The Very Rev. Peter Elliott
The Chapel of St. James the Fisherman, Wellfleet, Massachusetts
June 30, 2024
Being back in New England these past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about the poet Robert Frost, and remembered an early poem of his, a short 3 verse piece called Revelation
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.
’Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
“So, all who hide to well away must speak and tell us where they are’—that concluding line has echoed in my mind for many years; like many other gay men of my generation, I spent a lot of years hiding away. Thank God friends and family and therapists and spiritual directors opened a way for me to speak and say, in words from Le Cage aux Folles, I am what I am.
Speaking the truth about our lives is difficult but necessary. As we gather today, citizens of both Canada and the US have some truths to face. A by-election in Toronto on Monday of this past week brought a defeat to the governing Liberal Party headed by Justin Trudeau—in a district that the progressive Liberal party had held easily for over 30 years. It was a sign of the decline of the popularity of their progressive agenda and an endorsement of a more conservative vision. And staying north of the border, tomorrow, July 1 is “Canada” Day, a time when, for most of my life, Canadians became uncharacteristically patriotic about our heritage; but for the past few years, especially since the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of indigenous children who attended government funded, church run Indian Residential schools, the celebrations have become more muted. Last year, Canadian Anglicans and Lutherans meeting together in a national assembly adopted these words in a prayer for July 1st—you’ll notice the tone:
God of all nations, on this Canada Day we confess the ways we have not lived in your ways of justice, peace, truth and reconciliation. We pray for wisdom and guidance as we seek to live into right relationships with the first peoples and all peoples of this land. Help us to be the country that you have created us to be—peaceful, generous, and just…[1]
That’s to speak and tell you where we are as a country. And here in the US, there are deep divisions within this beautiful country as the election approaches, tensions that boiled over in reactions to the Presidential debate this past Thursday. In both our countries there are competing visions of how to navigate this complex time. In Canada it’s about how to think about the effects of colonization on indigenous people and what that means about land rights and human rights; in your country it’s about how to think about immigration and refugees, and what kind of economic ordering is best.
Robert Frost wrote, “Oh the agitated heart till someone find us really out.” In today’s gospel reading we meet two people who speak the truth from their agitated hearts. First Jairus, a synagogue leader, a privileged person from the center of society; his 12-year-old daughter is gravely ill. The text tells us that Jairus repeatedly begs Jesus to come and lay healing hands on his daughter.
Jesus agrees but, on his way, there, is drawn into the periphery when a desperately ill unnamed woman suffering from a continuous flow of blood for 12 years reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. She must have been extremely weak and financially impoverished from consultations with doctors[2]. Jesus, somehow realizing that power had come from him, asks “Who touched me”—and the text tells us that the now healed woman tells him the whole truth. This woman from the periphery speaks and tells him where she is—and Jesus sends her on her way in peace. Meanwhile, news reaches Jesus that Jairus’s daughter has died, and there’s no need for him to come. But he persists, gets to the house, where relatives and friends are grieving, goes into the room, takes the young girl by the hand, and says, “little girl get up” and she does.
Two miraculous healings; one to a woman who because of illness for 12 years had lived on the periphery; the other to a 12-year-old girl who had lived and died in a privileged home. What links them is a moment where truth is spoken— Jairus’s truth—that even with his privilege he was powerless in the face of illness; and the woman—who in some parts of Christian world is named Veronica[3]–who spoke her whole truth and was healed and named as beloved and sent in peace. Healings for one who lived in privilege, and for one who lived on the margins are linked because truth was spoken.
“All who hide too well away must speak and tell us where they are.” You see, it doesn’t matter whether we live with privilege or on the periphery, none of us is immune from suffering that comes with life. We are finite, contingent human beings, part of the creation—and sadly, too often, our privilege can give the illusion that we are in control, and will not be affected, that we’re, to use language that irks me “fortunate” while other are “unfortunate.”
Although both Jairus and Veronica are both lauded for their faith, I think it was really hope that brought them to healing. Maybe it was hope born of desperation, but it was hope nonetheless that propelled Jairus to break through the crowd and plead for Jesus to heal his daughter; it was hope that brought Veronica to touch the hem of his garment.
Father James Martin, the Jesuit priest, commentator and LGBTQ advocate writes this, “Hope, in times like ours, is scarce… There are a lot of voices that ridicule those who profess hope that things can get better. Don’t listen to these voices. Certainly, we shouldn’t be unrealistic or irrational or foolish. But we also must see what happens in these stories: people who persist, who believe, who have faith, who know that nothing is impossible with God, are vindicated. Even if people tell you you’re deluded, keep on keeping on, like Jairus did, like Veronica did and like Jesus did.”[4]
Yes. And hope is born of being honest about where we are. Increasingly for me the moment in the liturgy that is most moving is when the faithful come forward to receive communion and extend their open hands to receive the bread. It is a moment of honesty, a sign that we are not complete. We reach out—saying that we need something beyond ourselves, we long for healing because all seems so impossible and difficult. We need strength to meet the days ahead. We reach towards the healing power of the God we know in Jesus Christ. We reach out—seeking the gift of hope because too often it all seems so impossible and difficult, we need strength to meet the days ahead. When you extend your hands this morning, you are standing in the company of Jairus and Veronica and the great multitude of sinners and saints across the ages who seek to connect with the power of God to heal and inspire and energize us for the journey.
One last story: many years ago, a friend who had found his way to the Episcopal Anglican community after many years of attending a conservative evangelical church, was at an Anglican service of Holy Communion. As he made his way forward to receive communion, he was thinking, “I know what this coming forward is, it’s like an Altar call, once again I am committing myself to Christ.” But at the moment the bread was placed in his open hand he had what he described as a ‘blinding flash of the obvious’; it wasn’t that he was giving his life to Christ, it was Christ giving life to him. God coming to him, with healing and hope.
May you have the courage to speak the truth of your life today. May you know the presence of the healing Christ today. May all of us be given hope that there is a power greater than ourselves, the power of love at the heart of the universe, the power we call God who is forever calling us towards deeper compassion, greater justice, and wider inclusion of all God’s beloved daughters and sons. May we be given the gifts of healing and hope today. So may it be. Amen.
Preached by the Very Reverend Peter G. Elliott
[1] https://assembly.anglicanlutheran.ca/news/an-invitation-to-reflection-on-canada-day-from-anglican-lutheran-leaders/?fbclid=IwY2xjawDtC65leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUhagO321-EjuB6AXHN92_5fYFPv4gCdp7Co8ERA3Ji6muczrJGzvVbvJQ_aem_8eYIhbEkhUmkVPWBW6kxAg
[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/theology-and-interpretation/jesus-location-at-the-periphery-the-woman-with-the-flow-of-blood-and-jairuss-daughter
[3] https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2024/07/12/102006-saint-veronica-bernice-the-woman-with-the-issue-of-blood#:~:text=The%20account%20of%20the%20woman,8%3A43%2D49).
[4] https://mailchi.mp/47e239dc2c61/new-this-week-on-outreach-10329096?e=5c975b5200 (slightly adapted)