Grief, Money, and the Moments of Trust (Free Version)
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost- 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Mark 5:21-43
Our texts this week continue to meet us in the ordinariness of life: grieving over loss, giving of what we have as we participate in God’s work, and finding the ability our admit our weakness and points of desperation, placing our trust in God.
Our Old Testament passage (2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27) is David’s lament over the deaths of King Saul and Jonathan. David feels the gravity of the death of Israel’s king. Remember that Saul tried to kill David, and we might expect him to celebrate Saul’s demise. Instead, David intentionally composes a lament to honor Saul and Jonathan.
This text can be a powerful way for us to lead our congregations in grieving, especially when we have a complicated relationship with the one whom we’ve lost. David’s grief helps us to see that it is possible to honor a person and acknowledge the good in their lives, the important roles that they played, even if that person was generally grievous. That does not mean that we excuse their behavior or stuff our own pain. Biblical lament is truthful. Even in his own pain, David honors Saul as Israel’s king, thereby honoring Israel herself.
In our Epistle text (2 Corinthians 8:7-15) Paul is compelling the Corinthian church in regards to money. He wrote to them briefly in the earlier letter (1 Corinthians 16:1-4) about the impoverished church in Jerusalem and he is hoping that they will now set aside the full amount of money that they are going to contribute.
Paul remembers that, the year before, the Corinthians had been the first to give to the project and the first to have the desire to do so. But their initial enthusiasm is not enough. This project sounded exciting to them at first, but now it's time to really dig in.
The heart of this passage is the incarnation of Jesus (vs. 9). The doctrine of the incarnation and Paul’s encouragement to keep giving go hand-in-hand: “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” If God really stepped into our world, took on human flesh, died for us, and rose again, that means that everything is different, including how we give of what we have.
Our gospel text (Mark 5:21-43) is what’s called a “Markan sandwich”—telling one story and then putting another story inside of it.
Mark wants us to see something through the desperation of Jairus and of the woman with the issue of blood: rescue is found in the moment when we drop all pretense, when the pressure of life is stacked all around us, when we doubt and can’t even muster the faith to say anything, when we risk everything and we reach for him.
I love this story in Mark’s gospel because both of Jairus and the woman are in a place where they openly admit their need for God’s intervention, and this leads them to bold action. They know that their hope is not in pretending like everything is ok, but openly admitting their need. God makes beautiful things out of broken things.
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