Peace with Justice Sunday June 28, 2009 “Reach Out and Touch Someone” Reverend Michael D. Powell Mark 5:25-34

Our scripture this morning is not a story about having enough faith to cure illness. It's not about being virtuous enough to be healed and it's not about believing in the power of prayer. It's a story about the human touch of God, and how that touch makes all the difference in the world. It's about a touch that moves us from a feeling of being dead and dis-eased to being fully alive as a child of God.

A woman reaches out and touches just the hem, the fringe of Christ's garment and she's made well. Think about touch. Think about what it means to you. Many of us take it for granted, but there are many who do not. The woman in this story was an untouchable. She was, according to scriptural law, shut out from society. She was, because of her hemorrhage, considered unclean and was not allowed even to go to church for fear that she would contaminate others. She was, according to scripture and tradition, not allowed to touch or be touched. If anyone did touch her, even by accident, they had to go and wash their bodies and their clothes and were considered unclean until sundown. After twelve years of being an untouchable, isolated and shunned by society, this woman was undoubtedly filled with anxiety and probably a sense of her own spiritual unworthiness. She was a broken and desperate woman, crying out to be healed and made whole, to be touched, both body and soul! At least she was crying. It's a miracle that she hadn't given up.

This morning is Peace with Justice Sunday. In one sense it’s a crying shame that we even have to designate one particular day as Peace with Justice Sunday. Every day should be devoted to peace with justice, don’t you think? Perhaps a better way to say it is that today we very intentionally broaden our perspective. So often we work and pray and are concerned for those who are near and dear to us. Today we recognize that there is no personal piety without a social piety. Today we recognize that there are people and situations that cry out for the touch of God in the form of a compassionate, inclusive, reconciling United Methodist like you!

Taking an active stance in society is nothing new for followers of John Wesley. He set the example for us to combine personal and social piety. United Methodists have always been known as a denomination involved with people's lives, for reaching out and touching, being involved and taking stands in political and social struggles. The United Methodist Church believes God's love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We care enough about people's lives to risk interpreting God's love, to take a stand, to call each of us into a response, no matter how controversial or complex. There are lots of issues that most folks wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. We are called to embrace them in the love of Christ.

To help guide our thinking and acting about how we live in and are in engaged in ministry in the world, The United Methodist Church has created statements to guide the church in its efforts to reach out and help create a world of justice.

Our Social Creed is a basic statement of our convictions about the fundamental relationships between God, God's creation and humanity. This Social Creed differs from the great ancient theological creeds of the Christian church in that the Social Creed’s writers never intended it to stand for all time in its original form. It was created to speak to the peculiar social conditions of its time. In every day and age there are different “untouchables.” When conditions change, the Creed changes as well. The Creed has been amended many, many times at the General Conference of the Methodist Church, which meets every four years.

The original Social Creed was adopted in 1908, but it had a history that stretched back even further. Throughout the 19^th century, the United States underwent vast and rapid changes. Originally a mostly rural, farm-based nation, Americans moved in ever greater numbers into the major cities to work at jobs in factories. Also, new residents came in large numbers from overseas, especially from Europe and Asia. Change inevitably produces tensions, and many Christians felt great concern over the treatment of workers. As an example, here are just a few of the concerns that were addressed in the original 1908 Social Creed. “The Methodist Episcopal Church stands:

*For the principles of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.

*For the protection of workers from dangerous machinery.

*For the abolition of child labor and the regulation of conditions of labor for women.

*For the gradual reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all.

*For the degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life.

*For a release from employment one day in seven.

*For a living wage in each industry.”

The title “Social Principles” was used for the first time in 1972, and it was divided into six sections:

1. The Natural World

2. The Nurturing Community

3. The Social Community

4. The Economic Community

5. The Political Community

6. The World Community

It goes beyond the scope of my remarks to delve into each of these six sections, but I believe that Jan Nelson has plans to offer a class that will allow us time to study them in depth. Suffice it to say that there are parts both you and I would disagree with, and they are not always the same parts. As stated in the introduction: “The Social Principles are a prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of the General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions. They are a call to faithfulness and are intended to be instructive and persuasive in the best of the prophetic spirit; however, they are not church law.  The Social Principles are a call to all members of The United Methodist Church to a prayerful, studied dialogue of faith and practice.”

These Social Principles have evolved over time in light of new information, new biblical and theological insights, and the changing world. For instance, only in recent years has the denomination needed to address issues such as organ transplantation, stem-cell research, or the internet.

I began by telling the story of the untouchable woman who was healed by the touch of Christ, and went on to say that it’s too bad we have to designate one particular Sunday as Peace With Justice Sunday, but the fact is, if left to our own inclinations a lot of us, myself included, probably would not have reached out to touch an untouchable. We’re products of our culture; a lot of us would rather not rock the boat or go very far beyond our own personal comfort zones. Designating a Peace with Justice Sunday nudges us to broaden our perspective. I probably would not have shared a lot of this information with you except for the fact that it’s Peace With Justice Sunday, and that would have been both your, and my loss. The Social Principles allow the light of the gospel to shine upon parts of society we tend to ignore, asking ourselves, “What Would Jesus Do?” The answer to that is simple, and very obvious: Jesus Would Reach Out and Touch Someone.

May we take on the mind of Christ, and may we grow into the likeness of Christ. Let’s join now in our Litany for the Social Creed, with the sung response. (For a copy of the Litany with sung response, please click here).