Walking in Commotion

Walking in Commotion
 (Mark 5:21-43)

When they got to the house, there was a commotion and people were weeping and wailing loudly outside.  Inside, he asked "Why do you make a commotion and weep?  The child is not dead but sleeping."  And they laughed at him. (Mark 5:21-43)

Yeah, they laugh like that a lot.

But he took the little girl by the hand despite the laughter and said to her in his lyrical Aramaic, talitha cum – little girl get up – and Jairus’ 12 year old daughter did just that. She awoke and she walked. She walked around that house until finally Jesus had to tell them, “Well, she’s probably hungry. Give her something to eat.” 

It was the third year of my time on the pastoral staff of an active church in Philadelphia when a little girl named Lindsay, to whom I am related by birth and by God’s grace, had just turned 9 years old. Lindsay was born with a medical condition that allows her very limited intellectual and physical abilities and we had been told that she might not live very long, that if she did she would never know her parents, and even so she probably wouldn’t ever be able to roll over in her crib or sit upright on her own.

But Lindsay is Lindsay. And God is God.

By age 9, because Lindsay is Lindsay and God is God, Lindsay had moved far beyond those anticipated milestones of rolling over and sitting upright. Now she had finally been standing and taking tiny steps on and off for about a year – something which she, of course, would never be able to do. But remember, no one ever told the short and stubby bumblebee that it isn’t flight worthy. 

On a Sunday in June, Lindsay and God created a moment in time in the midst of a commotion of people, a group much the same as the group that had gathered outside the house of Jairus. Lindsay decided that that Sunday would be the day that she would let go.

Lindsay was in her classroom like any typical Sunday and when I got there I found her leaning against the doorjamb. She let go that day and walked. She walked from her Church School room into our fellowship hall where people had gathered for Coffee Hour. She didn't make a big deal out of it. Lindsay has no words but she kept shooing my hand away, making it clear that she could do it on her own. This journey of 100 feet down a tile-floored hallway is no small accomplishment for a little girl who was supposed to be “profoundly retarded,” who might not even live beyond 3 months, who would never roll over. 

She got to the doorway into the gathering and encountered three ridiculous little steps that some architect thought necessary to get into the room, so she sat down, crawled up the steps, through the door, and wouldn't let me stand her up inside the big room. Talitha cum. My little girl got up on her own and walked again.   

I stepped away and left her on her own as she made her entrance into the commotion which we lovingly named “the snake pit” since God-only-knows what worship visitors experienced among the indoctrinated mob that gathered for free coffee. But I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She stood and walked. This time around the room checking it out.

I have little idea what goes on inside Lindsay's brain. I have no clue how she operates on a cognitive level. I don't know what synapses are there let alone how they might fire. But I do know something about what happened that Sunday. Something deep within Lindsay experienced God and those words of Jesus, talitha cum – little girl, get up – and she took it to heart. I have no idea how the Spirit of God moves within the soul of my little girl, but I do know that something moved her to walk on her own that Sunday morning and she's been doing it ever since.

And the most remarkable thing about it was not necessarily that it was 8 years later than the typical child or that she did it at all, but rather the most remarkable thing was that she chose to let go and walk for the first time not at home, not at school, not at the playground, not at a friend's house but in that space where she senses that she is a part of something bigger than herself – a community, a community bound together in faith.

There is something fundamentally valuable about any community that joins together for worship and prayer and praise of God. That community – the people connected to it, the God who lives in the midst of it, the spirit that enlivens it – says to each of us talitha cum, "little girl, get up." And if we hear it, we do.

That's why we join. That's why we want to belong. That’s why we hang around even when the commotion might seem like a snake pit, when sometimes it seems like we’re not even welcome. It’s because, despite ourselves, God is present. 

When Lindsay finally stood in the room that Sunday morning and made her way around the crowd she would occasionally lose her balance and reach out and touch someone just for a second and then be on her way again and no one minded that touch. As she tapped the khaki back pockets of unsuspecting middle aged men, they didn’t flinch. They all knew Lindsay. I turned around once and found her standing at the table either reaching for the icing on the sheet cake or getting ready to do her pull-the-cloth-off-the-table magic trick.  People didn't mind. When she wobbled into the Church's fair trade bazaar to do her Father's Day shopping (naturally!) and I found her leaning with her elbows on the cashier's table, everyone one was okay with it. 

I do not know what goes on inside Lindsay's mind and I do not know how God moves her, but I do know that she chose to make that statement that day in that community of faith where she is safe and where she is loved with the love that God allows any of us. She stood and walked there because she is a part of that community and what it stands for. And that's reason enough for me to say I want to be a part of it.  

It was a miraculous moment which continues to remind me why it is that I am willing to stay a part of a community like the church which often seems like a, not-so-trendy, not-so-sexy, outdated institution. Because beyond every flaw, it is still a community of gathering and healing. The truth of it all is that we don’t want to – and we don’t have to – learn to walk alone.

It seems to me that what we do inside our faith communities at times is exactly the kind of commotion that Jesus found outside Jairus' house. Weeping and wailing, cynicism and rejection, pessimism and hypocrisy, gossip about and laughter at the unimaginable. But on the other hand, much of what do inside is certainly more than a commotion. Sure there's a bit of commotionness about it all. We sing and we pray and we preach and we clap. Some of us weep and others laugh. We're up and down, standing and sitting and kneeling. It is all a bit of a commotion.  

But the truth is, behind it all, beneath it all, through it all, it's really more than a commotion. It's what a group of people do when they want to share their faith. It's what a group of faithful people do to celebrate miracles and joys and tears and compassion and healing. It's more than a commotion. It's a community.

That's why people want to be a part of it. We all want to bring our joys and thanksgivings to the place and among the people who gather to each experience God in some way. And maybe we experience someone whispering in our ear – and God takes us by the hand and says talitha cum – and we stand in witness to what can happen in such a community.

We come together, we witness to the miracles that God creates when we connect with each other, we touch, and we are healed. 

© Copyright 2015

James F. McIntire

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