When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Mark 5:21-43
Perspective
This past week I bought a drone – an entry level drone that was 40 percent off. It affords a person a different perspective. For instance, I took the drone for a test flight (I’m very much a novice) over one of our flood control dams while it was being inspected by one of the people from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s Dam Safety Division.
While they were doing the inspection, I flew the drone out over the dam and took a photo of the riser that acts as a spillway for the water to go through.
Then I decided to fly the drone higher to get a photo of the whole dam. I got a little over 200 feet and then turned the drone so I could get a shot along the length of the dam.
I kept moving the toggle sticks trying to get the best image and lost sight of the drone (it’s really, really small). I could hear it in the distance but couldn’t see it or figure out where it could be.
Finally, as I fiddled with the angle of the camera I realized the drone – that I thought was out over the dam – was actually behind me. That’s me in the middle of the shot in the bottom third.
Not only did I learn a lesson in how things look from 200 feet up, I learned how my understanding could be confused.
Sometimes, it can be the same way with Scripture.
Last week we saw the Kingship of Christ over the created order – nature – when he stilled the storm.
This week we see his Kingship over life. It’s a healing story that has within it another healing story – let’s take a look at the first story:
Jairus was a leader in the synagogue. He came to Jesus asking for him to come and lay his hands on his daughter, who was at “the point of death.”
This man, a person of power and privilege in the community, humbled himself and fell at the feet of this itinerant Rabbi, begging him to come to his home. In doing so, he was recognizing the Kingship of Jesus over life itself. It was a very public confession of faith in who Jesus is.
Mark’s Gospel doesn’t relate what Jesus said in response to Jairus, but simply reports that “he went with him.”
But they didn’t go alone. The Gospel tells us that a large crowd followed Jesus and pressed in on him. Imagine this if you will. We’ve seen images of crowds in the Middle-East where the people are massed together so closely, you wonder if anyone can move. And we’ve seen crowds here in this country — crowds at rock concerts, crowds at sporting events, crowds at demonstrations and protests, crowds that press and pack people close together.
Jesus and Jairus didn’t have secret service agents or personal bodyguards, they were surrounded by people. You have to figure that they had to push their way forward toward Jairus’ home, maybe with Jairus in the lead pushing folks out of the way while Jesus and his disciples followed.
And in that crowd was another person. A woman suffering from hemorrhages.
Another Perspective
Unlike Jairus, she was not privileged, she was impoverished. She wasn’t powerful, she was vulnerable. She wasn’t accepted and honored by her community; instead, she was considered ritually unclean. We are told Jairus’ name. Mark doesn’t even record her name.
And – she was a woman: which, in that time, was to be considered a second class citizen.
But she had one thing in common with Jairus – Faith.
While his faith was public, hers was private. Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet – The unnamed woman only dared to reach out and touch his cloak, but she did so believing it would be enough.
Last week, Jesus responded to his Disciples, asking them why they had so little faith.
This week, we have two people who demonstrated their faith in who Jesus was even though they were only familiar with Jesus by reputation – by what they’d heard about him.
In both instances their faith was rewarded.
I titled this sermon “Out of the Depths.” I did that because the Psalm in this week’s United Methodist Lectionary was Psalm 130. Here are the first lines:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord
Lord hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
Both Jairus and the unnamed woman cried out to Jesus from the depths of their despair – and he heard and responded to their cries.
Note that the woman was healed immediately upon touching his cloak. But Jesus stopped and looked around, sensing that power had gone out from him and demanding to know who touched his clothes.
So she came to him in “fear and trembling” and fell down in her turn, telling him the whole truth. Now, Jesus could have simply let the healing stand – but instead he drew her out from the crowd. Surely, this was a second healing – acknowledging her as a person of worthiness in a community in which she had been ritually shunned.
At this point, Mark returns to the story of Jairus.
Talitha Cum
People came to tell him that it was too late, Jairus’ daughter was dead.
Of course, we know the end of the story. We know that Jesus is going to tell the little girl to “get up and walk”.
But it’s interesting that now the crowd seems to disappear and Jesus proceeds with only Peter, James and John and the little girl’s father.
When they arrive at Jairus’ home and the people there told them that it was too late, they responded to his assurance that the girl was not dead but only sleeping by laughing.
Was this a lack of faith, a scornful response, or a sign of their sorrow and shock. We aren’t told.
Accompanied by only his three disciples, along with Jairus and his wife, Jesus went in and simply said, “little girl, get up.”
And she did.
So, we have one very public healing and one that is virtually private. One involving a woman who is “outside the law” because of the nature of her malady, and one involving a leader of the religious community. Both of them involve answered prayers – a response to faith.
Unanswered Prayers
But what about prayers that aren’t answered – at least not in the way that we’d prefer.
We’re tempted, aren’t we, to take a utilitarian approach to prayer. It’s as if we go online to Amazon and order a drone (for 40% off) and expect to receive exactly what we ordered.
I was appointed to our state’s Information Technology Board some years ago and before 2020, I would drive down to Jackson each month for a two to three hour meeting in which we made decisions on every aspect of technology from computers, printers and cameras to software and data centers.
Then the pandemic came along and we started meeting virtually during the initial shut-down of in-person meetings.
It happened to be my turn to be chair during the Spring of 2020, and I used a photo of our board room as my virtual background.
It was funny because people watching online were calling, texting and emailing the agency staff asking if I’d driven down to Jackson to sit alone in the building to host the meeting.
Now we’re used to all kinds of virtual backgrounds.
Who’s experienced Zoom meetings since 2020? Raise your hand.
I keep a Daily Book calendar in our bedroom – the past few years I’ve bought the one with The New Yorker cartoons.
This past Thursday, it showed a prophet standing in a shaft of heavenly light and asking, “Hello, Hello, I think you’re on mute.”
I’m betting that’s happened to everyone who’s been in a Zoom meeting in the past four years. Either the person speaking has forgotten to unmute themselves, or we find that we have.
So when it does seem as if God is “on mute” and our prayers seem to be unanswered, what are we to think?
Here’s where, upon reflection, I think we miss the point of Mark’s relating these two healing stories.
Maybe the lesson isn’t simply about our telling God what we want and using “faith” like a virtual debit card online.
My initial thought today about the connection between the Lectionary reading from 2nd Corinthians and the Gospel was that Jesus responded to both the important synagogue official and the outcast woman.
Stay with me a moment.
In his letter to Corinth, Paul was urging the church to fulfill their “generous undertaking” of sending assistance to the poor saints in Jerusalem. He noted that it involved a question of a fair balance between “your abundance and their need.”
Paul made the comparison in verse 15 to the story of Manna in Exodus, where those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.
In today’s Gospel, Jarius and the unnamed woman each received just enough. Right?
But more importantly, Paul’s letter tells us that we don’t dictate what God’s response to our prayers will be. He reminds us here and elsewhere:
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
Paul reminds the church at Corinth – and he reminds us – of the nature of “divine economy”.
The Economy of God
One of the discussions at Annual Conference this year was about budgeting and the funding of the various ministries of the church. With the changes and disruptions that have taken place in the last few years, many of those ministries have been threatened. I imagine Paul would be urging us to remember to excel in our generous undertaking to support these ministries in difficult times.
We make a mistake in focusing on Jesus healing the woman with hemorrhages and restoring Jairus’ daughter to life as simply answers to their prayers.
Instead these healings pointed to the nature of Jesus’ divine Kingship over life and his identity as the son of God.
Paul pointed out in his Epistle and Mark recorded in the intertwined stories of these two healings what has been called the “economy of God” –
The one who had the ultimate power to control the stormy seas and even life itself, emptied himself in order to bring himself level with our impoverished nature.
As Paul said in verse 15 of his letter to Corinth:
The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.
2 Corinthians 8:15
Mark’s Gospel isn’t telling us that we should use our faith to simply call on the power of Jesus to do what we want as if faith were a coin we can spend.
There’s certainly nothing wrong in praying — for healing, for family members facing crises, for unity in our church family, for our country and for the world. However, we must also remember the example of Christ – who responded to the needs of others – who balanced the scales in God’s “divine economy.”
The challenge set for us in today’s Gospel and Epistle lesson is to follow his example by extending grace to our fellow beings — restoring the balance where it’s been lost.