Two for the Price of One

Have you discovered Groupon yet?  Are you a Craigslist or Angieslist fanatic?  We all love deals.  And 2 for the price of 1 store ads get our attention.  In Mark 5: 21-43, Jesus offers a 2 for 1 healing deal.  First, Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, a powerful position of status in Jesus' day, runs to Jesus, falls to his knees (amazing!), and begs Jesus (unfathomable!) to heal his critically ill 12 year old daughter.
As Jesus, Jairus, and the crowd head toward Jairus' house, Jesus' journey is interrupted when a woman who's been bleeding for 12 years (note the 2nd recurrence of 12), touches the hem of Jesus' robe and is healed.  As Jesus' healing power flows out from him to stop her flow of blood, Jesus asks of the crowd, "Who touched my robe?"  Typical of how Mark portrays the disciples (often clueless), they ask Jesus incredulously, "Whaddya mean, who touched you?  We're in a crowd with lots of people jostling you.  Lots of people have touched you."  But Jesus persists.  The woman, realizing she is the one Jesus seeks, comes forward trembling.  Like Jairus, she kneels before Jesus and tells him the truth of her life.  It's a truth of trying doctor after doctor for healing, paying medical bills that impoverish her, being isolated from her community because of the uncleanness of her hemorrhaging, and her desperation.  It's a truth of believing that Jesus can heal her.  It's a truth of taking a risk of faith.  And Jesus responds, "Daughter, you took a risk of faith and now you're healed and whole.  Live well, live blessed!  Be healed of your plague." (Eugene Peterson, "The Message," Mark 5: 34)
Jesus then goes onto Jairus' house, where the family and disciples dismiss him with disbelief and grief.  For the daughter has died.  Jesus, accompanied by her parents and 3 disciples, goes to her room and raises her up (resurrection foreshadowing), with the earthily practical command to give her something to eat.
This is a rich story of connections and contrasts among people of faith:  Jairus, his daughter, and the woman with hemorrhage.  We who yearn for healing for ourselves and our loved ones mine these 2 stories for tricks of the healing trade.  What are the magical words for healing?  What's the right belief to gain healing?  Where do we go?  What must we do to be healed?  How do we effectively pray for healing?
I think these questions fall short of the sense of wholeness (shalom; wellbeing) that Jesus intends for all people.  Being touched by Jesus is first, a reminder of the physical humanness that Jesus embodies.  His touch is real and concrete.  He raises the daughter up by taking her hands.  Second, Jesus' touch is relationship, trust, and faith.  He doesn't let the woman with hemorrhage off with just touching his robe.  He demands a face to face encounter with her.  And this encounter includes truthtelling.
The healing life that Jesus gives is our creaturely life - the life of the blood circulating through our bodies. The healing life that Jesus gives is also the truthtelling that exposes to the light whatever blocks our healing.  When Jesus' gift of healing is not an end to disease or illness, it's time to look for our wholeness and wellbeing in both the kin-dom (our need to be vulnerable, open, and truthful about our need within our family of faith) and kingdom of God (where we are face to face with Jesus).
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley

Building Up Our Trust Funds

Do you have the luxury of being a trust fund baby?  Or do you worry about your trust fund for your children's or grandchildren's college education being eroded by the economy or by the KS Regents recent decision to raise KS colleges tuition?  Or perhaps you're one of the cynics who say that Social Security as a trust fund won't be solvent when you need it?  It's easy to fall into the role of "I'm the little guy up against greater forces than my assets - my talents - my abilities are able to confront and conquer.
David and Goliath is often viewed as a children's story about the little guy who took on a giant and conquered him with a slingshot and a smooth stone right to the "unprotected-by-armor" spot on Goliath's forehead.  Like David's Hebrew compatriots, we want to cheer whenever the little guy wins.  We love to identify with the come-from behind hero.  Although the story is lengthy (1 Samuel 17: 1-49), it's full of irony and little details that enhance the drama of the climax when Goliath falls down dead in one stroke of a slingshot.
So what were David's assets that he should come from behind and win fame and fortune in the eyes of Israel?  David became a hero, a household name, winning King Saul's daughter for his wife, and the next king of Israel after more exciting adventures.  But at the beginning David was a runt - the 8th son of Jesse - a rural remote family from nowheres-ville.  David was a shepherd (considered a lowly, menial job) and David carried food and supplies to his older brothers in Israel's army.  David was DEFINITELY NOT a trust fund baby!
David's major asset and his source of his power was his trust in God.  David referred to God as the God of the LIVING armies.  David's power was his faith.  Where and how David's faith was honed and strengthened, we have no details.  Did his mother teach him biblical stories of how God moved and breathed in his ancestors' lives?  While out on the hillsides shepherding his sheep, did David gaze at the stars twinkling overhead and see God's glory?  As he held a newborn sheep in his arms, did he marvel at the miracle of what God creates?  Did he call on God when he had to kill a lion or bear attacking his sheep and learn to trust in God through these experiences?  However David's faith was kindled and strengthened, David's trust was placed in the "armies of the living God."  There David found the courage and trust to take on Goliath as the armies of Israel cowered, paralyzed with fear in the face of Goliath the giant.
Where do we place our trust when we need courage?  Do we depend on our material trust funds that we have accumulated or have we built up our spiritual trust funds?  How do we trust that God will be with us as we take a step into something new?  What kind of bear and lions stand in our way of seeing God's beckoning?  Is our faith in a passive God or in the living God who calls us out of our fearful shortsightedness into bold new ventures?                          
                                                                                                    Grace and Peace,
                                                                                                    Pastor Shelley

A Little Bit Seedy

Cinderella, King David, and Jesus walk into a bar, each carrying a bag of mustard seeds…sorry, I don’t actually have a punchline for this made-up joke. But the Scriptures this week speak to all elements in that joke – unlikely selections, surprises of grace, seeds - and the Scriptures themselves are full of humor this week.

Read 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 and Mark 4:26-34.

Cinderella, a servant, becomes a princess and finds her true love. David, the runt of the litter, is chosen over all his brothers to be anointed as the next King of Israel. A tiny mustard seed, a bushy garden herb, is declared to be the greatest tree of all, representing the kingdom of God – instead of a majestic, noble cedar or a long-living oak tree. Growing up, I always wondered: what made Cinderella so special that she gets a fairy godmother? Where’s my fairy godmother? Likewise, I bet David’s brothers wondered if Samuel had finally gotten too old, if he had finally lost his marbles – what was he thinking, picking the youngest, the smelly one who worked with the animals? And I can only imagine the disciples’ faces as Jesus explained to them the common mustard seed shrub was actually really great, in fact the best of them all.

Listen to the laughter in the stories, and think about in your own life: where have you had surprises? Where have you been unexpectedly lifted up? Or unexpectedly passed over, after you had worked so hard for that promotion? Where have you seen a passing comment, something tiny, change someone’s life? Where have you felt that you have received undeserved blessings – or jealous that someone else seemed to get all the good luck?

This is what Jesus tried and tried to explain to his disciples – he even took them aside in private to unpack the parables. Grace – overwhelming grace – abundant grace – overflowing grace. Grace – it really is that simple. And this message comes from Jesus, a commoner born in a smelly stable, overcomes sin and death as the Messiah and King of us all. We don’t deserve Jesus as our Savior – and yet we, like the mustard seed, like the runt of the litter, are transformed into sisters and brothers of the living Christ. And if the church is a mustard shrub instead of a great tree, then we can more easily embrace our sisters and brothers who are in need of grace, our sisters and brothers who are on the outskirts of society, who have been rejected and excluded.

Maybe that is the punchline – Cinderella, King David, and Jesus walk into a bar, each carrying a bag of mustard seeds. The bouncer kicks them all out, declaring that they are just too seedy for the establishment. And all three gained their happily ever after on the margins of society.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Kate

The Family You Choose

Who is in, and who is out? Who is included, and who is rejected? Our kids have learned at VBS this week that no matter who you are, no matter where you go, no matter what happens, you can trust God. This theme comes out in our Scriptures this week as well. 

Read 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 and Mark 3:20-35.

So who is in and who is out? In Mark’s Gospel reading, Jesus rejects his family and the scribes – his family, who has known him his whole life, and the scribes, who share with Jesus their devotion to God and God’s commandments. Those who should be closest to Jesus are shown to be the farthest away.

The scribes are fearmongering and spreading gossip in order to undermine the miracles and the teachings that Jesus is doing throughout the area. His family is coming to take him away because they think he has gone out of his mind! Rather than getting defensive over the slander, or sulking about his family’s behavior, Jesus uses this opportunity as a teaching moment and as a chance to redefine what a family is - that his family is defined less by blood and more by obedience to God's will.

At Trinity, we continually add people to ‘the family you choose.’ We have embraced many children this week as our sisters and brothers at VBS, thanks to the dedication and hard work of so many volunteers. Through the Miscellaniality talent show this Sunday night at First Baptist, we are recognizing that Baptists too are our sisters and brothers, part of the family of Christ! With the addition of the Little Explorers in our space, we expanded our family and our love to include the children, their families, and the staff at TDC. It may have seemed a little ‘out of our minds’ to build a new extension in the economic recession – it may have seemed a little ‘out of our minds’ to take on this debt in order for these children to flourish and the staff to continue their joy of teaching.

As Trinity continues to seek the will of God, who will we next include in our sisters and brothers – who else will join us as we seek to follow Jesus the Christ? Are you ready to seem ‘out of your mind’ – are you ready to take a risk in order to glorify God, make new disciples, and share Christ’s love? Who in your life can you include, who else is outside that we can bring inside?

Let’s get ready to be a little crazy for God and bring more into our great, big, worldwide, family.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Kate