Today we continue in a series of sermons based on this phrase “I’ve been meaning; to ask …”
The question for today is, “I’ve been meaning; to ask where does it hurt?”
I can’t think of a more timely question.
Where does it hurt? Where DOESN’T it hurt at this time? I don’t mean to trivialize the question for today because I believe it is an important
question. Seriously, though, who does not have some form of hurt right now.
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash site in Pennsylvania. Approximately 3000 souls were lost 20 years ago.
As the U.S. Forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan we continue to see people desperate to leave and awaiting assistance. In the 20 years of war since the attack on the United States more than 900,000 souls have been lost.
In 17 months 40.5 million cases were reported and 652,000 deaths were attributed to Covid in the United States alone.
For those who are quick to add sums that is about 1,555,000 deaths in 3 events alone in the past 20 years.
Those sums don’t take into account suicides, death by natural cause, by gunshot or other forms of murder, or accidents.
Those are deaths reported in the news media. This does not take into account the pain and hurt associated with homelessness, hunger and food insecurity, domestic violence, alcohol and drug addictions, nor those who are jobless or overburdened with tuition loans for degreed fields that aren’t hiring or in fields where the pay has plummeted through the years.
Yes, there is plenty of pain and hurt to go around. Surprisingly a lot of that pain and a lot of that hurt rests on people who we pass on the street every day. Those people we pass by are represented today in the two stories from the Scriptures this morning.
Hannah, the wife of Elkannah, was barren and unable to conceive a child. That is a painful situation for many in today’s world as well. But in the times of the story told here a barren woman was seen by society as of less worth, less usefulness to her husband and their family. For a family to seek out a living it required multiple family members, usually through the birth of multiple children, to tend the flocks, work the fields, and make the bare minimum to get by financially. Let alone the loss of a future generation through offspring.
Hannah’s pain was compounded by the children Elkannah’s second wife was able to have. She tormented Hannah about her successful childbirths and the resulting sons and daughters she gave to Elkannah increasing his ability to be successful. In the stories from Mark, Jairus pleads with Jesus to go with him to his house to heal his daughter who is on her deathbed.
In the story, Jesus does not hesitate to go with Jairus to see if he could heal the child and alleviate the family’s fear and pain. On the way there a swarm of people began to follow along, pushing in from the crowd all around Jesus and Jairus and the disciples. In the midst of that unwieldy group of people, Jesus feels part of his healing power leave his body even as he does not feel a touch. He turned to ask “Who touched my clothes?”
Can you imagine what everyone is thinking? Really? He can tell someone touched his clothes? Who near him isn’t touching his clothes?
But this was different. A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years wanted desperately to be healed, to have the uncleanliness stigma removed from her. And in her faith and in her belief that Jesus could heal her she thought “If I can just touch his clothes I can be healed.” And immediately as she touched his clothes she knew the bleeding had stopped. But now, Jesus knew as well.
She had to confess. And she fell down in front of Jesus and told him what she had done and why. Jesus could have been angry. Or worse yet, what if his healing powers were somehow drained in this incident? But Jesus knew. “Your faith has made you whole. Go in peace and be healed from all that has hurt you.”
As she leaves someone from Jairus’ household arrives to tell him the news that his daughter has died. “You have no need to bother Jesus now. Come on home.” But Jesus does not leave and continues on with Jairus to his house.
You can see in those stories that there was so much pain. Twelve years of living as an outcast, a person unable to become clean enough to live with her family. A father willing to give anything an outside chance to save his daughter from death.
There is nothing new about hurt and pain. It has been around forever. And it reaches far and deep and wide and touches each of us at some point in our lives. It is hard to conceive that someone lives long without experiencing loss and illness and pain and hurt.
Since we are all, each one of us, capable and prone to experience pain and loss in our lives, the experience and universality should lead us to check in with others, to ask the question “where does it hurt? Where is your pain? Where is your heartbroken? Where are you devastated or lost, or feel so alone?
In sharing the commonality of pain and hurt, just as we shared in common the experience of being created by God to be loved and to love, we should be able to see in others a shared form of compassion for those who are hurting. We don’t all hurt at the same time. Nor do we experience pain and loss alike. But each of us has or will experience this kind of pain and hurt at some point in our lives. In acknowledging our pain we can be freer to acknowledge the pain of others.
In sharing our vulnerabilities and our pains we are able to also hear the stories of healing from our woundedness.
In acknowledging her pain Hannah was able to speak to God and to plead for some form of relief. And it was granted.
In acknowledging his helplessness in helping his daughter Jairus was able to convince Jesus to come to his assistance.
In being bold enough to consider she had nothing to lose by simply reaching out and touching the clothes of Jesus and he walked by the unclean woman was healed immediately and completely by her faith.
Yes, pain and hurt are universal. And right now the pain and hurt are almost universally palpable. We can feel the pain. We can see the pain and the frustration in our communities, our schools, our churches.
Just as pain and hurt are universal so is our capacity to believe, to have faith, to listen to others about their pain and hurt, and to invite them to join us in this experiencing of waiting for and trusting in God to heal our hearts, our bodies and our souls.
The pathway to healing is to acknowledge our hurt by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to enter the conversation with others. Our pathway to healing is to begin the conversation. “I’ve been meaning to ask where does it hurt?” To wait and hold space for others as we find the breath and the words to speak about our pain and hurt. And to compassionately commit to walking with others on this common path toward a goal of relief and release from pain and hurt.
It takes each of us, all of us, together to hold these conversations.
May God give us the grace, the compassion, the vulnerability, and the faith to sit with one another and share.
Amen