Pentecost 5

Pentecost 5 (Mark 5:21-43) “Do not fear, only believe.”

Jesus frequently contrasted fear with faith.

Faith is not magic. Magic is based in the false belief that by discovering some secret knowledge we can use that knowledge to acquire power over nature, other people, even God. Magical thinking is grounded in the distorted belief that the universe revolves around me. Many children have this belief. One developmental task we all share is to grow beyond this radical and impossible individualism.

Faith is not irrational. Modern people, both secular and religious, speak of faith in terms of individual opinion and irrational belief. Many people confuse wishful thinking or fanciful thinking with faith. We sometimes hear religious people say: you can’t explain it; you just have to believe it. Others react to this approach and equate superstition with religious faith.

Faith is not a blind leap into the dark. The invitation to faith comes from particular human beings such as Moses, the prophets, the apostles. The invitation is grounded in their observation of the world and their own personal experience of God at work in the world. Faith is a response to the world, other people and our own observations and experiences.

Faith is not individual. It is not solely and exclusively about me. It is personal and it is corporate. It exists in the context of a larger community and produces a result in the context of a larger community.
Moses and the prophets teach that God created us as particular members of a unified community. The poet priest John Donne commented on this aspect of humanity when he wrote: “no man is an island.” We are all interconnected, interdependent and interrelated.

The Bible is very clear: it does matter what you believe. It also matters how you believe. Belief produces an attitude about life that forms the choices we make.
Atheists sometimes compare faith in God with belief in leprechauns, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Faith is not the same as belief. People believe all sorts of things, some of which are irrational and have no basis in the world as we experience it. Belief is often a reaction to fear. Faith is relational. Faith is a response to love.

The individuals in the two stories in today’s gospel readings had many beliefs about themselves, other people and God. The woman experienced the failure of medicine to heal her. She had come to believe she was defined by her illness. She had lost hope and so she could not embrace faith.

The family of the dead girl believed dead was dead. Once you are dead there is no hope. Without hope there can be no faith.
The Real Presence of the love of God in Jesus challenged these beliefs. By his own actions Jesus offered a new set of possibilities. That new set of possibilities offered a glimmer of hope.

For the woman, hope produced faith. It was not an abstract intellectual faith. It was not an irrational superstition. It certainly was not some secret knowledge that would produce power. It was Jesus.

The woman heard of Jesus. She observed his actions. She heard his words. She concluded that the physical evidence was overwhelming. Jesus healed people. In fact, Jesus healed everyone who came to him.

She still lived with many false beliefs. Those false beliefs shaped her view of God, other people and herself. Those false beliefs produced fear. She feared offending the dignity and majesty of Divine Perfection with her problem. She feared offending the social conventions of the time that prohibited a woman from approaching a man, speaking to him, touching him. She feared the religious law that defined her as being ritually unclean because her illness involved bleeding. She feared that she was too lost in sin to merit healing.

Jesus inspired hope that despite these fear based beliefs she could be healed. The woman overcame her beliefs as she looked at Jesus. She moved beyond belief and surrendered her fear as she embraced faith.

She placed her faith, her abiding trust, in a person not a program, a law or an institution. It was still a faith mixed with the distortions of false belief and fear of punishment. But, it was enough. She secretly touched the hem of Jesus’ robe and she was instantly healed.

She had reached out in faith and entered into the Real Presence of Faith. The Real Presence of faith is Jesus himself.

Jesus completes the healing when he publically proclaims she is well. This is a vital step forward in faith. Faith is not just individual or private. Belief can be individual and private. Faith is public. It is corporate. It is a new life and a new way of living in a set of three primary relationships.

The woman entered into that new life as she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. She began the new way of living as Jesus said to her publically for all the crowd to hear: Go in peace. Walk in peace. Live in peace.

What beliefs undermine your faith? What beliefs have you grown up with and chosen to accept into your mind and heart and will that result in fear? Where do you confuse individual private belief with a personal and public faith in the Living Lord Jesus Christ?

It does matter what you believe. Jesus invites us to make a real choice to embrace faith. Jesus himself is the subject of faith. As the subject of faith Jesus meets us in our deepest need and darkest fear. It is there that Jesus reminds us: Do not fear, only believe.