[__ver-02__]
Homily – June 27, 2021 13th Sunday (Year B)
● Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 ● Psalm 30- ● ● 2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15 ● + Mark 5:21-43 ●
Title: Life Support
[__01__] It
seems to go without stating– though I will state this anyway – that the many
nurses, technicians, physicians and physician’s assistants and health-care team
members at all levels – made heroic sacrifices during the COVID pandemic, as
did first responders, those who clean the hospital and many essential workers.
They not only “introduced” caregiving
to the needy but sometimes “invented” new approaches, as they say on Star Trek,
they went boldly where no one had gone before. Carpenters and construction
workers were also involved, building or renovating new spaces to provide COVID
rooms and wards with the technology and machines needed.
Our world, in the height of the
pandemic, was on “life support” with many of us fearing we could end up on life
support.
We mourn our loved ones who have died
and even mourn for those whom we did not know personally, because every life
created by God is precious. We continue to pray for all places and people
afflicted by the pandemic. God, come to our assistance!
[__01-new__] In
1927, a baby boy named Sidney Poitier was born in Miami. This baby Sidney
Poiter would grow up to be the Academy Award winning actor and civic leader and
diplomat, Sidney Poitier.
He was on life support because his
birth came 2 months early / premature, 2 months before his mother’s “due date”.
Now, in 2021, it is not unusual for a
child born at 28 weeks or 7 months to survive and even thrive, but medical
science was less advanced in 1927 – nearly a century ago - and Sidney Poitier
was not expected to survive. He spent 3 months in the hospital.
The circumstances of birth tell us
something about our own mortality and fragility.
Sidney Poitier was fortunate to
survive. But, on some level, all of us were once very young, fragile, dependent
on our parents and very much blessed by the God and by others to survive and
live. Given the dependency of a baby on his or parents, we were all on “life
support”,
[__02__] A man in the Gospel is determined that his
daughter will live, and that her life will not be taken. He wants life support.
His
name is Jairus. Given that his proper
“BOLDFACED”name is recorded in the Gospel, we can gather he was someone of
importance.
His name is remembered and he comes to
Jesus saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come
lay your hands on her so that she may get well and live.” (Mark 5:23)
[__03__] Jairus,
a devout Jewish man and synagogue official, had heard of Jesus as a healer and
miracle worker.
Jairus’ demeanor of faith and
confidence CONTRASTS with the crowd’s dismissal and forgetfulness
of who Jesus is. The crowd told Jairus to just … give it up already…. “Your
daughter has died. Why trouble the teacher any longer?”
(Mark
5: 35)
The crowd does not credit Jesus with the
ability to support the girl’s life.
[__04__] When we read the Gospel, we are called to put
ourselves into the setting, into the action, and imagine ourselves there,
perhaps as a member of the crowd on the street.
What CREDIT would we give to Jesus, to God?
Have we ever said or implied… “well … don’t
bother Jesus or God with something..” ?
Have we ever said or implied:
·
God doesn’t hear my prayer. God doesn’t
listen to or care about my prayer…
·
God hears the prayers of other people, more
important people. I have to remind myself to fight against this attitude ..and
to remember what is written in the 34th psalm: The Lord hears the cry of the poor…. You are
that poor person. I am that poor person. We are making our cry heard.
[__05_-OMIT Sect. 05?_]
The
appearance and prestige of Jairus may make it even easier for us to think that
the Lord does not hear the cry of the poor.
After all, Jairus is remembered by name. He is a leader of
the community. He is, so to say, an “A-List” person meaning he probably has his
own parking space, maybe a garage too. If there is a “corporate ladder” in the
synagogue, he is near the top.
And, he gets what he wants…
[__06__] Then,
we read of the woman in the crowd, the woman with the hemorrhage, for whom
nothing is going right. She could use some “life support” or at least what we
commonly say is “affordable health care”
This woman would be a statistic at St.
Barnabas or Mountainside as “medically indigent”.
This woman was not on anyone’s A-list.
Yet, she was healed and has faith.
Sidney Poitier was not on anyone’s
A-list when he was born. His parents were farmers in the Bahamas and had come
to Miami to sell their produce (tomatoes) when his mother had to go the
hospital for labor and delivery.
[__07__] Right
now, you or I might be praying for a healing, intervention or miracle. We might
wonder – where is Jesus? Why will he not come and lay his hands on my spouse,
my child, my mother or father, or brother or sister or friend?
We may feel forgotten.
The miracle episodes in the Gospel are
meant not to draw attention to the miracle but to God who intervenes and draws attention
to Jesus who meets us in life and in death.
[__08__] In
this regard, the miracles are not just about “getting better”, but they are
about LIFE SUPPORT. We might imagine
that the woman the little girl have gone from fragility to fitness in a moment.
We might even think then that the
miracles are about survival of the fittest who are also the most faithful.
But, the miracles are not given to us
to teach us simply how to get better and live.
The miracles are also a lesson that we
are not in charge of our own living and dying and therefore to have faith in
God who is.
St. Paul wrote, “in life and in death,
we are the Lord’s….” (____)
[PAUSE]
[__09__] What
about parents – real life parents – who are faced with the serious illness or
health concerns of their own children?
They endure tremendous trauma and
anxiety, surely wishing that they could trade places with a child in the
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or at the imaging / CAT scan machine. Imagine
having a child on life support !
They would give up their lives for
their children and I have witnessed great faith in parents who have cared for
children who are sick and also for children who have died.
These mothers and father and families
recognize what Jesus is teaching us through the miracles that we have both a
body with MORTALITY …. And a soul with IMMORTALITY.
And, we are created and loved by God.
And, each of us, regardless of our
current medical chart or profile or abilty to afford the co-pay, we are called
to a correct understanding of both our MORTALITY and IMMORTALITY.
[__10__] I
noticed that actor Sidney Poiter showed up on several separate websites that I
consulted when I did my earlier Google search for “famous people who were born
prematurely”
Sidney Poitier is remembered then not
just for how he lived but for how he came into this world.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (B16) wrote that it is beneficial for us
to
recognize not only our fragility in and vulnerability in our physical bodies
and all things that can harm us physically. Yes, there is a delta variant of COVID,
but we also pray for healing of our soul and spirit and for God’s mercy for our
sins.
Admitting our need for God’s mercy and
forgiveness is also a move from an inward focus on self to an outward focus on
our own sanity and goodness.
Turning back to God whether at 4:15 to
5 pm on a Saturday for confession or any other time – I am around !! – is a way
for us to claim God’s mercy and also to be healed of whatever may be toxic or
troubling. Jesus is not only personal Physician those in the Gospel. He is ours too. There is no co-pay!
B16 wrote from “The Theology of Death”
in Dogma and Preaching:
This is paraphrased from:
[Source:
Benedict XVI, Dogma and Preaching, “On the Theology of Death, Section 2(b)
New Testament”, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, p. 250]
“for you and me, everything depends on correctly grasping the dying movement in our lives [which is not just about avoiding COVID] but rather recognizing that there are little humiliations and also major failures (of health, of physical or mental ability, death of loved ones) and once we recognize DEATH as a reality, we also recognize not that we imprisoned by our conditions but that we are truly free and we can be reborn. [In other words, we can change] That’s what it means to be a Christian"
.... and
also to recognize that Jesus has arrived here – for life support -- not only in
this church or at Jairus’ house, but also at your house.”
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