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First
Reading
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Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
Lamentations 3:21–33 |
Psalm 130 |
2 Corinthians 8:7–15 |
Mark 5:21–43
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Like many narrators before and after him, Mark loved the technique of telling a story within a story, and used the technique five times in his Gospel. The key to understanding both stories lies in discovering the relationship between them. Hence for the Gospel today, we have to hold together the healing of Jarius’ daughter with the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage.
After getting off the boat, Jesus was immediately met by one of the leaders of a town’s synagogue. Being a leader of the synagogue, probably its president, was one of the most prestigious positions one could hold in the local community. He came to Jesus, accompanied by a large retinue, respectfully requesting Jesus’ help in healing his daughter who was near death. As Jesus started off, he was unexpectedly interrupted. Unnoticed by Jarius’ retinue, a poor woman, considered ritually unclean because of her particular affliction, maneuvered herself behind Jesus, and touched his cloak. Instantly, Jesus felt something. Readers of the Gospel would assume that something unusual was happening, for when an unclean person touched someone considered holy, the holy became contaminated; but not in this case. Instead, the unclean person was healed! Dramatically, Jesus stopped and looked around. The disciples and others passed the incident off as an anonymous and inconsequential shove from the crowd, and tried to prevent Jesus from getting sidetracked, but Jesus insisted and wanted all to take notice. “Someone, a real person with a face and name, reached out to me.” Jesus recognized the woman and compelled the crowd to see her also. Very likely for the first time, Jarius, leader of the synagogue, a pastor to all the people of his community, looked into the eyes of this woman and recognized her also as a child of God.
Jesus said, “Daughter, you are well, you are clean, go in peace,” and servants from Jarius’ house announced, “Your daughter is dead and her body is now unclean.” Undeterred, Jesus pointed to the woman and said to Jarius, “Have faith.” Jesus insisted on going to the house and into the room where Jarius’ daughter was lying. Interestingly, we, like the bystanders, assume that the child is dead, but not Jesus. Jesus never believed that the child had died. Jesus touched her and the child regained consciousness.
Lastly, to make sure we link the story of the woman with Jarius’ daughter, Mark notes that the daughter was twelve years old, about to start puberty, the same age as the number of years the woman had suffered the slipping away of her life-giving ability.
To disciples of every age, the Gospel is reminding us that both the woman and the daughter had in effect been written off as good as dead. Larger society tends to do that with people, but not God, not God.
Moreover, communities that are in danger of dying themselves often limit their vision to what is considered safe and comfortable. Hence, they cannot see the need to pay attention to those who seem to be barely surviving on the edges. They circle the wagons, they tighten their circle, and they permit cataracts to shut down their vision. Communities in danger of death are those that erect walls in order to isolate themselves and protect the past, rather than construct highways to connect to an increasingly wider world and potential bridges of new life to the future.
The woman, who for twelve years had suffered humiliation and rejection, was as much a daughter of the community as the young daughter of Jarius. A community that is healthy takes its mission seriously and is always having encounters of growth involving those, heretofore, unnoticed or passed by. In such encounters, one meets the face of living faith over and over again.
Lastly, it is often in the interruptions, the unexpected diversions from our agenda and on what we have our mind set, that the grace of God is revealed. The Gospels are a history of the disciples expecting Jesus to stay the course in one direction, and Jesus veering off, crossing barriers of various kinds and offering God’s blessing. The story within the story is not only about the healing of Jarius’ daughter and the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak. For Jarius and his large retinue it was also about being interrupted from the critical task of bringing a Holy healer to his beloved daughter, and in the process, discovering another daughter, and perhaps meeting God in a fresh and wonderful new way.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
