St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes, Vicar
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 8 Year B
Mark 5:21-43
June 27, 2021
Can you see her? She is a woman without a name. She is stained and weak from suffering 12 years of hemorrhages that have brought her to her knees. In our gospel reading in Mark, we know that the unnamed woman had endured much at the hands of physicians and that her condition had only worsened. Abandoned by society because of her affliction, she crossed social and ritual boundaries, believing that she would be healed if she could just touch Jesus’ cloak. When the woman revealed that it was she who had touched him, Jesus did not rebuke her. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” and she was healed.
What is not explicitly stated in the gospel is that the blood of this woman rendered her, and everything and everyone she touched, including Jesus, ritually unclean. Someone with her condition would have been isolated from society until her bleeding stopped, and hers showed no signs of stopping. She would then be required to perform the proper purification rituals, which meant more time separated from society. According to Levitical law, a man contaminated by this woman, who most likely bumped into people, would need to bathe and wash his clothes and remain unclean until the evening—ritual quarantine. After publicly declaring to the woman that her faith had made her well, Jesus neither required her to perform the purification rituals nor did he cleanse himself of impurity, caused by this encounter.
Jesus then refocused his initial movement to the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, who, just before the hemorrhaging woman interrupted, had urgently begged Jesus to come to his home to heal his deathly-ill daughter. Time had run out for Jairus’ daughter. When news of the little girl’s death came, we might be able to imagine the faceless, yet named, desperate father, overcome with inconsolable grief. Through his grief, he heard Jesus say to him, “Do not fear, only believe” (v.36). As a leader of the synagogue, Jairus was well aware, as was Jesus, of the ritual laws regarding blood and corpse contamination, particularly for priests. Jairus allowed an already ritually unclean Jesus to enter his home with the corpse of his daughter. I wonder if Jesus declared that the child was sleeping, not dead, to the people in the home in order to dispel fears of their own defilement. Afterall, touching a sleeping child would not cause ritual impurity.
Jesus put everyone outside of the house, except Jesus’ chosen disciples and the child’s mother and father. In the intimacy of that chosen circle, Jesus took the child’s hand and told her to get up—and she did. Whether or not Jesus was ritually clean or unclean, Jairus put no human separation between Jesus and his daughter or his household.
The healing stories of the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter remind us that, regardless of one’s position in society, the human condition of suffering, in its many forms, is inescapable. With the onset of the pandemic last year, life as we have known it has been changed. Do we have eyes to see the nameless people, known only to God, who are visibly, and invisibly, suffering amongst us? Do we have the compassion to feel with the people we do know? Those who have experienced the devastating losses of a loved one, a job, a relationship, a home, dreams—and who seek relief from isolation, hopelessness and oppressive darkness, begging to be made well so that they may live once again.
People can seek relief from the darkness of human suffering, but will never find it without going to the source of all healing. Humankind can only be made well, in this temporal life, by seeking healing from him, through whom life came into being; the eternal one who is the light that shines in the darkness which darkness can never overcome.
I am reminded of the book, The Salt Eaters by Toni Bambara. Central to the narrative is the necessity for an individual’s desire to ultimately recover from pain and suffering. Barely alive after attempting suicide, the protagonist, Velma, is visited by the ghost of two female ancestors, one a ghost and the other living. As Velma clings to her life, she is asked by one of the elder healers, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?” Velma’s healing is only made possible with an affirmative response.
In our gospel reading, the bleeding woman and the despairing father, Jairus, did not just go to the source of all healing, they desired Jesus’ healing, and acted in faith. Perhaps you know individuals who unwittingly participate in their own ongoing suffering by holding onto grudges and by nurturing a heart of unforgiveness and a spirit of grievance. They are so influenced by those painful feelings, that over time, others begin to wonder if the person truly desires to “stop the bleeding” in order to be free from the sadness, helplessness and isolation that such gaping wounds can create over a lifetime. Does the person truly desire to be liberated from the spiritual wounds of guilt, grievance and grief in order to be made well? Only God knows.
When we reach out for Jesus; and pray, expecting that our prayers will be answered; we are renewed, restored and resurrected as new creations in Christ. Humankind, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has already been made well, but not all have accepted this liberating, life-giving gift.
Like the hemorrhaging woman, faithful people must risk crossing societal boundaries in the places where people live, work, play and learn, in order to make known the true source of all healing; and to invite those who do not yet know Jesus to come into his presence, so that he may lay his hands upon his beloved, that they might know his healing power in the depths of their souls.
By faith, we believe that God’s saving power, which healed the hemorrhaging woman, resuscitated the little girl, and raised Jesus from the dead, can raise you and me from the sufferings of this life which threaten to assault our souls. Brothers and sisters, we are all suffering. Wherever you find yourself on your walk with Christ, and whatever physical or spiritual healing you may need in your life, get up and reach out for him. Know that your faith, in times of peace and in times of sorrow, has made you well.
Amen.
