Sunday 28th June 2009
Psalm 130, Mark 5:21-43, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Waiting
Waiting…
I wonder what you think of waiting…
Waiting is a strange, poignant, emotional phenomenon
and a practical everyday occurrence.
Maybe as British we have a cultural view on waiting because we so often wait, and wait nicely in queues. Neatly.
The emotional side of waiting is the key in the production of literature, plays and films.
Brief Encounter, that classic British film, is essentially about tow people waiting for a train, and what happens to them during that wait.
I wonder if you remember the play waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot follows two days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themselves while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognise him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — anything “to hold the terrible silence at bay”.
Godot never turns up, it ends up with the fact that these men have been waiting hopelessly for a considerable time, and Godot does not show his face.
The first person we hear who is waiting in today’s passage is the Psalmist.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
The watch before dawn is the stuff of legend, the stuff of difficulty, the stuff of trauma. There is a fellowship of those who sit and wait in the night, they sit and watch for danger, they sit beside the ill and the dying, they tend to animals or small children, they guard armies or cities, and it is the watch the waiting for the dawn which is the important thing.
When the dawn comes, it brings renewal of hope. But in the last bit of the watch there must be a temptation to share the doubts with the philosopher David Hume, that just because, we have always seen the sun rise in the morning, but we cannot show that it must do so tomorrow. For all we know, it shall not.
And so the watchman waits for the morning, waiting for the clarity of light, the warms of the Sun the companionship of others, but the psalmist waits in hope for the lord.
What is hope?
If I asked you to define hope where would you begin.
Oscar Wilde reflects the Psalmist’s thoughts when he says that
“all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
“all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Hope isn’t some dream that one day things might get better.
Hope isn’t David Hume’s questioning that the sun might rise, true hope knows that the sun will rise, that God will smile on us. The Psalmist knew this,
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
And so we wait in hope.
Hope is knowing that unlike Godot in the play, God will turn up.
In the gospel passage we find that the woman is waiting, she has been waiting a long time.
She has been waiting for God to turn up as they say in the states, the longest time.
This woman had been unclean for 12 years, unable to take part in the normal patterns of life, for twelve years, we don’t know anything else about her but commentaries suggest that because of the bleeding she would likely to have been unmarriagable or divorced. So vulnerable, and we hear that she had been suffering at the hands of the doctors.
This should be a woman who is hopeless, she has no right to hope, her life is truly hopeless and as she wait, as one with no hope. Because what hope could there be for her?
No hope of children, no hope for a marriage, I wonder how she supported herself this woman for whom even prostitution wouldn’t have been a viable option…
And so she does something daring, she feels her waiting is over and she comes up and touches Jesus. When she touches Jesus she should be making him unclean, anyone she touches she makes unclean, she can’t make God unclean. The only possible outcome from this encounter is that God makes her clean.
I don’t know how often I have heard people say ‘I am not good enough to come to church or be a Christian’ I sometimes find it hard to know where to begin with contradicting that statement, but maybe this would be a good place to start. This woman comes up to Jesus, untouchable, unclean she has been waiting for so long, in Jesus she sees enough hope and reaches out to touch him to see if this hope is real.
She has spent twelve years lying in the gutter, and now she believes that the stars are now close enough to reach and she reaches out, and is healed.
She has waited, and now Jesus waits.
Then follows a short but very tense wait, Jesus is not going to go until he knows, he is not going to go until this person has come to come and he has spoken to the person who has touched him.
I wonder what the woman expected, harsh words of declamation, a condemnation of how could someone who is so unclean dare to come into a crowd.
33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Others have been waiting,
Jesus has made them wait and their wait has been agonising.
Jairus has just seen Jesus’ heal this woman, this untouchable woman, and at home, his beautiful daughter has been lying dying and then they turn up and say that because Jesus’ has made them wait it is too late.
It’s too late, don’t bother Jesus any more, it’s too late, and hope has gone. Jairus’ wife has been waiting, she is now convinced her daughter is dead, and Jesus’ gets to the house and finds a commotion, people crying and wailing, these people who believe that hope is gone, hope has fled that house, there was waiting with hope, but the hope is gone. They had given up hope and turned to despair, they had stopped looking for the stars, instead they were looking at the gutter.
Jesus sends them away, he dismisses them. He goes and wakes up the girls and tells them to give her something to eat. I hope, I so hope that it was good Jewish chicken soup. Apparently there is clinical proof that the way traditional Jewish chicken soup is cooked is good for you.
So this morning what is it that we hope for?
Are we hoping to win the lottery? Are we hoping that we will be rich, that money will solve our problems? Are we hoping merely for a good nights sleep? Are we hoping that we will feel better? Are we hoping for healing for ourselves, or for someone we know?
Whatever it is that we hope for we do just that live our lives in Christian hope.
Jesus promises us at the end of Matthew’s gospel that he will never leave us or forsake us.
We may feel that we are lying in the gutter but Jesus promises that however remarkable it may seem we can reach out and touch him, we can reach out and touch the star we are looking at any time.
This encounter itself will bring hope, a sure and certain hope, and that sure and certain hope will affect how we wait. It will affect how we wait for the bus, it will affect how we wait for news, it will affect how we wait for anything.
Jairus’ family had to wait for Jesus’ but they found out that when you hope in Jesus’ that hope is not in vain.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.