Miracles

My Sunday school class spent its time talking about miracles yesterday, focusing on Mark, chapters 1 through 5.  The teacher opened by asking why Jesus did the miracles he did, when he did them, for the particular people who received them.  No good answers.  And then the discussion bounced between two views--the one that suggests that God watches over all of us and is involved in our lives to the extent we have faith; the other that suggests that even the smallest bit of good fortune is a "miracle"--that seem neither true nor genuine.  If these views are true, then why the inordinate amount of suffering among the believing but impoverished of the world?  Surely their faith is bigger than that of the non-believing but prosperous. So is their suffering.

Here is what I learned about miracles while thinking during class:

1. Miracles showed Jesus' human, not divine, side--As a God, Jesus could conceivably have cured leprosy, the disease.  Instead, he healed a leper.  In other words, Jesus was compassionate to the people he came across, not to humankind.  His service was personal, not abstract.  His concern seems not to have been to solve problems but to solve a particular problem.  And to so so he used spiritual gifts--to heal, to comfort.  (Of course, he has more of them, and in greater supply, than we do.) The humanity of miracles is of course a good thing for people who wish to be compassionate.  The message for us is that we should walk compassionately, open to the possibility that at any moment our gifts may be those most needed by a friend or stranger.
2. Miracles respond to what is natural, not what is cosmic.  When Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee, or stopped the issue of blood, or healed the man with the palsy, or with leprosy, he taught that suffering is not usually a case of divine retribution.  Instead, it is life.  We age.  We get sick.  Storms come up, our bodies become diseased.  And occasionally in the face of those things someone can help us.
3. People do miracles when they apply compassion and spiritual gifts to the challenges others face--The language used to describe the miracles--the leper was "cleansed," the faith of the woman with an issue of blood "made her whole"--suggests that most people can do miracles.  If we are attuned to the needs of another we can sit with them, help cleanse their illnesses, help them become whole.  Few of us can calm the Sea of Galilee.  But the sailors among us can, in that moment, grab the tiller and steer the ship safely to shore.
4. Miracles are inadvertent--In none of the instances of miracles in Mark 1-5 did Jesus go seeking to perform a miracle.  In each instance the opportunity presented itself.  The differentiator between Jesus and others seems, in each instance to have simply been his awareness of how his particular gifts could help another along the way.
5. Miracles are, at their core, not mystical.  They are compassionate--If I am at all correct, then we need new language for those rare instances where God's hand reaches into everyday life and changes the course of events to suit his purposes.  But the everyday, unexpected interactions that lift our lives, those can be called miracles.