St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
July 1, 2018
Year B, Proper 8: The
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43
We’ve Never Had It So Good
In
1952, the Democrat Adlai Stevenson ran for President using the slogan, “You
Never Had It So Good.”
He
lost the election, so I guess not enough people agreed with that sentiment.
“You
never had it so good.”
In
some ways, though, we’ve never had it so good, right?
These
days unemployment is very low – good for workers though not so good for us as
we try to find a new coordinator for the Triangle Park Community Center.
And,
as we’ve talked about before, we live in an age of miracles.
Thanks
to modern medicine, ailments that terrified us and would maybe have even done
us in just a few decades ago are now not such a big deal.
I
think about cataracts.
When
I was a kid, I remember the grown ups whispering about these mysterious
cataracts (I heard them as “Cadillacs” which made it even more confusing) as if
they were one the worst things that could happen.
And
the truth is, back then cataracts meant eventual blindness, unless you were
brave enough to undergo very delicate surgery and endure a long and difficult
recovery.
Now,
though, as some of our own parishioners have seen with your own eyes, it’s
become a routine, in and out of the office, procedure.
My
father had his second eye done a couple of weeks ago and now we’re getting used
to his face without glasses – and getting used to the fact that now he really
doesn’t miss a thing – we’ve got to watch those eye rolls!
Medicine
is now so sophisticated that I’m pretty sure doctors could easily take care of
whatever ailed the two very ill people we heard about in today’s gospel:
Jairus’ daughter lying near death, and the poor woman who had been hemorrhaging
for twelve long years.
We’ve
never had it so good.
And
of course, technology that was science fiction when I was a kid is now
commonplace.
Many
of us carry around cellphones way more sophisticated and powerful than Captain
Kirk’s communicator.
We’ve
never had it so good.
But.
But,
there’s always a shadow side, right?
The
dramatic, life-saving, life-transforming improvements in healthcare carry a hefty
price tag, costs that we’re still figuring out how to pay for as a society –
or, at least, should be trying to
figure out, anyway.
And,
the small computers that we carry around with us mean that we’re pretty much
always connected, on call all the time, and at the mercy of a never-ending
stream of news and information, much of it not so good, and some of it distressing
and even downright terrifying.
And,
maybe worst of all, this constant stream of news means we don’t stay focused on
any one thing for very long.
Just
this past Wednesday, I was wrapping my head around the stunning upset victory
in a New York Democratic primary of a twenty-eight year-old woman over one of
the most powerful members of Congress – I was just trying to learn her name
(It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by the way), just trying to learn about her and
her amazing story when the news came that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
was stepping down.
Boom!
And
then there was the massacre in the newsroom in Annapolis.
This
news and information overload is messing up our sense of time – things that happened
just a couple of weeks ago seem like they happened months ago.
Remember
the North Korea summit? Feels like six months ago, at least, right?
(It
was actually not quite three weeks ago.)
So,
today I’d like to rewind just a couple of weeks to the sudden and heartbreaking
and hard to understand suicides of two celebrities: the designer Kate Spade and
the celebrity chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain.
I
knew who they were but I didn’t know much about them, but I was struck by just
how stunned and upset so many people were by their deaths – and how their
terrible exits got us thinking about and talking about despair and suicide -
well, talking about that for a couple of days, at least, until we moved on to
the next thing.
The
suicide of these two who seemed to have never had it so good, led to some
reflection on the despair that seems to permeate our society and, tragically,
has led to an increase in suicide in the United States, up an alarming 25%
since 1999!
It’s
a complicated and intensely personal issue and I’m no mental health
professional, but it seems like at least part of this epidemic is caused by the
breakdown in community – we just don’t do things together like we used to – civic
organizations are in decline – many churches are emptying out – and more and
more of us are alone and we are despairing.
Jesus
lived in a time and place of despair, too.
Back
in the first century, the Jewish people chafed under the rule of an oppressive
empire.
Plus,
they had the all the usual things to worry about – getting enough food to
survive and the very real fear of illness and death.
Jairus
must have been in a panic about his daughter’s serious illness.
And
the hemorrhaging woman had endured so much suffering.
Yet,
despite what must have been very real despair, there they are in the community.
There they are in the great crowds gathered around Jesus, asking for and
receiving the great miracle of new life.
The
truth is, though, that Jesus didn’t physically heal all or even most of the
many sick people around him. I’m sure there were other sick children who died
and other hemorrhaging women who died of their illness.
And,
for that matter, both the daughter and the hemorrhaging woman eventually died.
So,
while the physical healing is obviously important, especially to these two
people and those who loved them, it’s not the most important thing.
The
most important thing is the spiritual healing, the hope for new life, the signs
of new life that people saw – and still see - in and through Jesus.
And
that spiritual healing nearly always – you know, maybe always – happens
in community, just as it did that day when Jesus revived a much-loved
daughter and stopped the bleeding of a long-suffering woman.
That’s
why the bishop carries a stick to keep the community together and that’s why I
spend a lot of time to trying to get you to come to church, despite the heat,
despite the tiredness, despite the despair – because the healing takes place in
community.
Like
many of us, I get down about much of what’s happening in our country,
especially when I spend too much time looking at Facebook or scrawling through
Twitter.
And,
like all of us, I’ve got my own stuff to worry about, too.
Sometimes,
I can feel the tide of despair rising from my belly to my chest, up into my
head, clouding my vision.
You
know that feeling?
But,
thanks be to God, so often when we’re together, I’m healed.
A
couple of weeks ago at the fundraiser dance which was so beautifully put
together (and raised nearly $4000 for our church), I looked around at this
beautiful diverse community smiling and laughing and dancing, and my vision
cleared.
We’ve
never had it so good.
And
on Wednesday night, as I sat through a seemingly endless City Council meeting,
I looked around at the other tired but persistent Jersey City Together members,
sticking it out, advocating passionately and intelligently and, finally,
persuasively, for affordable housing at Bayfront along Route 440, and my vision
cleared.
We’ve
never had it so good.
And
then on Thursday evening, despite the threat of severe thunderstorms and
sauna-like humidity and heat, a bunch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims and I’m sure
people of other faiths and maybe no religious faith at all, gathered downtown
praying and singing in solidarity with the parents and children separated at
the border.
My
favorite moment was when a Muslim family read for us a passage from the Koran.
As a man read in Arabic and then a woman gave the English translation, I
noticed one of the adorable little Muslim girls who was standing bravely with
her family. This girl was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Take Me to Grandma’s.
I’m Over It.”
I
thought, you know what, kid, I’m over it too, and suddenly my vision cleared.
We’ve
never had it so good.
Yes,
for many of us times are tough and they may very well get worse before they get
better.
We
may be tempted to despair.
But
my prayer is that, no matter what, we’ll stick together, because it’s here in
community that we are healed.
It’s
here that we just might see that despite everything, we’ve never had it so
good.
Thanks
be to God.
Amen.