Which way?

We looked at Mark 5:21-43 on Sunday with an account of two miracles in quick succession. The sermon included a story from Alan Hargrave’s An Almighty Passion, a wonderfully humane book which shows how theology can shape your life, and how life can make you think about theology.

The short story tells of an English family’s return to South America for a three-year stay. It does not begin well. There is no one to meet them when they arrive exhausted, at Lima Airport. They eventually get to the place where they are to stay, but their 5 year old daughter takes a strong dislike to the place and talks of nothing but going home.

One morning her father goes up to her room and discovers to his dismay that she has packed her bag. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks. ‘I’m leaving this horrible place and going home!’ she exclaims. Her voice is absolutely firm, and her chin set like stone. her father goes downstairs and talks to his wife. They are concerned that their daughter may just go out of the front gate and wander off. As they talk she comes downstairs with her rucksack on her back and heads for the door. They try and tell her that it just isn’t possible to go back to England, that they are thousands of miles away. But there is no reasoning with her.‘Right’ she says ‘I’m going’ – and she walks out of the door. The father looks at his wife and decide there is only one thing to do. ‘OK’, he says, ‘I’ll come with you’ – and off they set.

They open the front gate. ‘Which way?’ he asks. ‘Left’, she replies, without hesitation. They walk together to the end of the block. ‘Which way now?’ ‘Straight on’. They cross the road and walk another block. ‘Left again’, she proclaims without a trace of uncertainty. Another block. ‘Right.’ Another. ‘Straight on.’ They walk briskly on. ‘Left,’ ‘Left,’ ‘Straight on,’ ‘Right.’ ‘Straight on.’

But after a while the pace starts to slow and her hand grips her father’s a little more tightly. After quite some time they arrive at yet another corner. ‘Which way?’ the father asks gently. Her lip begins to quiver and she looks down at the floor. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, and bursts into tears. The father kneels down beside her on the path and hugs her very tight. Several passers-by look at them, concerned. They are both weeping profusely. A woman asks if they are ok. The father says yes, we’re fine, although clearly they are not. After a few minutes they get up and walk slowly back to the friends’ house. The following day they leave for their new life in Bolivia.

They lost their way. After a lot of struggle, over the next weeks and months, they will find it again. But it will doesn’t involve a journey back to England.

It is a small picture of confusion and bewilderment, of wanting to be anywhere but where you are and of not getting very far in any direction. It doesn’t offer lots of answers to life’s enigmas, but a possibility of companionship when the way is unclear and the heart is stubborn.

Sometimes life crashes in hard. Having looked at one of Jesus’ miracles – the raising to life of a 12 year old girl – we returned home on Sunday to discover one of our own 12 year old’s school friends had died of heart trauma.

Which way now?