Proper 8B. June 27, 2021

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27. How the mighty have fallen.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15. As you excel in everything…so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.
Mark 5:21-43. Little girl, get up.

O God who heals, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Many of you know I always begin my sermons with that prayer, amended from a prayer attributed to Phillips Brooks, once Bishop of Massachusetts. It helps me find my preacher voice, as my daughter Laura calls it. Praying it is a way to locate myself in this position of privilege, which you grant to me, and to give myself permission to say things that might be challenging, hard for me to say or hear, or both. The prayer is also a frequent reminder that truth is not predictably or reliably found, and that the seeking is what I am about, what my work with you is about. While truth is costly, it always sets us free. That’s how we know it is truth. The seeking for truth is not at all about fact-finding;  it’s about experiencing freedom and joy and spreading it all around. As Paul exhorts the people in Corinth, we are to excel in generosity in what we undertake, so that the one who has gathered much does not have too much, and the one who has gathered little, does not have too little, and everyone has what they need. (Paul was reminding the people of the Torah, by the way.) This is the vision of community that we are welcoming Cooper Henry Santulli into this morning through his baptism.

But first, we have before us a Gospel story from Mark – actually, two stories in one. The story of Jairus’ daughter is interrupted by the story of the hemorrhaging woman. It seems like evidence of the Gospel of Mark’s rough and tumble storytelling. Mark has historically been viewed by theologians as a rather clumsy writer, lacking in the more refined rhetoric and narrative flourish of the other evangelists. While his style is certainly spare and his language inelegant, I think he was actually quite a creative theologian. I think that interruption is an ingenious rhetorical device for Mark. He uses it nine times in his Gospel account. 

German theologians have a fantastic word for this rhetorical device: Ineinanderschachte-lungern. (I love saying that word! Don’t worry, it won’t be on the test.) The rhetorical idea is that the interruption or the middle story offers a key to the theological purpose of the story that surrounds it. The insertion interprets the story it splits.[1]  So we can look to the hemorrhaging woman not just as a creator of dramatic suspense, delaying our arrival to Jairus’ house, where his daughter is dying, but as the interpretive solution to a puzzle about trust and healing. The key is about trust against all odds and a power of healing associated with Jesus, which is so powerful that it can be transmitted through clothing and so indiscriminate and untamed that it can be transferred without his explicit consent.[2]

 It’s ironic that this story within the story, originally intended to inspire trust in the power of Jesus’ love, becomes an obstacle for so many, who get stuck in the traffic jams of scientific or socio-historical analysis of whether or not these things could have really happened. (You know the type! You might even be the type!) To that I respond, welcome to Emmanuel Church, where I often remind folks that, yes, it might not have happened, but “just because it didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” (That WILL be on the test.)

The contrasts between Jairus, a name that means “God enlightens”, and the hemorrhaging woman could not be more stark or extreme. The man was named; the woman was anonymous. Jairus was a prominent member of the community; the woman was a nobody. Jairus made a public display of repeatedly begging Jesus in front to his face. In a shocking reversal of his own dignity, Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet. The woman came up to Jesus from behind in secret. In a shocking reversal of her indignity, she stole a touch of Jesus’ cloak. Jairus had everything to lose; the woman had nothing left to lose. Jairus was advocating for his daughter; the woman had no advocate; she was advocating for herself. Now notice the similarities. Both Jairus and the unnamed woman fell at Jesus’ feet; both were desperate. The woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve  years. Jairus’ daughter had been alive for that exact amount of time. Jesus tells the woman that her trust has made her well. Jesus tells Jairus to have trust, not fear.  In both stories, the healing takes place with the power of touch, of the laying on of hands or the grabbing of a cloak. In both, Jesus seems to have no concern about the cause of the illness or the social status of the beggar. 

If hemorrhaging woman’s story is the interpretive key, what is opened up to us by studying her? Well, nothing less than heaven’s gates! I think that her story teaches us that if the healing power of Jesus is available to folks on the extreme ends of the spectrum of honor and shame, surely it is available to you and me. This healing power of Jesus is wildly inclusive of people who normally would not associate with one another. And there seem to be no obstacles too great or ailments too inconsequential for the healing power of Jesus. Even women and girls are included![3]  And healing is not just for women (like Peter’s mother-in-law) who seem to be healed just so that they can serve a meal. This hemorrhaging woman (and Jairus’ daughter, for that matter) are healed and not heard from again. They become free to live their lives in thanksgiving. They become free to excel in their own generous undertakings.

It’s also ironic (and wrong, in my humble opinion) that this message of hope about how the healing love of Jesus is for everyone – that none is left out, gets used as a perverse measuring rod of people’s faith, which is then used to find “belief” lacking. Sometimes the measuring rod is external, and sometimes it is internal. I want to remind you that in Marks’ Gospel, the disciples consistently lacked trust and regularly failed to understand what they had witnessed firsthand; and, the message and ministry of Jesus was entrusted to them! Despair and fear are the norm throughout Mark. So if you are frequently feeling despair or fear, or feel that your trust in the Love of God is very small, Mark is the Gospel for you. The healing and transformative love of God through Jesus goes on, believe it or not, understand it or not, consciously permit it or not! I think the message in Mark is that if you hang around Jesus, you just might experience healing whether or not you have faith, whether or not you put your whole trust in his love. The narrative arc of the whole Bible is about God’s trust, God’s faith, in people.

I want to say something about what I think hanging around Jesus could mean for folks who are sitting in an Episcopal church on a hot July Sunday morning or participating in worship via livestream. I don’t think it has anything to do with intellectual assent to a fairy tale, but it does require a leap or two of the imagination. For example, it might mean imagining that Jesus’ body is no longer in the world except through communities of Christians, as I suggested last week. It might mean imagining that the Church is the body of Christ. It might mean imagining that we are members of the mystical body of Christ – not the only members, mind you, but members with a healing power not to be dismissed.

Being the body of Christ does mean exercising discipline. Exercising the discipline of community is the difference between going to church and being the Church. We have a call, an invitation, to be powerfully healing and transformative in a place where the person you least want to live with always lives, with the awareness that sometimes that person is your very own self, as Henri Nouwen once said.[4]  Being the Body of Christ is about submitting to being interrupted, about being jostled and pressed by the crowds, and about going out of our way for people who are desperate for healing – whether they are prominent, honorable, and going through the proper channels, or they are anonymous, shame-filled, and grabbing for whatever they can get. It’s about admitting that we, too, are desperate for healing.

It’s actually about knowing that in each and every one of us lie both the hunger for healing and the power to offer healing to one another. Maybe you know the parable told by Rabbi Chaim of Romshishok, who often began his talks with this description of hell and heaven. It goes:

I first went to see Hell, and the sight was horrifying. Rows of tables were laden with platters of sumptuous food, yet the people seated around the tables were pale and emaciated, moaning in hunger. As I came closer, I understood their predicament. Every person held a full spoon, but both arms were splinted with wooden slats so no-one could bend either elbow to bring the food to his or her own mouth. It broke my heart to hear the tortured groans of these poor people as they held their food so near but could not consume it. 

Next I went to visit Heaven. I was surprised to see the same setting I had witnessed in Hell – row after row of long tables laden with food. But in contrast to Hell, the people here in Heaven were sitting contentedly talking with each other, obviously sated from their sumptuous meal. As I came closer, I was amazed to discover that here, too, each person had arms splinted on wooden slats that prevented elbows from bending. How, then, did they manage to eat? As I watched, one picked up her spoon and dug it into the dish before her. Then she stretched across the table and fed the person across from her! The recipient of this kindness thanked her and he returned the favor by leaning across the table to feed his benefactor.

I suddenly understood. Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The critical difference is in the way the people treat each other. I ran back to Hell to share this solution with the poor souls trapped there. I whispered in the ear of one starving person, “You do not have to go hungry. Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, who will surely return the favor and feed you.” “You expect me to feed the detestable person sitting across the table?” said the person angrily. “I would rather starve than give that one the pleasure of eating![5]

You know, Jesus followers were called “the people of the way.” What is the way? My wise brother-in-law once said, “However far out of the way you are willing to go, that is the way.” It’s about the practice of supporting one another, of learning how to disagree in love, of developing trust-worthiness in one another and holding ourselves and one another accountable, of forgiving (and forgiving and forgiving), of celebrating one another’s gifts, and of healing one another. Exercising the discipline of community is about the difference between being a spectator and experiencing the joy, the honor, and the privilege of making burdens light for other folks and noticing when the power of healing has been transferred, when it has gone out of us with or without our permission, when we are simply serving as vessels of God’s grace. 

Cooper Henry Santulli, welcome to the Christian family! We are so glad that you are joining us.

1. Thanks to James R. Edwards for his article, “Markan Sandwiches,” in Novum Testamentum 31:3, July 1989, p. 193-216.
2. Susan Haber, “A Woman’s Touch,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 26:2, 2003, p. 171-192.
3. Ibid.
4. Henri Nouwen, “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry,” Leadership, Spring 1995. 
5. I’ve lost track of my source for this story.