Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Photo: Thanksgiving 2008, Akron, Ohio

From the life of Moses, in Hebrew folklore, there is a remarkable story about how Moses once found a shepherd in the desert. He spent the day with him and helped him milk his ewes. At the end of the day he saw that the shepherd put the best milk he had in a wooden bowl, which he then placed on a flat stone some distance away.

So Moses asked this shepherd what this is for and the man replied, “This is God’s milk.” Moses was puzzled and asked him what does he mean. The shepherd explained, “I always take the best milk I possess, and I bring it as an offering to God.” Moses, who is far more sophisticated than the shepherd with the faith, asked the obvious question: “And does God drink it?” “Yes,” replied the shepherd, “He does.”

Then Moses felt compelled to enlighten this poor shepherd and explain to him that God, being pure spirit, does not drink milk. It’s impossible. Yet the shepard was so sure of it that they even argued for awhile until finally Moses told the shepherd to hide behind the bushes to find out whether in fact God does come to drink the milk. Moses then goes out to pray in the desert.

The shepherd hid that night and in the moonlight he saw a little fox that came trotting from the desert, looked to the right then left, and headed straight towards the milk, which it drank and disappeared in the desert again. The next morning Moses found the shepherd quite depressed. “What’s the matter?” he asked. The shepherd says, “You were right, God is pure spirit and He doesn’t want my milk.” Moses was surprised. He says, “You should be happy. You know more about God than you did before.” “Yes, I do,” says the shepherd, “but the only thing I could do to express my love for Him has been taken away from me.”

It was then that Moses saw the point. He retired in the desert and prayed hard. In the night, in a vision, God spoke to him, “Moses you were wrong. It is true that I am spirit. Nevertheless, I always accepted with gratitude the milk which the shepherd offered me, as the expression of his love. I shared it with the little fox.”

It is, I think, very easy to think of God as some spirit hovering above us, somewhere far, far away. Keeping God at such a distance will ultimately lead to an anything goes attitude. After all, as a spirit God couldn’t possibly care about the material things. And so when we sin we often justify it by simply stating that we’re only human after all, as if to say God has no idea how what it’s like.

But it is in this very season of fasting that we are in, these days leading us to the great Feast of our Lord’s Nativity, which remind us that God, out of His great love for mankind, became one of us. God’s relationship with us is a very close one.

Just how close? In the gospel we heard this morning we heard two miracles. A man named Jairus, who was ruler of a synagogue, comes up to Jesus and begs Him to go to his house and help his twelve year old daughter who is dying. On His way there, a woman who has had a sickness of her own for twelve years approaches Jesus, the evangelist says “she came from behind” and touched the border, the hem of Jesus’ garment. At that moment Jesus stops and asks a seemingly silly question: “Who touched Me?” There were, in fact, many people around Him. His disciples even ask, “The multitudes throng and press You and You say, Who touched Me?”

Jesus finds this woman and proclaims to her, “Be of good cheer, your faith has made you well…”. And just as He was about to continue on to Jairus’ house someone comes running and says not to bother Jesus any longer for the little girl has just died. Instead of leaving Jesus insists on going to his house anyway and there He goes into her room and the evangelist once again writes, “…He took her by the hand and called saying, ‘Little girl, arise.’”

In both of these miracles, one after another, our Lord heals the sick and gives life to the dead not by commanding it from somewhere above, far away somewhere in the clouds. He does it through a touch.

In the Old Testament, in the Psalms we read, “Your hands have made me and fashioned me”(119:73), which is to say that we came into being, we were formed by God’s very touch.  Later, when God became man, it was His touch as we saw in this morning’s gospel reading (along with many other examples from the gospels), that brought healing to many.

It is that same touch, dear brothers and sisters, that contact with God that we have in all the Holy Sacraments from Baptism to Chrismation to Communion and so on.  It is in that touch that we receive both healing and strength but also our very salvation. Amen.