Mark 5:21-43 "Finding Healing in a Risky World"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         Grammatical errors bring out the English teacher (or E.B. White) in me – and that includes misspelled words, too much or too little punctuation, inappropriate paragraph divisions, and incorrect word choices.  I suppose it comes from diagramming a lot of sentences in 7^th and 8^th grade.  Diagramming is a lost art really, and those of you who managed to get through school without encountering that particular teaching fad need only find someone at coffee hour with a few gray hairs, and you can learn all about it.

         We spent a lot of time on grammar back then in school.  However, for all those English classes, I have never heard of a formal name for a grammatical structure such as we find in this passage from the Gospel of Mark.  That being said, I will just call it as I see it. 

         What we just finished reading, then, is a “sandwich story.”  It is two tales about Jesus healing highly unlikely (and unlikeable) people all mixed up together.  It is one story nestled in between the beginning and the ending of a second story.

         It is the story of a woman with no name who had bled uncontrollably (and impurely) for twelve years embedded smack in the middle of a story about a man with a name (That would be Jairus) and his young daughter who was dying. 

         Both Jairus and the nameless woman sought out the new and exceedingly popular healer who had recently blown into town (That would be Jesus.) because they were at their wits’ end.  They were desperate and would do just about anything (which they did) to catch Jesus’ eye and feel the touch of his healing hands. 

         In these stores, one tale unceremoniously breaks in and gets in the way of the other story - as our readers this morning so aptly dramatized.  These stories are ones where interruptions abound, and boundaries are crossed, and, in the interrupting and the crossing, healing and wholeness are found.

         Jesus had been surrounded by loads of people since he healed that first madman in the synagogue.  Word had rapidly spread, and he and his disciples had shuttled themselves back and forth across the Galilean Lake several times trying to move forward and cover more territory, but they were constantly being interrupted. Each time the shoreline came into view there were more crowds impeding their progress – more of the sick, the blind, the deaf, the lame, more of the just plain curious.  This time was certainly no different. 

         As Jesus disembarked and felt the first of hundreds of hands reaching out to him, as he was jostled by folks who were being nudged by others who were pushing and pulling their friends and colleagues and mothers and brothers, most of whom were on crutches or walked with canes or were carried on litters, all jockeying for position, all awaiting a medical miracle, amidst grunting and groaning, “tsk tsk’ing” and noises of disapproval, Jairus, who was an official at the synagogue, not particularly well-liked because of his status as one of the religious hierarchy, but a man of some consequence nonetheless, budged his way through the peasant crowd and elbowed himself right up to Jesus, the masses melting away until he had room enough to kneel and set forth his plea:  “My dear daughter is at death’s door. Come and lay hands on her so she will get well and live.”

        And Jesus began to follow Jairus, and the crowd merrily came along because, well, because Jesus was the newest thing in town, and, besides, they really had nothing better to do, and, OK, they did want to know if this healer was all he had been cracked up to be. 

         Now, if we were filming this scenario, we would see Jesus and Jairus walking off into the sunset – Casablanca style - their budding friendship setting off an explosion of questions.  What is this Jairus up to?  What gives with a religious uppity-up approaching the itinerant and illiterate rabbi?  Would Jesus save the little girl?   

         The camera would then pan the crowds and linger on a particularly pale and haggard-looking peasant, a desperate woman, just beginning to push her own way forward.  Who was she?  And what was she up to? 

         And then the screen would go black, and the credits would roll.  Like at the end of Downton Abbey where we are left wondering if Mary will find out in the next episode that Marigold is Edith’s child, and who will run the estate now that Branson has returned from America.

        The next scene opens with the nameless woman inching her way through the huddled masses.  No one is preparing the way for her though.  Not that anyone wanted to be in close contact with her if they recognized her for who she was – the village pariah who had been bleeding for over a decade now.  She had seen doctors galore, but all they had done was prescribe useless tinctures and exercise regimens and run up her copays until she was destitute.  She was the height of Jewish impurity – and now wandering around in broad daylight. – an untouchable just a notch or two up from the lepers.  No one was going to make way for the likes of her. 

         However, she moved ever closer even as Jesus moved farther down the road.  Sometimes she pushed.  Sometimes she was pushed over, and then she crawled until she could stand upright again.  She mumbled over and over to herself all the while – like a mantra:  “If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well…If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well.” 

         Oh, was she ever persistent!  And finally she got close enough so that she could sneak up behind Jesus and touch the hem of his robe.  And it was like an electric jolt went straight through her. And the blood that had oozed out between her legs for twelve years stopped and that which had dribbled out already that morning got sticky and hardened.  And she was healed.

         And Jesus was shocked – because he knew she was healed too.  And he stopped, and Jairus gave him a funny look because the synagogue official did not understand why they should tarry with his daughter so sick and all. 

         And Jesus asked, “Who touched my robe?”  And there was silence until his disciples answered, “You have got to be kidding?  What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you’re asking, ‘Who touched me?’ Dozens have touched you!”

         It was then that the woman stepped forward – in fear and trembling – and told her story.  And Jesus smiled because the woman got it, and he said, “Daughter, you took a risk, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed!”  End of story:  “You engaged in the risky business of interruptions and crossing boundaries.  You’re healed and whole.  Live well.  Live blessed.”  Nice!  Cut!  Roll the credits.

        Oh, wait a minute!  Where did we leave Jairus, the man of consequence whose innocent daughter lay dying, where did we leave him before we were so rudely interrupted by the no name woman who had been bleeding for 12 years?  Oh yes, we were on our way to Jairus’ house with Jesus.

         But alas!  It seems that the two men are too late.  As Jesus is talking with the nameless woman, some folks from Jairus’ home interrupt him.  “She’s dead.  The little girl is dead.”

         But Jesus goes anyway, his arm about a now sobbing Jairus, consoling him by saying that the little girl is not dead but only sleeping.  The crowd snickers and whispers that he clearly does not know what he is talking about, and what sort of a healer does that make him anyway?

         Well, we all know that Jesus enters the house and takes only Peter, James, and John with him into the child’s room.  He sits by her bed and takes her lifeless hand in his and commands her.  “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up.”  And she does. 

         And the Gospel writer includes an exquisite detail here, telling us that she runs off to the kitchen to get something to eat – because perhaps being sick and then dead works up an appetite.

         A sandwich narrative – one story budging into the middle of another story - neither story seeming to have much of anything in common:  a nameless and impoverished peasant woman, a named man of consequence; a man who perhaps had an iota of faith, enough to plead for a healing anyway; a woman who had neither the strength nor the faith to plead at all; a chronic sickness that had hung on for over a decade, a sudden virulent disease; an old woman with maybe a year or two of fertility left, a young girl with all her womanhood ahead of her. 

         “How could these stories be any different in circumstance and setting?” we ask.  But then, right at the end of the passage, the gospel writer includes another detail, almost as an afterthought:  “Oh, by the way, the little girl was twelve years old.”

         A twelve year old child.  A twelve year disease.  Twelve:  A number that had much significance in a first century Jewish community - what with the twelve tribes of Israel and all – significance enough to make any good Jew stand up and take notice. 

         Maybe then, we ought to take notice as well - because these two seemingly unrelated stories really have more in common than we might first surmise. 

Together they end up telling us a lot about the Good News of Jesus and about our role in ushering in the Kingdom of God. 

         First, these stories remind us that God’s healing grace is meant for all of us – from the nameless ones to those of consequence – though most of the time you would never know it if we are the ones dispensing that grace.  As Presbyterian pastor Lewis Galloway notes, “In Jesus, there is hope, life and community for all. Meanwhile, we tend to let the Gospel out in dribs and drabs. We are stingy with what God so lavishly gives. We worry about who deserves our help, our food, our time, our money and our attention. We carefully calculate the conditions under which we will stoop to forgive someone.” 

         It is risky business indeed to throw away the scarcity factor and live our lives abundantly – to ignore everything from town lines when it comes to financial assistance to our own fears and prejudices when it comes to living compassionately.  It is risky business to unclench our fists and open our hands and offer a healing touch to those in need – especially when it means venturing into places and circumstances where we do not feel so safe and insulated.  But, as Galloway pointed out, “In Jesus, there is hope, life and community for all.”

         Second, these two tales tell us that the call of the Gospel – the call to peace-making and justice-seeking and compassion-giving - is perhaps most effectively done and experienced through interruptions.  Jesus was always interrupted, as our two stories today point out.  He was always on his way to doing something else when he was confronted with people in need – with opportunities to feed the hungry and heal the sick and touch the untouchable. 

         Methodist Bishop Bevel Jones noted that: “The late Henri Nouwen, great Catholic teacher, minister, said in the prime of his career that he became frustrated by the many interruptions to his work. He was teaching at Notre Dame. He had a heavy agenda each day and didn't like to be disturbed. Then one day it dawned on him that his interruptions were his work. Someone has said, ‘Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans!’ Often we find that the interruption, however, is of greater consequence than what we were doing.”  It is risky business to not live our lives on auto-pilot, to forego our best-laid plans and live as the servants Jesus called us to be.

      And finally, these stories exemplify that our calling to be a follower of Jesus is a calling to cross boundaries.  After all, Jesus did it.  He ignored religious barriers and embraced the impure and touched the untouchable.  He did not hang back, but rather thrust himself smack in the midst of those who were most in need of healing and wholeness, those who had been marginalized and cast aside, those who had been ignored and forgotten. 

         And it was not just Jesus who crossed the barriers.  Maybe if it was just Jesus, we could say, “Well, that was Jesus.  That was different.” 

         However, in our stories, both the nameless woman and Jairus crossed boundaries to reach Jesus – the woman throwing herself past all the purity laws of Judaism and Jairus defying the religious hierarchy that proclaimed Jesus to be just another nutcase. 

         It is risky business to say yes to the Way of Jesus when our culture and our politicians set forth other boundaries and barriers they tell us are designed to keep us safe and secure – a petroleum-based economy that harms our planet as well as the nameless ones who live in nameless places in its farthest reaches, a weapons-based safety net in our schools and bedside tables and the glove compartments of our cars. 

         Yes – being a follower of Jesus involves our being engaged in risky business.  It is risky business to embrace – really embrace - that there is enough of God’s grace to go around.  It is risky business to thrive on the interruptions and opportunities to follow Jesus that call us out of our ruts and comfort zones.  It is risky business to cross boundaries and break down barriers in the name of the Gospel message.  Where are you when it comes to taking risks?

 by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond VIllage Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine