The theme for General Council this year is “Risking Faith, Daring Hope.” I think it is a theme we need for the church as we look to the future. For the past decade and maybe more, churches everywhere are stuck in that place of lament – I’ve heard them and so have you. The lament is that longing for that time long since passed. “I remember the church was full every Sunday and there were 200 hundred children in Sunday school.” The place of church in the community has shifted. We are no longer the institution leading the way – advising government leaders or setting the cultural norms. I don’t really notice the change because the church the shaped my path of faith was a small church with a small Sunday school.
We need to move forward. The time to lament is over. Now it is the time for Risking Faith and Daring Hope. It is a time to be bold and have courage to live into a new way of being God’s people in the world. We have excellent examples in our gospel reading. Jairus, the synagogue leader and unnamed woman who dared to touch the hem of Jesus rob. Each in their own way risked their faith and dared to hope.
The story begins with Jairus. His daughter is sick and he is desperate to help her. He’s heard about Jesus, how teaches with authority and how he heals the sick. It says in the gospel that Jairus begged Jesus repeatedly, not a polite once but repeatedly saying, “"My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."(Mark 5:23) Jairus was wealthy and probably could have looked for help elsewhere. He could have turned to the local doctor or healer. Instead he risked everything and came to Jesus begging him to help his daughter.
Jesus sets out with Jairus but so does the large crowd. They are pressing in on Jesus from every side. In the crowd that day there was a woman who had been bleeding/ hemorrhaging for twelve years. She’d seen every doctor and every healer. She’d tried everything to make the bleeding stop. Nothing worked and she’d spent everything she had in search of a cure. Life was lonely for this woman. In Jesus’ day a woman who was bleeding was unclean. She was alone and isolated form the community. She couldn’t touch anyone for fear of making them unclean. For twelve long, lonely years she searched for hope, for a cure … for anything that would make it possible to be part of the community.
She’d heard about Jesus –whispers at first, then amazing stories of new life. She didn’t want much. She knew if she could just touch him her ordeal would be over. She dared, she hoped and without a thought about the taboo she joined the crowds pressing in on Jesus, reached out her hand and brushed the hem of his robe. She said to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” (Mark 5:29) And she was. The minute her hand touched his robe she could feel it stop and so could Jesus. Time stood still as Jesus turned and looked at the crowd and he said, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30) No one could believe what Jesus was saying because there were so many people gathered and pressing in on him. The disciples wondered why Jesus didn’t keep going to Jairus’ house.
With fear and trembling she came forward, fell down at Jesus feet and told him her story, her truth. Jesus could have been outraged that this woman made him unclean. Jesus could have ignored the feel of power draining out of him and kept on walking toward Jairus’ house. Instead he stopped. He drew attention to the woman and her plight. He listened to her whole truth – to her pain and to her fear. At the end of the story Jesus says to her, “"Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." (Mark 5:34)
The next moment a messenger arrives with bad news for Jairus, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" (Mark 5:35) But Jesus, whose is the hope giver says to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe." (Mark 5:36) When Jesus arrives at Jairus’ house, he leaves the crowds behind and goes to the place where the girl is laid. Hetakes her by the hand and says, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41) And she does.
Three people healed. They took a risk and dared to hope. It is the kind of message we need as a church both locally, regionally and nationally. The world has changed and the church must change along with it. The time we spend longing for the good old glory days of the church and lamenting the loses are keeping us trapped in the fear. There is no future in fear. We can’t move forward when our eyes are focused in the rear-view mirror. The church can’t remain frozen in time. Now is the time of risking and hoping. A friend posted a beautiful picture of mountains with the words, “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.”
There are so many reasons to hope. Jesus message of compassion, caring, justice seeking, world changing love is what our world needs right now. Whether we are big or whether we are small, we are called to share the message of love today. Increasingly, there are people who are suffering from loneliness or isolation and or fear and our church communities cab provide a healing balm. We are called to following in Jesus way of caring and compassion. We are invited to reach out and give hope to the most vulnerable in our community – the people who find themselves lost, or on the margins or hurting. Our churches can be beacons of hope.
Hope is what made it possible for Jairus to ask Jesus repeatedly to save his daughter. “Come touch my daughter that she might live.” Hope is what made it possible for the woman in in Gospel reading to reach out and touch the hem of Jesus robe – even though she was taking a huge risk.
As a church community we could have walked the path of fear. We could have closed our doors or sold our building to a developer. Instead we chose hope and risk. We hoped to help people, we hoped for a future, we hoped to find new ways to follow Jesus and we took risk. We dreamed big and we started something new. Would you believe that it was almost four years since we voted on the new vision to set up Cochrane Centre? Look at what risk and hope have accomplished here. Grounded in our faith, we dared to hope for a new way of being church.
It hasn’t been easy. The path hasn’t always been clear. There have been set backs. We spent longer than we expected “on the road” and when we came home we needed to get used to new space and new ways of doing church. Every time, I’m tempted to believe that price was too high and the challenges were and are too many, I remind myself – 15 people have homes because dared to hope, and risked living out our faith in a new way. For us locally the journey continues as we reimagine the ways we can be God’s people at work in our community sharing Jesus’ lifesaving, life giving message of hope.
As we continue risking faith and daring hope, we don’t do this alone, God is with us. As it says in Lamentations:
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lordnever ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; (Lamentations 3:21 – 23)
God is not finished with us yet! Let us risk faith and dare to hope trusting that God is with us each step of the way. Amen.