My first grade teacher at Southside School could relate a song to just about anything.  If she looked out the window to find the sun peeking out from behind clouds, she would break into song, “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.”  This must be the way my brain works because with consideration to today’s Gospel text, Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy” came to mind.  Proper grammar aside, there are a few things in today’s story that just don’t come easy.  How are we to take these miraculous healing stories?  How are we to understand the words of Jesus, “Your faith has made you well, go in peace”?  And when our children fall sick, where is Jesus when we need him most?

If today’s story is reduced to this kind of simplicity, I think we will walk away disappointed.  Can such healing take place?  Well, anything is possible with God and there must be occasions when there is little else that explains what some people are able to overcome.  I have heard stories of cancer survivors who easily outlive the grim projections of what was originally supposed to be a life limited to months, weeks or days.  Miraculous?  It would surely be up to the survivor to determine whether or not faith had anything to do with it. 

There are then those who take today’s story quite literally.  While flipping through the channels last week, I saw a faith healer on television who claimed to have x-ray vision.  This special gift allowed the evangelist to diagnose the problem – a torn rotator cuff – as he proceeded to pray for, and lay hands upon a woman who was then knocked to the floor in the name of Jesus.  Was the power of the Holy Spirit present in that act?  I hope so.  What about the person with the rotator cuff problem… was her faith enough to make her well?

When it comes to miraculous forms of healing, we must ask, “In addition to faith, what else is required for such healing to take place?”  The man begging for his daughter to be healed is named Jairus and we learn that he is a leader in the synagogue.  We do not know too much about Jairus, but it is my understanding that his office required similar characteristics to those who claim various offices today.  Jairus possessed wealth, influence, authority and power.  It was not likely that Jairus would be found digging ditches.  In other words, he was not a man who would dare fall at the feet of Jesus.  He was above that.  Earlier in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus was recorded as having a few run-ins with the Pharisees, so it is also possible that Jairus would have been leery of going to someone who was not highly thought of by those within the synagogue society.  All of this doesn’t really matter though, does it?  This community leader has a daughter that is near the point of death.  Pride and status are set aside in place of a desperate hope.

And what about the woman in the text?  We are not told that she has any particular social standing although it is possible that she once did.  Throughout the course of her long ordeal, she saw many physicians and in doing so, spent all the money that she had.  Again, we can relate to this today.  It is said that in our younger years, we sacrifice our health in pursuit of wealth, while in our older years, we sacrifice our wealth in pursuit of health.  So it is that we find our ailing sister in today’s text: she is bankrupt and still bleeding.  Unlike some illnesses, her bleeding would be in conflict with Levitical Law.  She would be rendered as ritually impure and unclean.  Furthermore, in touching Jesus, she would make him unclean as well.  We might then consider this woman as being the exact opposite of the wealthy, powerful and religiously acceptable Jairus.  What the two shared was a desperate belief and hope.

In that world as well as today’s, we know who would typically be healed first, right?  Choosing between someone of means and influence as opposed to someone who is not supposed to be seen in public, the choice is obvious, right?  Yet, we find that it is the hemorrhaging woman that first discovers peace.  It is the woman who does not even ask for Jesus’ blessing that is first healed.  Let’s be honest, this is just not the way it works.  This is another part of the story that just doesn’t come easy.  Not only is the woman healed through her effort and her faith, but she is healed despite the fact that societal norms order her to the back of the line.  But as we should well know, Jesus is not really someone who cares about our societal norms.  Jesus goes against the grain in bringing about wholeness and healing.  Is there anyone other than Jesus capable of bringing about such a powerful change? 

I have been reading a book for the last several weeks that reminds me of this kind of radical behavior.  The book is Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma[1] and in it, Pollan presents very detailed methods in which food is produced today.  It is not a pretty story.  The book dedicates the first 100 (or so) pages to the fact that most of what we eat is derived from corn.  Corn is grown at staggering rates to feed the numerous animals that ultimately feed us.  And these animals do not simply eat corn.  They eat corn that, along the way, has several chemicals and additives blended in, along with hormones that make chickens, pigs and cows mature much faster.  Because these animals are crowded together by the thousands, antibiotics are also added to the feed so that the chickens, pigs, and cows do not become sick before the time they are processed.  Even though we are far removed from these scenes, this is nevertheless the process that allows our grocery stores to remain stocked with vast quantities and choices of food that we have long since taken for granted.  Even the popular organic market, Whole Foods, is a part of this large industrial process.

Most of the corn that is not used as animal feed is passed along to corporations like Archer Daniels Midland who buy up cheap government subsidized corn and process it into more expensive substances such as maltodextrin, xanthan gum, MSG, modified food starch, dextrose, and high fructose corn syrup.  All of these materials are derived from corn.  When you combine all the food that contains corn, including the animals, it turns out that our diet is, for the most part, dependant on that which is produced in states such as Nebraska and Iowa.  We should not forget that this process is also pretty dependent upon the need for oil.  It takes oil to make the fertilizer, to fuel the tractors, to process the corn, to feed the animals, and to ship the final products all over the country.  A green and environmentally responsible process it is not.

And this is only a fraction of the story.  If you are like me, you are tempted to throw your hands into the air and say, “What can I do about it?  This is just the way it is.”  This is the same mentality that carries so much apathy into the political realm of our country.  I myself have been tempted to say, “I have no influence or means.  What difference does my vote make?  Who will listen to me if I argue against bailouts with Bush or Obama?”  This is the same mentality that makes many people in downtown Mobile frustrated when homeless people gather around this church building in the mornings.  “They will always be homeless and annoying.  Why help those people who refuse to help themselves?”  This is also the same mentality that would have us quickly move the woman in today’s text to a clinic or anywhere that is out of sight and out of mind.  “What business does this woman have around here when we have this important man’s daughter hanging on for dear life?”

    Well, it doesn’t always come easy, but Jesus asks that we join him in going against the grain in bringing about wholeness and healing.  Back to the food industry. Who could ever hope to compete with the USDA, Super Wal-Mart, or ConAgra?  What good does it do to even try?  Omnivore’s Dilemma tells a story about a farmer in Virginia who refuses to participate in the world of processed, industrialized food.  This farmer describes himself as a grass farmer because he pays very close attention to the grasses and clover that his cows eat.  These cows graze as they were born to do, taking a bite at a time before moving on to greener pastures.  Behind the cows come the chickens.  This man invented a portable chicken coop that is moved into the pastures where the cows grazed only a few days earlier.  The farmer refers to his chickens as his sanitation crew.  Like the cows, they are allowed to do what chickens naturally do.  They peck and they clean up what was left behind.  In the process, they fertilize the field so that the grass will come back even stronger the next time the cows come around for a meal.   It goes on this way all over the farm.  Animals are allowed to do the things that come naturally to them.  As a result, they live healthy lives that require no chemical fertilizers, no chemical additives, no hormones, no antibiotics, and relatively very little oil.  If you want to sample the produce and meat that result, the guy won’t buy into the commercial, industrialized world by Fed-Ex’ing it to you.  You have to go there and pick it up.  This farm is the ideal of ideals.

Every day, there are others who are buying into this kind of culture.  Going against the mainstream, there are those who are changing farms over to more responsible and self-sustaining methods of growth and production.  Yesterday, Laura and I visited the farmer’s market downtown and bought goat cheese and ground beef that are locally produced and both hormone and anti-biotic free.  I gotta tell ya, it felt good.  Real food produced by people we spoke with, face to face.

This is just an example of what is happening in the food industry.  Just imagine what can happen in other areas of life, where Jesus is calling us to counter-cultural way of living.  We already know that this church feeds the homeless every morning, but why not create a central gathering place in downtown that includes restrooms and safe places for more individuals and families to sleep?  What if we helped them get back on track towards an education or a job?  Well, people are already doing this.  There is a group that meets in our library where there lives a discussion on how we can do more.  What about race relations?  What about public education?  What about the health of our children?  There are groups that work behind the scenes in joining Jesus in going against the mainstream.  These people follow Jesus in knowing that a higher power exists.  These kinds of people join Jesus in a counter-cultural way of life, where hope will always trump despair.  Maybe this is what it means to be healed. 

We know that it will not always work as it does in scripture.  The woman will not always be made better.  The child will not always live.  But Jesus will be there.  Jesus will not care about the crowd of doubt and the laughter that surrounds him.  Jesus knows that there will always be need.  The leader of the synagogue killed his reputation when he fell at the feet of Jesus, begging for his daughter to be made well.  The woman sacrificed religious code and made her illness all too public as she fell at the feet of Jesus in fear and trembling.  Jesus was there. 

What about us?  Are we willing to experience this kind of humility?  Are we willing to throw away the things that are holding us back?  Are we willing to get on our knees and beg for miracles?  If we are, then we should not remain on our knees too long.  There are already those who have faithfully chosen the counter-cultural way that leads to wholeness, healing and hope.  They need our help.  They, like Jesus, need us to believe.