Being Loved into Life: The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith

Just about three weeks after our daughter Eliza was born, some 26 years ago, Melissa had to go back into the hospital because of some serious post-partum complications that threatened her life. It was a terrifying time that I have touched on before from this pulpit. Marshall, our oldest child, was only three years old at the time and what was supposed to be the joyous celebration of the birth of a new sister for him and a new daughter for us, quickly became a nightmare.

The doctors were doing everything they could for Melissa, but no one knew exactly what was happening to her body or why it was happening. I was trying to care for a toddler and a newborn while trying to be present for my wife. As I look back on those long days, I think they were some of the most challenging days of my life. I remember one evening coming home from the hospital with both Marshall and Eliza in tow and feeling completely exhausted and overwhelmed. Up until that point, I had been keeping the panic at bay, trying to be the strong one, but I could tell I was losing that battle.

After getting both children fed and cleaned up for the night, I remember I was so exhausted and afraid that when I put Eliza down in her crib, I was too scared something else terrible might happen to get into my own bed, so I lay down on the floor next to the crib and stared at her for the rest of the night. It was during those long hours of darkness that the last of my defenses melted away. I thought I knew what it meant to love my wife and my children. But laying there in the darkness, feeling raw and helpless, stripped of any illusion as to my own power, I experienced a love so strong, so overwhelming, an aching in my heart so intense that the word love took on a depth of meaning that I had never imagined. I LOVED my family, I would do absolutely anything for them, but I could not fix this situation. Instead, stripped of all my self-assuredness, I knew that it was all up to God. In my total weakness, I knew that the wellbeing of my family was completely dependent on God’s grace.

In our reading this morning from the Gospel of Mark, we meet two other characters who find themselves stripped of any illusion as to their own power and completely dependent upon God’s grace. First, there is Jairus, the powerful leader of the synagogue whose twelve-year-old daughter is dying. Jairus is a man of wealth, he is admired by his community, respected, people look up to him. I can only imagine the number of doctors, healers, and rabbis Jairus must have taken his daughter to see in order to heal her. He had all the resources in the world, but no matter what he did, the little girl only got worse. Now imagine the desperation Jairus must have felt to approach Jesus. Jesus was a nobody, a nothing, a strange itinerant preacher looked down on by the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the other religious leaders of the day. He was not someone a man of Jairus stature should have anything to do with.

But it is amazing what love will make us do. Jairus’ love for his daughter completely trumped his concern about his own standing in the community. Getting help for his dying daughter was all that mattered. If Jesus could do something to help her then he could care less what folks at the synagogue thought. So Jairus kneels at Jesus feet, in front of all to see, completely stripped of any illusion as to his power and importance and begs Jesus to help him. “My little daughter is at the point of death,” he says. “’Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So Jesus went with him.” Now, we know how the story ends; Jesus heals the little girl. He goes to Jairus’ home, lays hands on her, and says Talitha cum – little girl get up.

But before that part of the story unfolds, another character enters the picture. This time it is not a person of wealth and power, but someone considered an outcast and a pariah, a woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelve years. For twelve years she had undergone numerous treatments and spent all her money, but the doctors could not heal her. For twelve years she had been labeled ritually unclean because of the blood flow. For twelve years she had been unable to go to Temple, unable to touch or be touched by another person lest they become unclean as well. She is utterly poor, embarrassed, and vulnerable – life has beaten her to a pulp – but she believes that Jesus can help her. So, she worms her way through the throng of people who are following Jesus as he makes his way to Jairus’ house and touches the hem of his robe. Immediately she is healed, and I imagine she hoped that she could sneak her way out of that crowd the same was she snuck in, but Jesus will have none of it. Allowing himself to be interrupted by this “nobody” while he is on his way to help a “somebody,” Jesus whirls around and demands to know who touched him. When the woman confesses what she has done, Jesus doesn’t scold her or call her unclean, rather he blesses her with dignity, he calls her daughter – “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

When I was lying next to Eliza’s crib that night stripped of all my pride and pretense, knowing there was nothing I could do to help Melissa, I felt totally vulnerable and, in that vulnerability, I experienced a depth of love I had never known before. In our lesson for today both Jairus and the unclean woman allowed themselves to become vulnerable. Jairus let go of his status and his reputation to find healing for his daughter, the woman touched a rabbi and risked severe punishment to find healing for herself. Like Jesus, they were both boundary crossers. They crossed the boundaries of class, gender, religion and social status to get to Jesus. They were willing to risk whatever they had to find the healing they needed. As the Rev. Jen Nagel writes, “Jesus entices us to risk vulnerability all in the trust, the promise, that healing is possible. Jesus goes to the hardest, most painful places, even to death itself, in order to create a new reality. Jesus crosses the borders, the lines, and he invites us to cross them, too. Today, this week, how will we be people who cross the lines, the borders, the prejudices? How will we be part of the healing?”¹

Do you remember Zacchaeus, the tax collector who climbed the sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. There is an old story about Zacchaeus, told by James Moore, that says how in later years Zacchaeus rose early every morning and left his house without telling anyone where he was going. His wife, curious, followed him one morning. At the town well he filled a bucket with water, and then he walked until he came to a sycamore tree. There he began to clean away the rubbish from around the base of the tree. Having done that, he poured water on the roots and stood there in silence, with both hands on the trunk of the tree. When his wife came out of hiding and asked what he was doing, Zacchaeus replied simply, “This is where I found Christ, this is where Christ loved me into life.” Moore goes on to say, “I can just imagine that for the rest of their lives, that woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe that day on the street and the daughter of Jairus who was raised up in that room in her home, continually brought people back to those sacred spots and said, “This is where I found Christ! This is where Christ loved me into life!”²

I love that phrase – loved me into life. My friends, have you been loved into life by Christ. Have you ever been so vulnerable, so in need that you knew you were completely dependent on the grace of God? I have no doubt that my Melissa was loved into life by Christ all those years ago in the hospital. Remember, there isn’t a boundary that Christ won’t cross to reach you, to heal you, to give you the hope and the strength that you need to make it through the trials of this life. He may not answer every prayer just the way you would like, but he will answer. More to the point, who are those people in your orbit who need to be loved into life. Where can you cross boundaries and borders to be a healing force in someone else’s life?

As we head into the 4th of July holiday, I think our country is in need, now more than ever, of people who will cross boundaries and borders, politics and party, to be a healing force for others. People who are willing to be vulnerable enough to admit what they don’t know so that they might learn what someone else knows; people who are unwavering when it comes to telling the truth, but people who always try to speak the truth in love. The soul of our nation is wounded and raw right now, but it need not stay that way. If we work together for healing, I know we will find it. As Jesus said to Jairus on that fateful day, “Do not fear, only believe.” May God grant us the grace to do so. Amen.

¹ Jen Nagel, July 1, 2018, University Lutheran Church of Hope.
² James W. Moore, Lenten Series on Mark, sermons.com