God's Healing Touch

Homily for Pentecost VI
June, 30, 2024
Mark 5:21-43

Let the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O God.

Please be seated.

Touching is one way we experience our humanity. (pause) Whether it be embracing one another in a hug or touching the grime of the garden dirt, (pause) we explore our world through touching it. Jesus in the Gospels appears the MOST tangible when he like us touches the everyday mess of life. The we hear today offers us two stories, (pause) one woman bleeding for 12 years and another girl almost 12 years old facing death(pause) - both in need of JESUS’S TOUCH. Comparing the two stories opens our imagination to the wide range (gesture out) of Jesus’ ministry.

The Gospel begins with the healing story of Jairus’ young child which is interrupted with another healing story of a woman with hemorrhages for twelve years (pause)and then concludes with the raising of the first young girl (pause) even though she had died waiting for the delayed Jesus to arrive. The sandwiching of stories of the young girl and persistent woman reveal a Jesus who heals and has the power to do so. (pause) Through the lens of these two women,no one is invisible or too far gone.

And yet, the stories also relate in an interesting way (pause) --by attending to one (use one hand), Jesus runs the risk of not attending to the other in time (use other hand). Jesus begins to head off with Jairus and finds his healing task quickly interrupted. The Gospel writer shifts to a frame within a frame,that is a healing story within another healing story. Both the crowd and Mark’s readers are left to wonder what will happen. (pause) While both Jairus and the woman may need healing, they are starting at different places. JAIRUS had a 12 year old girl, the light of his world, who was about to die. (pause)The WOMAN had 12 years of agony and hopelessness. (pause) JAIRUS was an important man. (pause) The WOMAN was an outcast. (pause) JAIRUS being a Jewish leader was most likely wealthy. (pause) The WOMAN was poor having used up what little money she had on doctors. (pause) JAIRUS came publicly to ask Jesus. (pause) The WOMAN came secretly hidden in the crowd. But both came to Jesus in holy earnest.

Through this sandwiched story, both women in all their differences are restored. (pause)

The bleeding woman because of her hemorrhaging, (pause) was no longer allowed to be in the Temple—not even in the Court of the Women, according to Jewish ritual customs. Her disease became a stigma, something she could not erase no matter how hard she tried. And tried she did- she would have eaten EVERY combination of herbs, applied ENDLESS creams and ointments, doing ANYTHING someone suggested and paying everything she had. Now reduced to poverty she was ashamed and still suffering. (pause)

She was increasingly cut off from the community. To have Jesus TOUCH her might bring her healing, but it would have made him ritually UNCLEAN AS WELL. She would have to push against a lot of pressure from her society JUST TO REACH JESUS. (pause) That is why she thinks “if only I may touch his clothes.” Her embarrassment and faith prompted her. For her it is enough to touch Jesus’ garment(pause) —her faith reassures her. Yet she does so in secret, exercising her agency in the middle of a pressing crowd.

At times we find ourselves in the position of this unnamed woman, don’t we? (pause) Whether it is shame or fear we find ourselves reaching out clinging to our unnamed faith(pause)hoping to not be noticed or (pause) fling ourselves at Jesus’s feet making a scene begging like Jairus. We don’t know what else the bleeding woman was thinking beyond her desire to touch Jesus. But I can imagine she might have thought something along these words from a song “God of the Breakthrough.”

Lord I’m calling out
I’m in need of You
What looks impossible
Is something You can do

I believe You are Who You say You are
I believe You’ll do what You said You’ll do

(pause) Her healing is no passive rescue. The confirmation of her healing does not come first from without, (pause) but within(pause) —the woman knows immediately in her body that the healing has happened. She does not need to double check; she knows something is different. Contrary to what she thought, (pause)touching the robe didn’t make Jesus unclean, (pause) and still she was made whole. Jesus’s question, “who touched my clothes,” reveals Jesus too recognized a change within his body, (pause) the difference between a casual brushing against him and reaching out to touch him in earnest faith. (pause)

As the story continues, the woman whom everyone had once ignored, is now the center of attention. Jesus addresses her.  “Daughter.” He renames her. Not an outcast. But as a daughter, a beloved child of God’s. She was not just a woman alone in a society that treated her differently. She was a beloved child of God. In Jesus naming her daughter, we see the VERY HEART OF GOD. Others may have judged her harshly, but God NEVER forgot her, (pause) and ALWAYSloved her. Jesus does this often with his healing. He doesn’t just cure disease but restores people to their community. She wanted, (pause) needed, (pause)the bleeding to stop, but what she needed MORE (pause) —and Jesus knew it—(pause) was to be accepted once again. To have God look into here yes and call her “daughter.” The woman enters the scene alone, in secrecy.  And she departs having been called by Jesus publicly. (pause)

We now return to the outer edge of Mark’s sandwich, where Jairus’s public request is soon met with a private MIRACLE OF RESURRECTION through Jesus’s touch. Just after the woman had been healed, (pause) a man arrives telling Jairus that his daughter has died. Jairus’ heart must have SANK when he heard this. He may have thought, “I KNEW this was taking too long. IT’S NOT FAIR.” (pause) We don’t get an answer about why the death of his girl happened. Instead of giving Jairus a response, Jesus follows him home. (pause) In the mystery of death, we see God’s response to our grief; GOD WITH US. Jesus; God with us. And Jesus follows towards Jairus’s home.

The stakes are seemingly higher with Jarius’s dead daughter, which may be why Jesus sends everyone out, and further privatizes this healing moment. We hear Jesus commenting the girl is“only sleeping,” (pause) revealing the assurance he held to a higher reality MORE POWERFUL than death. In the ridicule God gives life to the dead. The Greek words for “arise” and “get up” are more than simply waking from a sleep. These are resurrection words. (pause)

And that means in this BEAUTIFUL,SANDWICHED PICTURE Jesus holds the crowds, (pause) a father, (pause)friends and mourners, (pause) and a woman saving them from death and INVITING them into a new creation. This new creation is one we too are invited into;one where we actively participate in the healing Jesus extends into the world.Jesus’ healing power goes beyond a mere fixing(pause) - but to a restoration to life AND empowerment of faith. God chose to surround himself with our sicknesses, our problems, our fear and our ridicule. (pause) In his humanity he brings life-changing healing. In our BAPTISM we are joined to Jesus’s lifesaving work; (pause) we too have the power to bring HEALING to troubled circumstances and a broken world. We can reach out to those in need through our time, talents and treasure.

Friends, the 81^stGeneral Convention of the Episcopal Church just happened this week. (pause)The President of the House of Deputies remarked the Episcopalian way,(pause)  together in love, (pause) is a sacred charge, (pause) a holy calling. For we are to “embody Christ’s reconciling love in all that we say and all that we do.” That RECONCILING LOVE, that HEALING, occurs when we are COMITTED to being a church community of accessibility, and inclusivity. Accessibility meaning examining the ways in which our structures may be blocking people from the room and working to dismantle those barriers. (pause) Inclusivity meaning being willing to hear and confront hard truths about the ways in which our church has fallen short, (pause) and to do the work of repair.  Because our church must be a sanctuary of healing.

(pause) In the words of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, “the Episcopal Church is stronger, more durable and has a future that God has figured out. Don’t you weep and don’t you moan.Just roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work. That’s our future. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.”

Our world receives healing, and we bear witness to healing when we roll up our sleeves and get to work. We are BOTH RECIPIENTS of God’s healing touch and PARTICIPANTS in the healing in others. May God give us the wisdom to see and courage to participate in God’s healing touch in the world.

Amen.

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