther’s explanation to the 3^rd article of the Apostles Creed says, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him.” God calls us, God saves us. We are saved through faith, but faith is not something we accomplish; it is a gift of the Spirit.

 

And if faith is a gift, how can we be praised for having it, or criticized for not having it, or urged to get more of it?

 

Then there is the problem that so often results from replacing justice with the tyranny of works righteousness. The view that faith = rewards can cause a great deal of hurt in our world. Too many have used these faith stories of Mark to proclaim that your fortune and health depend on the quality of your faith. That means that if you are sick, even with a fatal illness, you will get well as long as you have faith. All you have to do is believe. More strongly. Whatever problems you have, all you need to do is have stronger faith and God will make them go away.

 

What is so damaging about linking faith to health and worldly success is that this implies that any tragedy, misfortune, or burden in your life is your own fault. If you had strong enough faith, all your problems would all disappear. And so those caught in life’s most desperate circumstances get no sympathy, but rather hear the message that whatever has happened to them is actually their own fault. If they had faith it wouldn’t happen. And so those most desperately in need of the love and compassion that Christ commands us to give, instead get condemnation.

 

Finally, there is the problem exposed by my trustwalking camper. There are times when a powerful faith doesn’t make things better, it makes them worse. There are way too many examples of that from our own world:

 

In the late 1880s the Lakota Indians were told that the tables were about to turn on their desperate lives. A new era was coming when the white man would disappear and the bison would return and they could go back to their way of life. All they had to do was have faith. Those who believed the strongest and most fervently wore ghost shirts into battle. They believed that these shirts could deflect bullets and make them invincible.

 

 

Passionate faith. Where did it get them? Nowhere.

 

In the late 1970s, one of my assignments working as a microbiologist was to monitor government testing of a drug called laetrile, made by a Wisconsin company from apricot pits. The producers of this drug touted it as a miracle cure for cancer. Families clinging to whatever threads of hope they could find grabbed at these claims. Despite scanty evidence that the drug had any effect, many became true believers. Those with the greatest faith spent large amounts of money and bypassed conventional treatment in favor of this new produce. Their faith produced no reward. Extensive testing determined that laetrile has no effect whatsoever on cancer, no matter how strongly you believe in it. Passionate faith got them nowhere.

 

In the late 1990s, employees of Enron believed passionately in a company that promised phenomenal growth. They trusted their lives and their economic security to the company. Those whose faith was the strongest invested the most, and lost their entire life’s savings when the company collapsed. Passionate faith got them nowhere.

 

We see this happening time and again in all fields, but most devastatingly in religious life, where powerful faith leads to hardship, pain, ruin, and death. The Jonestown tragedy, the Waco debacle with David Koresh, the jihadist suicide bombers of the Middle East. No one has greater faith than these people. Where did their passionate faith get them?

 

            We look at all this, at the dark history of strong faith in our world, and we can’t help but be a little skeptical about going off the deep end with this faith business. Jumping into a situation purely on faith seems a dangerous and foolish thing to do.

 

            Are you totally confused now by what this story of Jesus healing is telling us? I admit this bit about faith and healing is something I have wrestled with a great deal. I struggle to figure out what faith is, where it comes from, how much I have, and what I’m supposed to do about it the faith that I have.

 

            I find myself looking for answers about faith in two places. One of those places is the Bible, and I suppose it would seem funny to a nonChristian that I base my understanding of faith on an object of faith. I believe that God speaks to us through the word and so I have faith that the Bible will help me understand faith. I don’t know exactly where that faith comes from. I don’t claim that belief as a particular talent or virtue. I’m a generally cautious and skeptical person and look carefully at evidence before I decide anything. But the evidence I’ve seen in my life says that this book is a place where I can put my trust.

 

            So I turn to this book, and as I read through these stories of faith in today’s Gospel, one key statement jumps out at me. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed.”

 

 

            That statement jumps out at me because of what I have seen in funeral homes in my short time in the ministry.

Death is hard on everyone, whether they have faith or not. Death and loss sicken the soul and rob us of peace, regardless of our faith or lack of it.

Everyone who has ever been prayed for, including Jairus’s daughter and the unnamed woman of this story, is either dead or will die. Faith is not going to change that.

 

The difference I’ve seen that faith makes is this. People who have no active faith, no real belief in a living God, no hope of eternal life, no relationship with God, and no connection with a community of believers, have nowhere to turn, no solid ground upon which to stand. They have nothing to protect them against bitterness and confusion. There is no healing for them, except for the passage of time, which works like novacain, deadening the nerves so that they can no longer feel the emptiness that is there.  

 

            People of faith experience healing. They may carry scars, deep ones, all of their lives, but they experience healing. Enough so they can go on, enough so that they can rebuild their lives, enough to rediscover joy and meaning in life, enough to see a future that is better, where God will wipe away every tear, and pain and sorrow will be no more.

           

            Your faith will not bring you riches or good fortune, although you may experience both, like Jairus, who happened to come across the master physician just when he needed him most. Your faith will not heal your every illness, although there may be times when you experience the joy of startling recovery, like the unnamed woman. Your faith will not prevent death, pain, or sorrow, although there will be times when you are spared these things.

 

Faith is a gift. Today’s Gospel tell why you have been given that gift—to make you well; so that you can go in peace and be healed. That is what faith can do. If faith does not do that, then your faith is misplaced. If faith raises false hopes and unrealistic expectations, then your faith is not a strength but a burden that will lead to disillusionment and despair.

 

If faith does not bring life and healing and peace to you and those around you, then your faith is no good to you or anyone else.

 

I said there was a second place where I look for faith, and that is in the lives of the saints. By saints I do not mean those officially certified by central authorities for membership in the church’s Hall of Fame.  I mean those ordinary people whose strong faith has brought healing, and peace to the world.

 

I have learned about faith from parents who worked tirelessly to lay the foundation for my relationship with God.

 

 

I have learned about faith from great aunts who humbly went about their lives seeking to serve and to celebrate what was good in the world.

 

I have learned about faith from a Sunday School teacher, who hung in there with a shamefully rowdy and disrespectful class long enough for us to see the love of God in her.

I have learned about faith from friends who freely and gladly give up their summer vacations to do what they can to promote the reign of God in the mission fields of Africa.

I have learned about faith from those who have suffered far more tragedy than I can imagine and yet keep going with grace and dignity.

I have learned about faith from those who accept society’s scorn and dedicate their lives to causes of justice and peace throughout the world.

I have learned about faith from you, from the many members of Salem who come here faithfully week after week, who give generously to the work of the church, and who step forward to carry Christ’s message of love into the community time after time.

 

During communion today, I encourage you to take some time to remember in your own thoughts and prayers, those who have shown you what true faith is. Those whose faith has brought healing to you and to the world.

 

Jesus came to bring life into the world; that you may know the joy of being connected in relationship to God and creation. Do you have faith that Jesus can accomplish that?

 

If so, then your faith will make you well. Go in peace and be healed.