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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

 Mark 5

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

36 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

My wee laddie turned 30 this week, and suddenly I’m out of touch.

Not so much with the usual music, clothing, slang, social media platform, or recreational choices, but children’s books— something I haven’t thought about for many years. I had an inkling, and my inkling relates to the lesson of the day, so I decided to check out bestselling books for preschoolers.

Sure enough, there are many best-selling books about bodies, learning about your body, and self-esteem related to what you find. And they seem to follow a few broad themes, the first being a general kind of body positivity: Bodies Are Cool (Tyler Feder); Me and My Amazing Body (Joan Sweeney); and 

I Love Being Me! (Mechal Renee Roe).

And then there is the inevitable and wildly popular book Everyone Poops (Taro Gomi), and what seems like an unintentional sequel, We Poop on the Potty (Jim Harbison). Some things need to be said.

I’m particularly partial to the rhyming titles, such as Oliver West! It’s Time to Get Dressed! (Kelly Louise); Whose Toes Are Those? (Jabari Asim), and (of course) Whose Knees are These? (Jabari Asim). And this then leads us to books for kids who are self-conscious, such as Big Hair, Don’t Care (Crystal Swain-Bates) or a new personal favourite: Your Nose! A Wild Little Love Story (Sandra Boynton).

The link to our passage is bodies, physicality, and the extent to which we can imagine the scene. I’m going to reread a summary version, with a focus on the physical. (Remember this is a story within a story, so we begin and end with the healing of Jairus’ daughter)

Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet.

He pleaded, “Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed.”

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 

A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 

She came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.

She thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. 

“Who touched my clothes?” he asked.

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet.

Jesus then went in where the child was. 

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). 

He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

A few things to note here: first, there is an obvious connection between healing and touch. The dialogue between “If I could only touch him” and “Who touched me?” tells us all we need to know about the immediacy of touch and the need to be present, both to touch and to be touched. In almost every healing, there is an element of the physical.

And this also tells us all we need to know about this incarnational God we worship. We follow the Way: an intentional decision to walk the way we walk, to enter the pain and suffering of life, and to visit God’s healing on the people he met. I’m going to assume all the people he met. This is the moment we remember John’s coda, the last words of his Gospel: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Imagine the power of God emanating for everyone he met—a gentle touch, a kind word, a gentle challenge—and forgiveness for all that is past. We tend to see these a series of “healing episodes,” passages that we preach (or avoid) as individual units of healing. My sense, based on this passage and others, is that Jesus healed everyone he met: whether they knew it or not, whether they wanted it or not. Meeting Jesus meant transformation, and meeting Jesus means transformation, because the power of God is infinite.

And that brings me to another point, one born of the remarkable line: “At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.” Remember this is Mark’s Gospel. Generally it’s John’s Gospel that gives us the self-aware Jesus, the Jesus that knows (and tells people) that he is the way, the truth and the life. Mark’s Jesus is the “tell no one” Jesus, which is the way our reading ends today. Yet he knows that power has left him, and Mark knows too. Jesus doesn’t heal by accident, it’s always his intention to heal.

And then the remarkable end to our passage, when we finally meet Jairus’ daughter after what seems a false start. Even in their grief, the people around the girl think it’s absurd that she is merely sleeping. In a time well acquainted with death, they know she is gone, and they think they know the limit of God’s power. “You are dust,” God said, “and to the dust you shall return.” Yet even this bit of divine legislation does not bind the Son of the Most High, who understands the mysteries of death and can raise the dead. This, and the raising of Lazarus, remain the most confounding of Jesus’ miracles, but we are invited to open ourselves to this mystery nonetheless.

The past few weeks, and the discovery of countless graves around residential schools, reminds us of the power of the physical. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report dedicated a chapter to missing children and unmarked burials, but the physical discovery of graves, and the innocents within, has moved us more than many expected. And so we heed the moderator’s words, who in a letter to clergy this week offered these reflections:

This is a time for The United Church of Canada to listen rather than prescribe. The pain in Indigenous communities and churches is immense. I ask you to continue to hold Indigenous members of the United Church and their families and communities in prayer and ask members of your community of faith to do the same.

Again, back to the physical. We use our ears rather than our tongues, and listen to the pain that is shared, the anguish and the anger. I expect it will be a long summer of listening, and reflecting on the past. And prayer is an excellent place to start, knowing that we will be called upon to act, and will need God’s help when that moment comes.

God’s desire to heal is infinite, and God’s desire to walk with those in pain is never-ending. God entered our world precisely to heal everyone who God met through Jesus. This tells us all we need to know about the heavenly healing mandate. As God’s agents, or ambassadors, we share the same mandate, and strive (first of all) to do no harm, and then share the same gentle touch, and kind word, and wish for healing that we know. May God give us the strength we need, now and always, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:00 AM