It all started when a man named Jairus, a local synagogue
official, throws himself at the feet of Jesus, begging him to heal his
daughter, who is near death. Jesus immediately goes with Jairus to see her.
While Jesus is on his way, a crowd has gathered and is
anxious to see him in action. Deep inside the crowd is another woman, whose
suffering Mark vividly describes. She has been afflicted for 12 years “with a
hemorrhage,” most likely some form of vaginal bleeding that ancient medical
writers describe as involving great suffering from both the malady and its
treatment. She has spent all her money on physicians and cures without any
improvement (which still sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) and is growing worse.
Yet she is a woman of great faith and greater courage and she moves through the
crowd just to touch Jesus. That’s all she needs one little touch, no one will
notice, and she’ll be well.
When she touches him, she is “immediately” healed,
only to hear Jesus ask, “Who touched me?”
Uh-oh! She is caught! Which explains the “fear and
trembling” part.
You see, healed or not, she should not have touched
Jesus, let alone been mingling in a crowd. Her illness made her and everyone
she touched ritually unclean. But instead of a reprimand, Jesus’ words are a blessing
and affirmation: “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
She not only experienced healing; she experienced
salvation! She was reconciled to God and to her community.
While all this was going on, someone comes to Jairus
and reports of the death of his daughter. “Don’t trouble the Rabbi any longer,”
the grief-stricken father is told. But Jesus will not be turned away. “Do not
be afraid,” he says. “Just have faith” …just like the faith embodied in the
woman just healed.
Jesus arrives at Jairus’ home to find wailing
mourners, to whom Jesus says, improbably, that the girl has not died but is only
sleeping. With that, the mourning turns to ridicule but Jesus’ sends the
incredulous mourners away. Then, with great tenderness Jesus brings the child’s
parents into the room where their daughter lay. He takes the dead child by the
hand and says simply, “Little girl, I say to you arise.” The young woman “arose
immediately and walked around.” After which, he instructs the parents to do
what parents do: give the child something to eat. He returns the child to her
parents so that they may continue to care for her.
Notice something about these two healings: Mark tells
us that the girl was 12 years old, which is interesting because the woman in
the crowd had suffered for 12 years.
In the culture of that time 12 was thought to be the
marriageable age. The “little girl,” then, has died before she could become a
wife and mother. The woman had suffered an illness that not only prevented her
from bearing children, but had also separated her from community, restricting
her movements to a life of ineffective treatments, ritual bathing and limited
contact with her family and friends. Jesus not only rescues these women from
death, but he restores to them to life and, most important, reconciles them to
their communities.
Mark’s Gospel shows us Jesus exercising God’s power in
compassion. In the face of human suffering Jesus prioritizes the needs of these
sufferers over social taboos and conventions of his day. He talks to a woman in
public, allows an unclean person to touch him, and violates the stringent taboo
against touching a corpse. But this is how Jesus’ healing happens.
Faith, especially as embodied by the bleeding woman,
can exist in the face of seemingly hopeless situations.
Faith, embodied in Jairus, allowed him to set aside
his status as a local religious leader to seek the healing that Jesus offered.
And even today, we see that faith shows up over and
over again in the women and men who struggle in the face of illness and death
to not only remain faithful but to remain connected and active in community.
We find Jesus today in the faces of the people who
care for the sick, and bring blessing and spiritual healing to those who,
because of illness, are cut off from community. Whenever we send out a lay
Eucharistic visitor, one who brings the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood to
someone who is in hospital, or who is home-bound, or who is dying, we are
saying that no matter the situation, this person is still apart of our
community, still one of Christ’s people. These are people who face suffering
with great faith and they need our companionship, our prayers; they need to
hear God’s word and taste Jesus’ body; they need Christian community.
These days, I am blessed to follow in the footsteps of
these caring lay people and see the healing and hope they bring on behalf of
this parish. Even when the only words we can share is the Lord’s Prayer and
maybe the 23rd Psalm, I know that as a priest I am standing on the
shoulders of the caring people of this congregation who supported this woman,
her family and loved ones in prayer, sacrament, compassion, and spiritual
friendship.
In today’s Gospel we find that Jesus also identifies
with the women who sacrifice everything for the health of their families. In many parts of the world, women who, in
many parts of the world, have to trek miles to obtain the nearest clean water
and carry it back to their children. There are places even today, where women
pass along to each other the wisdom of childbirth and the care of the sick.
These were the places where the power of Jesus was
made real. In affirming the faith of these otherwise outcast woman. In meeting
the faith of Jairus and his wife, Jesus reminds us that in all the places where
we feel most alone, vulnerable and afraid, Jesus’ healing power is revealed.
His healing is manifest in the compassion and healing touch of women and men
who dare to care. It is this everyday compassion where everyday people still experience
the power of Jesus.
As the hymn says, “where cross the crowded ways of life,” these are the ways that Jesus’ healing power is made known. And right now, having witnessed that Jesus’ compassion, he still (as he did with Jairus’ daughter) takes our hand and gives us something to eat as nourishes us in broken bread and poured out wine, his own body and blood.
A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8-B)
Given at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida
See the bulletin here.
See a video of the sermon here.
See a video of the entire liturgy here.
No comments:
Post a Comment