The first anniversary of Richard’s death was yesterday. There was a gathering here, which if you didn’t make it, you can imagine had some tears but also joy in people coming together. This is what happens when we gather to grieve, remember, and hold each other close. I’m so grateful for Barbara and Jeremy for putting this event together for the sake of all of us. I’m happy to report that they are on vacation this week, getting out into the woods and connecting with God and all that is through the gift of our natural world.

 

One of the things that people sometimes say after a young person’s death that gives me pause is, “What a waste.” I don’t know if anyone said this about Richard, but we easily could have. And yet, I have trouble with this because I just don’t believe that anyone’s life is a waste. Of course, it can make you crazy to think about all the good that should have been that didn’t happen. We can be deeply grieved, enraged, and confused by it all. But that doesn’t make someone’s life a waste. Richard’s life on this planet was beautiful and whole, even as it was way too short.

 

Buried in this comment is the assumption that we waste our lives unless we do enough, perhaps do something spectacular or something we deem worthwhile so that our lives have meaning. Of course, we want long, fruitful lives for ourselves and others. However, that does not mean that we must live lives that fulfill our every potential or check every box of success so that our lives have optimal meaning. Always, regardless of what we do, our God knows us to be precious and whole.

 

You are already precious and whole. And so is everyone else. God sees us in our wholeness, even when we see ourselves as beyond saving or beyond hope.

 

We seem to have this idea that only certain people are whole and complete. Maybe we think those people are:

• Well educated
• Have the right body-mass index
• Without physical or mental health problems or disability
• Never lonely
• Always have enough money

 

We might have other criteria, like whole people are musicians or athletes. These people certainly lettered in something in high school, got some sort of scholarship for college, never have been fired or had a failed business. What else? Maybe they have perfect skin, the all-important thigh gap, or whatever the “right” body shape of the moment is. We have long lists of these things that we tend to believe make us whole and acceptable.

 

So, here’s two questions for you.

1. Do you think these “whole” people exist, as we’ve described them?
2. Would you want to hang out with them, even if they did?

 

Probably not.

 

Why? I think they’d be kinda boring. They’d be totally unrelatable. They’d likely be totally unsafe to take your problems to. What could they say to you when you tell them you’re on the brink of disaster other than to stare at you blankly and say something deeply unhelpful like, “That sounds hard for you. Good luck with that.” It would be like they are Teflon-coated, and the pain and difficulty of life would slide right off their perfectly unstained, unwrinkled clothes.

 

I feel perfectly OK picking on these imaginary “whole” people, because they don’t exist.

 

AND YET we have these unhelpful ideas of what wholeness in our lives looks like. We tell ourselves, “I’ll be whole when I meet all the criteria of impossible human standards I’ve chosen to strive for. Until that day, I’ll just hide what’s broken and hope for the best.”

Do you hear the lie in that? This is a lie we tell ourselves and we struggle to let this lie go. We somehow cling to it like it’s a life raft, because we like to believe we actually can hustle our way to wholeness. But that doesn’t mean it’s not an illusion. You are not a waste, regardless of how your life has not gone to plan. Nor could you be. Nor are the ones in your life who are on the brink of desperation. Nor are the ones you truly believe are beyond all hope. None of our lives are a waste.

 

The promises of God are that we are made whole from the beginning. We are made good. Yes, we are trapped in sin and brokenness. And yet, we are whole. And yet, we are loved. We can be whole and flawed at the same time. This is a gift that is given and we don’t have to do a thing for it.

 

Your wholeness, your preciousness is not a question for Jesus. It is a question for us, mostly about ourselves, but let’s be honest. It is a question we have about each other, as well.

 

The two people in our gospel today received healing by Jesus, one delivered from a chronic and debilitating disease and the other from death.

 

One way some folks read these stories is to understand the phrase, “Your faith has made you well” to mean that if you’re not well or not whole it is because you don’t have enough faith. The woman with the hemorrhage did have sufficient faith, but since you’re still suffering, you must not have sufficient faith. Or one might say that the reason your loved one died, perhaps way too young, is that you didn’t ask Jesus in the right way, at the right time with enough faith for your loved one to live, like Jairus did.

 

Do you notice how this interpretation is very similar to us thinking it’s our job to make ourselves whole? It’s our job to make ourselves worthy of God’s love?

 

It seems to me that we really like control. Being human, I too can attest to my great love of control, even if it’s an illusion. So, what do we tend to do with grace? We pretend we need to earn the grace we get. And if we or others don’t seem to be in God’s good grace, we can embrace it as our fault or their fault or someone’s fault. That way we are still in control.

 

In the gospels, Jesus healed and raised people, but he did not stop sickness and death for all people and for all time. Neither did he hand out miracles selectively to the “good” ones.

 

The woman with the hemorrhage reached out for Jesus, perhaps in a last-ditch effort to try just one more thing and she was healed. She had heard of Jesus, but she didn’t really know him. She wasn’t necessarily doing the discipleship thing just right. She just saw him passing and reached out in hope. Jesus’ holiness healed her without even his knowledge. He wasn’t judging her worthiness first, assessing her faith achievements. And yet she was healed, freeing her to enter life again.

 

Jairus’ daughter, we are told, is teetering on the brink. The Greek here isn’t just about death, but about being on a brink of an ending. Eventually we learn that everyone believes that she tipped over the edge and is beyond help. “Why bother the teacher,” they say. “She’s dead.”

 

How many of us have known people who we believe are beyond hope, have tipped beyond the brink of even trying to reach out to. People addicted to any number of drugs, perhaps. Or people on the street. Or people with major mental illnesses. Or people who vote in ways that we don’t like. We make up stories about who is beyond the brink, who has wasted their life. We may see ourselves this way.

Thankfully we are wrong.

 

Jesus is the one who knows that the ones we think are lost are in fact never lost. He knows we are not lost, we are not a waste, no matter what our own judgements are.

 

Last week we talked about Jesus being asleep on the boat, comfortably with his dry pillow because he knows something the rest of us struggle to know. He knows the hidden wholeness of God’s Kingdom. He knows that we are already wrapped in the love of the great I AM. He knows we are not a waste of a life, a waste of space, a waste of potential, a waste of anything. And we are not ever beyond the brink to God. There is always hope for us to know our wholeness, to know each other’s wholeness, and to enter into community with our whole hearts and our whole selves.

 

This grace is not up to us. It is here. It is given. But we often don’t know it.

 

It is a leap of trust, a leap of faith to hear these promises of God, to be told that you are indeed loved and whole as you are, and to believe these promises more than we believe in our perceived inadequacies and isolation. It’s a risk to believe and trust that your God-given wholeness is sufficient. It’s a risk to trust that other people and all of God’s Creation is also imbued with God’s goodness and wholeness, despite all of our human flaws and struggles.

 

God’s blessings are not up to you. They are given and given freely!

 

Whether or not we dare to believe the depth of God’s goodness for us, in us, and around us does seem to be our part of our relationship with God. Daring to trust in the goodness of Creation, including ourselves and others – this is reaching out in faith and trust, just like the woman with the hemorrhage, reaching out in hope. Even the smallest of gestures, like touching his cloak is enough.

 

AMEN