[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage 510, Pentecost 4, July 2, 2006

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

NOTE: This Starter Sermon is being sent early. Please note the date.

PENTECOST 4 -   (July 2, 2006)

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

My Soul Waits

Sorrow knows no season.  Here on the Sunday before the Fourth of July, 
we cry out of the depth for Saul and Jonathan, for the Christians in 
Jerusalem, for Jairus’ daughter and a chronically ill woman.  But, we 
don’t want to do this.  Oh, we might sprinkle references to painful 
reality in our worship service, but nothing to take away the impression 
that we are like a beer commercial --  all young, healthy and having a 
great time.  We want people to come back next Sunday, after all.  If we 
dwell on the oppression of the Christians in Jerusalem, we might be 
labeled “bleeding heart liberals.”  If we pause on Father’s Day by the 
side of a father who has lost a child in Iraq, we might appear soft on 
terrorism.  If we identify with people who are sick day after day -- 
even for twelve years -- we might seem to belie the healing power of 
Christ.  To mourn the death of a loved one is right out -- not in 
public worship, not even at funerals.  So, where do people go with 
their grief, with their loss and with their bodies of death?  To a beer 
commercial?  To a beer?

David is about to experience the loneliness at the top.  He is king 
without rival, but he laments the death of his rival.  There was shade 
for him beneath the shield of Saul even when it turned against him.  
Now there is nothing but the glare of the sun, the glare of the 
expectations of a million citizens.  “How the mighty have fallen,” and 
one day he will fall too.

  “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were 
you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”  
(1 Samuel 1:26)   There is so much human anguish beneath this sentence 
that I dare not look beneath it.  “Passing the love of women?!”  What 
does one do with such a love, doomed as David’s was? Shame on you, 
Paul, for suggesting that my bounty today might be an obligation to 
respond to my brother’s poverty!  I got this money the hard way.  I’m 
going to have some fun.  I’ve earned it.  Community is only important 
as the setting for enterprise.  The very idea that resources ought to 
flow to the point of human need, and to say it so close to a national 
holiday -- where is your devotion to God and Country?

“He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, 
and be healed of your disease.’" (Mark 5:34) Was it only after twelve 
years of illness that she had faith, or was Jesus referring to her 
faith over the twelve years?  Jesus says that her faith has made her 
well, but then adds his blessing “be healed of your disease.”  Is this 
just poetic parallelism, or is more implied?  Is there a distinction 
between “well” and “healed”?  Her faith has made her well.  Jesus’ 
power has healed her.  Can one be well and not healed?

If you are not Jairus, and your child has died . . . If you called upon 
Jesus day and night both before and after the child’s death, what does 
the story of Jairus say to you?  What does the preacher’s rush to 
celebrate the faith of Jairus and the power of Jesus elicit in you?  
The world rushes to instant gratification.  Is there instant 
gratification in Jesus?  If there were -- if we could convince the 
world that there were, we could have the world; but what does it profit 
a person to gain the whole world at the cost of his own soul?  There 
was instant gratification for Jairus in the context of this story, but 
we don’t know how long the girl lived beyond that day.  We don’t know 
if her life was joyous or tragic.  This isn’t a story about a family 
that got lucky.  This is a story confessing Jesus as the Lord of life.  
It is Jairus’ relation to God in Jesus, it is the daughter’s relation 
to God in Jesus, it is our relation to God in Jesus that is crucial 
here.  I was looking for the return of my child when I called upon the 
name of Jesus, and what I got was Jesus.  Am I disappointed?

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.  Lord, hear my voice! Let your 
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! . . . I wait for 
the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;  my soul waits for the 
Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who 
watch for the morning.”  (Psalm 130: 1-2, 5-6)

May these thoughts strengthen you.



McGregor’s Open Letter to Fellow Pastors
(an e-mail service)

[See Web Page address below for a Children’s Message coordinated with 
these lections.]

Roland McGregor, Pastor
Asbury United Methodist Church, Albuquerque New Mexico, USA

http://www.webspawner.com/users/McGregorPage/
http://www.webspawner.com/users/ChildPage/

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