The Reading from Ephesians 2:4-10 The Reading from St. Luke 8:41-56 Here we see people who are desperate, and because they are desperate their faith and actions become bolder, yet also tinged with humility and great sorrow and suffering. We have a very sick woman who comes to Jesus, asking for help and healing. She has spent all her money on healers and remedies that did not work, did not restore her body to health. Now she is desperate when she tries to sneak up on Jesus and hope for healing. Try to imagine the desperation and despair she must be feeling. The worry, the financial hardship. The fear that she had to overcome. The phrase in this story that I find interesting is when the woman saw that she was not hidden she came trembling. She comes at the same time as Jairus, who is an important man in the community, and he has a 12 yr. old daughter who is dying. All the focus in on him and he leads Jesus to his house with a large crowd following to see what would happen. On His way to the home of Jairus, Jesus feels power go out of Him and knows that someone touched Him and received healing, Jesus was not even intending to heal her. This seems very odd to us. It is like He is so full of healing, love, compassion, and grace that when a person of faith comes near and touches, not Him, but His robe, that His overabundance of God-ness causes healing. Almost like it is automatic. Draw near to Christ and see what happens to you. What change might happen, just from turning to Him, seeking Him, asking Him for consolation and healing. Both Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood showed faith and courage and both were healed; but in very different circumstances. Very different histories. Neither one depending upon his worthiness, his own ability, seeking not help from men but hoping for God’s mercy, as we sing in vespers. Utter surrender, death to the self, this is what is required to follow Christ. But that is not what we always do. Father Panagiotis Tsiolis says, “Modern man comes to church not as a sick person, but as a customer. “I like it,” “I don’t like it,” “it was too long,” “he spoke too loudly,” “I didn’t feel anything.” In this way, a person evaluates the liturgy as if it were a product. He no longer comes to be healed, but to be satisfied. If the sermon hurts him, he leaves. If he is told to change, he becomes upset. If he is asked to show patience, he looks elsewhere. He has forgotten that the Church is neither a theater nor a spiritual restaurant. It is a hospital; and one does not go to a hospital to be applauded, but to undergo surgery—to be cured, to be healed. Whoever enters the Church without humility leaves without healing. Grace does not operate according to a person’s tastes, but according to his wounds. Yet, modern man no longer wants his wounds to be touched, because it hurts. He seeks comfort without truth, forgiveness without repentance, and communion without confession. And when he does not get what he wants, he claims that he “no longer feels anything.” It is not the Church that has grown cold—it is the heart that has closed… The hospital remains the same. The Physician remains the same. The treatment remains the same. Yet the patient refuses the surgery—and then wonders why the illness remains.” We have been trained to be consumers, commodities, we have been brought up to see all relationships as transactions. What does this mean, transactional relationships? It means I only value our relationship if I get something out of it. If it benefits me in some way; otherwise why bother? A consumer learns to shop, to compare, to satisfy an itch with a product. We will spend endless hours scrolling. We spend a lot of time comparing products, supplements, quick cures. We even choose our own treatment by playing Google Doc, searching for some remedy because Big Pharma can’t be trusted. We know better than the doctor, he just wants your money. This is how many of us are and tons of people work the same way spiritually. This is delusional. The Evil One works softly, subtly. He sugarcoats poison to make it easier to swallow. A Snickers Bar with one drop of arsenic in it will taste good for a while, then the other shoe drops. One bite can kill you. What I see in these two stories are real people with real problems. One has been dealing with a long term illness, the other is more emergent, immediate. And what we see is the Lord of the Universe walking around normal people, in the midst of their lives, bringing the Kingdom of God to broken situations. This testimony by St. Luke is here today to speak to you in your situation. It reminds us of the deeper spiritual reality of healing in the Church. Healing requires our cooperation with the grace of God. Healing requires our participation as it required the participation of the woman who came with faith to touch the Lord. It requires us to be humble and to desire to change, to be healed. The healing of the soul often requires some pain. It may require some gentle correction. Or it may require chemo and radiation. It sometimes requires us to be broken and reformed by God. “A broken and humble heart, God will not despise.” It’s a process. It takes time, it takes effort, it requires soul searching, it requires real confession, it requires real prayer. But make no mistake, God is ready and willing to offer you the same healing that He once offered to the woman with the issue of blood and to the young girl who had died. The Lord came into the world precisely for this reason, to heal us, not according to our own human definition of health but to impart His healing which is far greater. He desires to make each of us holy. To make you a saint. But do you desire this? Do you really want to be healed? If so, run to Christ, as the woman ran after Him to touch His garments. Run towards Him as did Jairus who’s daughter was dying. Run to His teachings, run to His Church and to her sacraments, run to His saints. Because no one that runs towards Christ with their whole heart is ever, ever turned away.