Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27, 2021

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God's Healing Power, or, Encountering God in the crosses of our lives

Mark 5:21–43

When Jesus had crossed again [in the boat] to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”

He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him. There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.”

And they ridiculed him.

Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. [At that] they were utterly astounded.

He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

God, you did not make death, nor do you rejoice in the destruction of the living. You fashioned all things that they might have being. This includes me, O Lord. My birth was the Creation of your love, my ongoing being is the Sustaining of your love, and my actions are the very Word of your love. Help me to bring that joy and love to those around me. [Take a moment to think of one or more particular people to whom you wish to bring God’s love.]

Companions for the Journey

From “First Impressions” 2021:

Like Lazarus, the young girl Jesus raised from death died again. Who knows the cause of her second death. Did she die in childbirth? Was she felled by one of the common deadly diseases that afflicted people of that time? She may have lived long enough to have children, even grandchildren. Perhaps, as she lay dying, they gathered around her deathbed and watched as she breathed her last. When she did die, once again there would be the customary rituals. They would have hired flute players and a professional group of mourners. Neighbors would have heard the sounds and known that Jairus’ daughter had died—again.

Who knows, some of the older among them might recall how she had died when she was only 12. They would tell their young how her father, an important synagogue official, had put aside all the usual official prejudices against the preacher Jesus and gone to him, even falling down before him, to beg for the life of his daughter. Sickness and death have a way of shearing through the veneer of our self-importance and social standings. They touch us at our most vulnerable place, strip us of our illusions and remind us that, no matter how important we are in others’ eyes, we are still human—limited and temporary here on earth. And so, Jairus’ daughter dies again and Jesus is no longer around to help the grieving family. Did he perform that gracious miracle for Jairus’ daughter just once, a marvelous, but once-only gesture of his power?

The Christian community that saved this story and passed it on to us didn’t believe so. They saw more than a resuscitation in what Jesus did for the young girl. It is clear they saw important elements in the story that would be relevant for us, whose lives are all-too-often shattered by the death of loved ones—especially after 600,000 have died in our country and millions elsewhere have succumbed to the COVID pandemic. In addition, we too must face our own deaths someday. Can what Jesus did for the girl have meaning for us today? Our ancestors in faith believed so, you can tell by how they tell the story. They make hints: for example, they evoke hope in the resurrection in their telling. For example, Jairus asks that his daughter be made “well” and “live.” Both words have special meaning. In the early church’s preaching they were used to indicate “salvation” and “eternal life.” Our ancestors in faith believed that in performing this miracle, Jesus shows he is offering salvation and eternal life to the dead.

I hear echoes of today’s gospel story of Jairus and his critically ill daughter in a conversation I had some years back. A troubled mother chattered with me at a birthday party over coffee and cake. Her son was part of the Wave dance movement—you may remember how popular these events were among young partygoers. He would go out to huge dances in warehouses and spend entire nights there dancing—obviously this was before the pandemic restrictions. She knew that at such gatherings the drug Ecstasy was used to heighten the sights and sounds experienced by the dancers. She asked for prayers. It echoes what so many other parents have asked for their children in trouble. She had also been speaking to drug counselors so that she would know how to approach her son and get him help. Echoing the gospel, her prayers were that her son would get “well and live.” She wanted to help, not just to get him off drugs, but that he might find deeper meaning in his life. She hoped he would have the faith she had in Jesus and experience the love and support she had in her faith community. Like Jairus, she wanted to take Jesus’ hand and lead him to the bedside of her son. She hoped that through her, Jesus might reach out and touch her son, raise him from the “sleep” that he was in so that he might arise and “live.” (I wonder if that isn’t a way of praying for someone we love: imagine taking the hand of Jesus and silently leading him to the side of the one we are concerned about. No words necessary. Let him see and trust he will know what must be done to “raise them up.”)

There is a spiritual phenomenon described in the East called “waking up.” It may happen like this. We go through our busy lives running from one activity to another. We sedate ourselves in front of television late into the evening, grab some sleep and then start another rushed and too-busy day. The pandemic has only intensified these activities, being locked in for months has added to, not reduced, our workload and responsibilities. We have barely had time to see to the basics of daily life, much less tend to our inner life.

Eventually something may interrupt this deadening routine and “wake us up.” The possibilities are many: maybe we have a moment of dazzling insight about our lives, what is wrong and needs to be changed; perhaps someone close to us dies, or gets very sick; or our energies falter due to aging; we may go though a divorce because of a marriage long neglected, etc. Up until these events happen we are not yet “awake.” We were looking elsewhere, at what we thought made our lives “interesting,” “exciting,” “relevant,” or “important.” But something happens to us and we see now that we have been sleepwalking. What happened to Jairus’ daughter can happen for us, we too wake from a dulling, even deadly sleep. It is a gift! Someone has reached out a gracious hand and raised us up. Resurrection has happened here, in this life, for us. The crisis we experienced has proved to be a wake-up call. We are “saved” and enabled to see more clearly our current situation and Who it is that is offering us life.

Another way in which we are raised up: It seems obvious from the story that the girl has died, the mourners are announcing it clearly by their wailing. But when Jesus refers to her condition, he calls it “sleep,” which earns him the onlookers’ ridicule. Mark is noting for us what the Christian community professes about Jesus. Death is as sleep to him and what he does for the girl he will do for us, awake us from “sleep.” With faith that he has the power to do this, each of us can face our own death with the courage Jesus raises in us.

Jesus instructs that the girl be given something to eat. What could be a stronger, more convincing proof that the girl has returned to life? Her eating is not just a sign she has her bodily functions back. In this culture, eating in the midst of the family was a strong sense of belonging and having life. You had life, not just as an individual, but as part of a community. The girl is given food by her family, and so she has been restored to full life. Who knows how long she had been sick and away from the family table. Now she is back to that table, surrounded by those who love her. We may want to consider the parallel between the Christian and the Eucharistic table. When we have been “asleep” to God, or “dead” because of sin, the living Christ “wakes us up” by forgiving our sins and inviting us to eat at the table. We are then restored as a living member of the family of believers. We can again come to the table for the family meal, the body and blood, the very life of Christ.

A word about the woman who interrupts Jesus’ journey to Jairus’ home. She seems to have been a person of means. How else, in such a poor society, could she have afforded “many doctors?” Now, as a hemorrhaging person, she would be considered ritually unclean. She would not be allowed to worship in the Temple and would be required to stay apart from the community so as not to contaminate others. How ironic, she who in her past, might have known the synagogue official Jairus, even been in the same social circle with him, now would not be allowed to worship in his synagogue. Yet, need and their human incapacity to address their desperate situation by themselves, have brought them together. Now, united by their need, and their faith in Jesus, both are in the same community. Like us at this worship—united by need and faith in Jesus, our superficial differences are put aside as together we reach out for him. But his reach is longer—through Word and Sacrament he reaches out, takes us by the hand and raises us up.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Do not be afraid; just have faith

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • A common theme that runs through Mark is that of being on the inside or on the outside. How does illness make someone actually be on the outside of relationships, and how does it make us sometimes feel like we are on the outside, isolated?
  • From Paul Gallagher OFM, in “First Impressions”:
    Has anyone you love dearly ever been close to death?
    How did their illness affect you?
    How did it affect your relationships to others? Your own prayer?
  • From Paul Gallagher, OFM, in “First Impressions”
    Have you ever been seriously ill without being able to find relief?
    Have you ever been considered so contagious that you had to be quarantined from others?
    How do these experiences, or their absence in your life, affect how you hear this gospel text?
  • Do I let my woundedness define me, or am I looking to move on and be healed?
    How does God help in this process?
  • Of the two incidents in this story, which one moved me the most?
    Did either of them irritate me? Why?
  • What is the difference between pity and compassion?
  • What is it about the woman’s attitude toward suffering and toward God that we can learn for ourselves about:
    1. the role of suffering in our lives?
    2. what choices we have in how we react to the “crosses” we bear?
    3. empathy with and solidarity with those who are in pain of any kind?
    4. forgiveness of ourselves, another, even God?
  • From Jude Siciliano, O.P.:
    Who is the outstretched hand of Jesus for us?
  • Is faith in Jesus a “head-thing” for me, or a “gut-thing”?
    Have I ever entrusted my well-being totally to God in times of distress, sorrow, or even danger?
  • Do I think there is enough of Jesus’ healing power to go around, or is it doled out to a few?
  • What is the spiritual danger involved in thinking of God as a wonder-worker to cure all of our physical, mental and spiritual illnesses? What is our role in the process?
  • Who was more important to Jesus—Jairus or the woman with the bleeding condition?
    Are there people that we think are more important to Jesus than others, or more important to Jesus than we are?
  • Are there people whose voices we tend to ignore because they have a rather insignificant place in our society?
  • Have I ever felt like an outsider in my social or church community?
    Have I noticed others who might also feel overlooked or unimportant?
  • From Sister Barbara Reid, O.P., PhD, in “America”:
    How are both personal healing and preaching of social justice needed to bring about the reign of God?
  • How do religious laws, economic biases or cultural norms keep us from having to deal with “those people”?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. God hates sickness but loves the sick. God hates death but loves the dying. This story of Jesus is a striking example of his sensitivity to where people are, and his willingness to reach out in a very practical way to others who need his help. It is important to remember that these miracles of healing are not to demonstrate his power, but to respond to the pain and suffering he is observing. Can you think of any other stories in the gospels where Jesus demonstrates this empathy? How can we cultivate that love and learn how to be there for all the sick, lonely and annoying people who need us? Can we learn to be there for ourselves, when we need a little care, healing or just a drink of water? Teach us O Lord, how to comfort the sick and help the dying cross their particular rivers. Teach us, O Lord, to be aware of what is going on around us and how we may be needed to do your work of healing and reconciliation.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

The sad story of the isolation and pain of the woman with the hemorrhage cannot be relegated to the time of Jesus. Women and women’s issues have long been on the list of societal concerns. We still have countries today where there are prohibitions about women driving or going to school; there are places where genital mutilation of young women still occurs. In our country, women who work outside the home get paid, on average, 83 cents of every dollar a male makes for doing the same job. Women who have been the subject of rape are often shamed—asked what they did to “invite” it by dressing wrong or drinking too much. Mothers who work outside the home still do 70% or more of the childcare and household maintenance. They are more likely to take time off from their jobs to care for the needs of children and the elderly/ill members of their families. They are more likely to suffer long term financial consequences in a divorce than men do. Do any of these things bother you? What are your family’s, your workplace’s, your culture’s, your church’s views on women? What are yours?

Poetic Reflection:

From Merton, Thomas, A Book of Hours (p. 67). Ave Maria Press:

Teach me to go to this country beyond words and beyond names.
Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier, here where these woods are.
I need to be led by you.
I need my heart to be moved by you.
I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer.
I need my will to be made strong by you.
I need the world to be saved and changed by you.
I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow.
I need you for all the crazy people.
I need your healing hand to work always in my life.
I need you to make me, as you made your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior.
I need you to name the dead.
I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers.
I need you for myself whether I live or die.
It is necessary.
Amen.

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord, so many in our world need healing and care. Give us the generosity of spirit to be attentive to their needs, to be patient and loving… Give us eyes to see those in our midst who are sick, lonely, hurting. [Take a moment to think of any specific people for whom you would especially like to pray, and raise your prayers for them to God.]