Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 2, 2006

Mark 5:21-43

Dear Jesus,

Do I have faith? Am I a believer? The questions probably sound strange to you. You are asking why I write unless I believe. But I wonder about the quality of my belief. I wonder especially when I am troubled, when I find myself in situations that seem to have no way out.

Once, when I was a child and had not known you very long something happened that has remained with me to the present. Faith was new to me and I was excited about it and about knowing you. In those days I didn’t have all the questions that have been part of my adult life. You were all that mattered to me. My perception of reality was the new Creation that you made possible through your passion, death and resurrection. That was the story I had been told. I believed it and thought everybody else did too.

One afternoon in autumn, I was in the charge of a relative. He used to tell stories and then would invite me to tell one too. So I talked about you and the wonder of you that we would share forever and ever. He laughed. It wasn’t the laugh that follows a good story. It was derisive and cold. He told me how sorry he felt for me if I believed that stuff. He did not stop there but proceeded to tear down the myths of the saints at a time when Butler’s was new to me and I was thrilling with their exploits as Butler related them. My relative spoke about their faults and those of the church and how foolish it was to believe in either.

I remember panic closing in on me and circling my chest like a vise. In a moment, tears coursed down my face and I could not breathe. Having been asthmatic, I knew what it meant not to be able to draw in air. That moment was like the worst attack I had experienced. I put my head down on the table where we sat and wondered if I would die there. Death would have been preferred by that child. And I remember wondering where you were and why you didn’t rescue me. Why did you allow this painful exchange to wound this child’s albeit naïve faith in you?

Of course I was rescued. My father came and whisked me away, calmed me with ice cream and told me I oughtn’t to be surprised by people who do not believe as I do.

Even now I can close my eyes and experience that terrible darkness, feel the shortness of breath, wonder where you are. That proved a defining moment for me. It was then that I began to understand what it means to walk in faith. And later I wondered if one can even be considered a believer until that faith has survived hopelessness. Does someone become a believer only when s/he cries out through something like the emptiness that enveloped you that night in the garden? I think of Abraham following God’s challenge to strike out “for the land that I will show you.” There is little specificity to cling to as Abraham began the trek. Or the Mother of the seven Maccabean brothers as she urged them one by one to be faithful even to death, is there anyone who would not conclude she was a woman of faith?

Does one have to drink the waters of desolation before knowing s/he believes? That hemorrhaging woman dared to touch your clothes to find healing knowing that she would render you unclean should her touch be detected. That’s faith. And Jairus kept heading for his daughter’s sickbed with you in tow even when word came to him that she had died. That’s faith.

Am I a believer? Do I have faith? Or will I not know until I have to deal with death – not others’ but my own. I have stood at the caskets of loved ones and watched as they are lowered into the ground. I have even thrown in handfuls of dirt attesting to my faith that you will raise these beloved dead on the last day. But I am not now at the brink of death. I am not now drawing my last breath. When that happens will I see you? Will I know that you are enfolding me in your embrace assuring me that everything will be all right? Or will there be only silence?

If there is only silence and I continue to hope in you, if I remain convinced that you have destroyed death, even the death stalking me, forever, then you will know I am a believer. Remind me, please, each time I stand at the Table, that it is your conquering of death and the ushering in of the new creation that is renewed with each celebration of the Eucharist. And when I eat the Bread and drink the Cup, it is a pledge that is renewed. If you eat and drink, I will raise you on the last day.

Help me please. Send the Spirit. I can’t do this on my own. But in the Spirit I can continue to proclaim, Jesus is Lord.

Sincerely,

Didymus