Luke 8.40-42, 48-56

When I was a curate, that is, doing vicar apprenticeship, I learned lots from the vicar who was my mentor and boss. I learned an awful lot from Mark, I learned so much about what to do, and, as all curates do, a little bit how I would like to do things when I got my own church!

Here’s a story from my curacy.

In the bleak midwinter, that is, a very cold November, the boiler broke in one of our churches. I was curate at Holy Trinity in Formby, and at Saint Michaels and All Angels in Altcar, which is behind Tesco just off the bypass.

Saint Michael’s is a very beautiful church, it is timber framed and it is a grade 2 listed building. So as lovely as it is, there’s not a huge amount you can do to make it warmer, and one terrible day, the boiler broke.

Various quotes were got for the repair of the very old boiler. I think the smallest quote was something like £50,000, and this is a good five years ago. It’s not the kind of money that church had to spare.

One Sunday morning, as our breath came out of our mouths in little clouds, Mark preached a sermon about the parable of the mustard seed. He talked about what a difference a small amount of faith can make. As part of his sermon, he got the whole congregation to stretch out their hands towards the boiler and pray that it would be fixed.

I remember him saying ‘my faith is like this (forefinger and thumb close together) but we’re gonna pray anyway.’

Well I thought it was a bonkers move! I couldn’t believe that he’d do that. I’m quite pragmatic and all I could think was, this is going to really disappoint people.

Anyway, I was very wrong. Because one of the local farmers had a mate who came and had a look at the boiler, and got it up and working again, with a part that cost £40.

The congregation were astounded. You could see the faith deepening in people, because they had prayed that prayer.

It wasn’t just the clergy praying when the congregation weren’t there. It wasn’t that they’d fundraised, or been really clever in coming up with some strategy to get it mended. They prayed and it was fixed, just in time for a toasty Christmas inside the church.

So, faith. Mark said, as did Jesus, that faith the size of a tiny seed can grow into a massive tree. I think faith takes work, I think it is a choice. I think maybe for some people it comes more easily than others, but for all of us who have faith, it takes work. It takes work to produce that mustard seed inside yourself.

But with that mustard seed we can choose to ask, we can choose to plant it, because our faith can change things. And having faith on behalf of other people can change things too.

In our reading today were told about Jairus who had faith on behalf of his very poorly daughter. Now this story in the Bible is actually told in conjunction with another story, which Robin gamble separates out in Jesus 100, so that is why we’re only looking at one of the stories today, but it’s important to know that that is another part of a bigger story.

So Jairus saw Jesus and begged him to heal his daughter. Jesus said he would come and see her, but on the way he was stopped because suddenly he felt all his energy, his power go out of him. It turned out that there was a poorly woman, who had been bleeding for 12 years, who managed to just catch the fringe of his cloak, believing that if she touched it she’d be healed.

So Jesus asked who touched him, and she had the courage to come forward and say it was her. Jesus said ‘go in peace your faith has made you well.’

Then, the action flicks back to the reading from today, to Jairus. Someone from his house approaches and says ‘she’s already dead don’t bother Jesus anymore, she’s gone’.

One tip when reading the Bible is to ask, where are we in the story?

Well when it came to the case of Saint Michael’s and the boiler, I was that person who came to Jairus and said ‘she’s gone don’t bother.’

I had no faith that the heating would be fixed –  but Mark did.

And Jesus says to Jairus, ‘don’t worry she’s just asleep, I’ll still come.’ So Jesus goes to the House of the leader of the synagogue – bearing in mind that Jesus had already been upsetting lots of people who were important in the synagogues and the temples – but Jairus had faith when it came to it.

And Jesus gets to the house, brings his select group inside Jesus says ‘Talitha Cum’ which means ‘daughter arise’. And she does. Our faith can change things, having faith for other people can change things, Jairus shows us that in this story.

But I wonder how many cynics are around the edge of this drama? We know already know about the man who said ‘she’s dead, don’t bother Jesus anymore’. Many of the people who were at the house started laughing when Jesus said she was just asleep. But Jairus had had faith, and that made a difference.

Because if you don’t ask, if you don’t reach out, if you don’t cry out, then those miracles will pass you by. Jesus is all about hearing what people want. Over and over again, people tell Jesus what they want. Sometimes he asks them, what do you want? Sometimes they just tell him anyway. Sometimes they don’t even have to tell him, like the woman who just touched the fringe of his cloak, but she reached out. We can have faith in healing, we can have faith that Jesus heals.

Now I know, of course, and I’m not a preacher who would ignore such an issue, that there is the question ‘but what if he doesn’t?’ What if the storms, as we talked about at the Jesus 100 discussion group this week, what if the storms just continue to batter? What if he doesn’t come and take someone by the hand and say ‘arise’?

I mean let’s be real, he didn’t do it very often. Jesus raised 3 people from the dead in three years of ministry. He met thousands of people. So what if he doesn’t heal? I’m not going to try and explain why miracles happen sometimes and not others. But I do believe that faith opens the door to Jesus’s presence in our lives, which is in itself a miracle.

When Jesus was having the conversations in Jairus house, there’s a subtlety that we might not pick up on, between Jairus’ daughter being asleep, in the just having a nap sense, and being asleep before the final resurrection on the last day. But then Jesus reaches for her hand and he says ‘Talitha, cum’, daughter arise, my child, stand up. And ultimately, through our faith, we will be raised on the last day. When Jesus comes and takes us home we will rise.

And in the meantime, maybe Jesus says to us ‘children of God arise and have faith’. In some moments of my life, Even though I recognise the cynics in this story in myself, this story does mean a huge amount to me.

Firstly, I spent a lot of time thinking about it as I wrote my MA dissertation, about touch and faith in the Bible, as well as how we use touch in our liturgy and sacraments.

But more than that, I love this story so much that our little friend, who’s not here today, Sophia, is named from this story. Sophia’s middle name is Talitha. She is Sophia Talitha.

Nathan said to the Bishop that we chose Talitha because ‘it’s pretty and it’s in the Bible’ – pfft! There is a lot more to it that that, for me!

Because I love the faith that we can see in this story. I love the image of her, and everyone, but especially her because I am her Mum, rising and having faith. We can arise and have faith, even if it’s tiny, and it will take us far.

So children of God, arise and have faith.

Children of God, arise and have faith.

Children of God, arise and have faith.

Amen