This sermon was offered at Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter, MN. It is based on Mark 5:21-43.
A
couple of days ago the Timberwolves head coach, Flip Saunders chose
Karl-Anthony Towns as the first round draft pick for the upcoming season. And then, they chose Minnesota’s own Tyus
Jones in the 24th pick. On
Friday, Jones picked up Towns from the airport and took him on a tour of the skyway
system. News reports said the duo was
surrounded by fans.
This
is pretty big news for the basketball franchise. Fans are hopeful that this season will be
more successful than previous seasons. According
to news reports they even shouted, “Give us a ring!” People showed up,
surrounding the young men and followed them through the skyway. I don’t know that the players were jostled by
the crowd—we do like to maintain a Minnesota-nice distance from celebrities—but
they certainly were welcomed with enthusiasm and the media was there to capture
it.
This
is what many of our rock stars, film stars, politicians and athletes deal with
when they go out in public. They are
recognized for their star qualities and have to navigate the public attention.
Imagine
then, what Jesus experienced as he got off the boat. People had heard the news that this man was
important; that he was doing unexplainable things; that he was someone to place
their hope upon, so they came in droves, surrounding him, celebrating him,
maybe a bit like our basketball hopefuls on Friday.
Our
Gospel today tells us of two stories of healing, of two families touched by
serious illness. Two people who came
into the throng, just to see Jesus.
They were both desperate.
They were both vulnerable.
The
first, Jarius, a leader within the synagogue, a man with some clout, knelt
before Jesus, begging for his daughter’s life.
A man of means, he probably never had to beg for anything, now expresses
his desperation, his vulnerability, and is on his knees before a man with a
reputation for helping those with the most need.
The
nameless, now poor, bleeding woman, who, according to the book Bible Women
by the Reverend Lindsay Hardin-Freeman, is likely a social and religious
outcast due to uncontrollable uterine hemorrhaging.[1] She is hoping for relief from her anemia, her
weakness, her twelve –year separation from society. She yearns to quietly touch the hem of Jesus’
cloak because she had heard of Jesus and his healing power.
Two
people with very different backgrounds came forward in very different ways,
hoping that in their vulnerability, in their desperation, they would be seen by
Jesus and be given what they most desired:
healing of body. But why are
their stories told this way?
Let me tell you how I envision the scene:
Jesus
is surrounded by lots of people, when Jarius steps forward from the crowd at the
sea and kneels before Jesus with tears in his eyes. He had just left his 12-year-old daughter
dying in her bed, unable to take this inevitability away from her or her
mother. Dropping to the ground he looks
up at Jesus and says, “Help me. My
daughter is dying and I don’t know where else to turn. I have heard that you heal people. Heal my daughter. Please.”
Jesus,
full of compassion, looks into his eyes and says, “I will go with you. Take me to your daughter.” So Jarius arises, scans the crowd, and leads
Jesus through, zig-zagging around the slower moving people, accelerating when
the crowd thins, slowing down when the crowd grows.
About
the same time Jarius approaches Jesus at the shore, an unaccompanied woman creeps
toward the crowd. She has been bleeding
for twelve years and she is weak, pale and now destitute after years of seeing
doctor after doctor and trying medicine after medicine and experiencing
treatment after treatment to unsuccessfully stop the bleeding.
She
observes the encounter between Jarius and Jesus, hears Jarius’s plea for help
and she knows that she, too, needs Jesus to heal her. She pushes through the crowd and reaches out,
believing that a simple touch of Jesus’ cloak will be enough to change her
life. But Jarius leads Jesus away too
quickly. She lunges forward with the
crowd, a crowd that does not know she is bleeding or that she is weak. They do not pay attention to her or realize
she is ritually unclean. They do not
know she has been separated from society, from the synagogue[2]. She is simply another body pushing towards
Jesus.
She
is almost lifted from the ground as she moves toward Jesus, the people’s bodies
providing the momentum needed to keep pace with Jesus.
Finally,
she sees her opportunity and reaches out and touches the hem of his
garment. Instantly, she feels her body
change. Immediately, she becomes
stronger. She knows the bleeding has
stopped. The depth of her illness, her
sense of impending death, leaves her in her next heartbeat. She stands still, the crowd jostles her, but
she stands firm, amazed at what she is feeling:
wholeness; health; wellness. She
looks at her hands and sees the color return.
Her mouth opens and she looks at Jesus as he continues his quest toward
the dying girl. Time stands still for
her, but the crowd keeps moving.
And
then, Jesus stops, aware that something within him has also changed. He turns, looking around the crowd and asks,
“Who touched me?” The people around him,
his disciples, Jarius and others look at him and laugh. “Everyone is touching you, Jesus.” But Jesus knows someone with a special need,
someone with incredible trust in him, someone who believed that Jesus could
heal them had touched him. The Gospel
writer wrote that Jesus knew this because power had left him. He was not weakened by this touch, but he was
aware that someone received the gift they most needed at this moment.
The
woman, now afraid, steps forward and admits that she had touched Jesus’
cloak. Embarrassed, she falls at his
feet and bows her head, saying, “It was I who touched you.” Jesus squats down to her and lifts her chin
so he can look into her eyes. He asks to
hear her story. They sit together as she
tells him of the twelve years she suffered, of the doctors and the medicines
that could not stop the hemorrhaging, of her coming into the crowd with the
single hope of meeting Jesus.
We
don’t know how long they spoke, but we know that Jesus was filled with
compassion for her and he gave her his blessing of health, acknowledging that
her faith has made her well. But more
important, he called her “Daughter,” identifying her as the child of God she
was. He publicly identified her as his
kin. His recognition of her, his
announcing his kinship to her, gave her permission to re-enter the synagogue
and to fully participate in daily life in the community.[3]
In
all of this, Jarius is there, waiting for Jesus to come with him to his home;
for Jesus to come to heal his daughter.
He was probably getting more and more anxious, watching Jesus with the
woman, knowing that every second mattered for his daughter, but knowing, too,
that Jesus would not have stopped so abruptly if he did not believe this woman
was in equal need.
When
the people came running from Jarius’ house to say his daughter had died, I can
see Jarius collapsing into their arms in grief.
I imagine the woman gasping in shock, covering her mouth, tears welling
up in her eyes, knowing that she had delayed Jesus, and now the girl was
dead. But Jesus looks into her eyes as
if to say, “All will be well,” takes her hands and together they stand. He turns and continues his journey.
Scripture
says that Jesus went to the house only with Jarius, Peter, James and John, but
I wonder if the woman followed to see what would happen, so filled with joy for
her own healing but also feeling distraught and guilty about the death of the
young girl. Was she outside with the
other mourners when Jesus told them the girl was sleeping? Did she laugh with the others at Jesus, or
did she lean on a wall and wait, knowing that all things were possible with
this man? Did she peek through the
window when he told the girl to “stand up?”
Did she silently cheer when he told them to feed the girl?
What
would happen if the story did not end there?
Maybe the collision of their stories in this Gospel was the beginning of
a family legend…
Were
these two women now bound to one another, their lives transformed? Did they sit with their heads together,
talking of the way Jesus healed them? Was their conversation about how Jesus
touched them both without fear of their ritual uncleanliness, without fear of
the impurity of one’s blood or the other’s death? Did they compare how they each experienced the
physical sensation of being healed? Were
their lives now entwined until they breathed their last breaths?
I’d
like to think that all these things occurred and that the nameless woman now
wore a knowing smile, understanding the miracles Jesus had just performed were
gifts from God. I’d like to believe that
the girl grew into adulthood with a special God-mother who was present
throughout the milestones of her life. I
hope that Jarius welcomed the woman into his household as a sister and that
though they could not publicly talk of these miracles, they would sit together
and marvel at what they had experienced.
In
this Gospel reading we see how Jesus heals the wealthy and the poor; the leader
and the outcast; a daughter who has her father to advocate for her and a woman
who must be her own advocate. At a time
when women did not have a voice, Jesus listened. We see that Jesus does not discriminate. Both are brought to wholeness. Their needs are met because of their faith
that Jesus will heal them.
I
have some questions for you to think about:
·
If you heard that
Jesus was in town, what would you do?
o Would you meet his plane, train, boat or car?
o Would you join others, hoping to get a glimpse of him,
like the Timberwolves fans did on Friday?
o Would you try to get his attention in a very obvious way,
like Jarius-- or would you be satisfied with secretly touching the hem of his
clothing, like the woman?
·
What would you want
from Jesus?
o Would you drop to your knees and beg on behalf of someone
you love?
o Would you want to be relieved of some burden you have
carried … or that has carried you for a dozen years?
o Would you be willing to risk your status—or to make your
status public?
·
How would you make
yourself known to Jesus?
o How desperate would you need to be to put yourself in
Jarius’s position?
o How vulnerable are you willing to be to stand up and say
“It was I who touched your cloak?”
We
don’t need Jesus to arrive by plane or train or boat or car. Jesus is here with us now. He knows our vulnerabilities. He knows our desperation. He knows our joys and what we are thankful
for, each and every minute of our lives.
We can drop to our knees or we can reach out and touch his cloak when we
are in any kind of need or sorrow. Jesus
sees our needs, He feels our sorrow. He
sees the needs of our neighbors. He
needs each of us to see them in one another, too.
He
wants us to know one another more fully.
To learn each other’s stories, like the story of the woman. He wants us to look into one another’s eyes
and see them as the daughters and sons of God.
He wants us to look beyond class and race and gender, to see, deeply,
who each of us is. He wants us to know
that He is present in each of us, as flawed and as beautiful as each of us is.
He
wants us to have faith in Him, to allow our faith to trust that He will respond
to our needs, to be willing to humble ourselves, like Jarius, or to be bold
like the woman.
Through
the stories of these two women, Jesus teaches us that love has no boundaries. That He is present to each of us. He wants us to know that we are each
loved.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Gospel stories that make us think
beyond the printed words, stories that challenge our imaginations and help us
to further understand all the ways you work in the world. In your name we pray. Amen.