June 28, 2009 + Mark 5:21-43 + Elizabeth Gibbs-Zehnder

21When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and 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.”

24So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32He looked all around to see who had done it. 33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

35While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” 36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40And 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. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

The little mom & pop convenience store around the corner from our house sells lottery tickets. They try to encourage sales by posting proof of the winning tickets that were sold there, taping them up to the bullet proof glass at the cash register.
When you sit down and do the math, its plain to see that the odds of winning are slim, very very slim, and yet, as my friend used to say – you can’t win if you don’t play.
In today’s gospel, Mark is encouraging us to get in the game, to play and he teaches that God runs the lottery differently than the state of California.

Mark tells us that Jesus comes to town and everyone wants a piece of him. They want to know what he is about, who he is, and what he can do for them …
Like the early months of Obama’s presidency. Sure he promised a lot of nice things on the campaign trail, but now that he is in the Whitehouse, who is he really? What is he going to do for us? We look closely at what he’s acting on, what projects he tackles first, wanting to see what promises he makes good on first. By watching what he does, we expect to learn who he really is.

Jesus and the disciples step off the boat, back into Jewish territory, and there’s a crowd waiting for him, watching to see who he seeks out, what he’ll do first- will he have lunch with the mayor or the bishop? Will he head to city hall or stay on the posh Westside? Who is going to be on the inside of the new administration and who is going to be left behind? News of his miracles must have traveled ahead of him, because at least two people in the crowd that morning were there, hoping for their own miracles of healing.

So where are you this day that Jesus came to town, his boat scraping sand on the shore, the disciples holding it steady as Jesus steps out – did you get up early to be there? Are you secretly working your way to the front – your head ducked so that the neighbors won’t recognize you? Maybe you’re the synagogue leader, standing in the front row with the other VIP’s, forcing a pleasant smile on your face trying to cover up the desperate question burning in your heart. Did you buy your lotto ticket? Are you holding it in your pocket, waiting for the numbers to be read?

Jairus, the synagogue leader has left his dying daughter’s bedside to seek Jesus’ help. It’s desperate to be helpless at the bedside of a loved one who is slipping away from you, no matter what you tried, no matter how hard you prayed. Rounds of chemo and radiation had failed, acupuncture had done nothing, nasty herb teas and medications left her even more sick.
That morning Jairus put aside his dignity and social position, fell to the sand at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come and heal his beloved daughter. Apparently what ever lunch plans Jesus had made could wait and the two of them (and the crowd of disciples and people) headed to Jairus’ home.

Time is clearly of the essence, Like an ambulance with sirens flashing, dashing across town, I imagine they were moving at brisk pace when Jesus stopped suddenly and started asking about who had touched him.
Everyone feels derailed by his distraction, the disciples give voice to it, barely cloaking their irritation, “obviously the crowd is pressing in on you, of course someone touched you”, and Jairus is silently screaming at Jesus to get moving again.
Who touched me?
The crowd parts and a woman comes forward, now she falls at Jesus’ feet, the whole story pouring out, 12 years of bleeding, endless visits to specialist, medical bills that emptied her savings, the religious authorities declaring her “unclean” being forced into isolation so as not to contaminate her family, hearing the stories about him, she had waited at the shore since dawn, hoping to get close to Jesus, hoping he could heal her, she was willing to buy one more ticket, take one more chance and she won, as her finger tips touched the edge of his jacket, she felt the bleeding stop.
Jairus’ heart must have sunk even lower, every second that slipped by, his daughter slipped closer to death, but now, this woman had touched Jesus, I bet Jairus recognized her, after all it was the religious laws that had judged her unclean.
And the way that everyone in the crowd understood cleanliness, religious cleanliness meant that this woman with her 12 years of bleeding, in touching her Jesus, even if it was just the hem of his jacket, now Jesus was unclean and unfit for ministry. Jairus, knew, as did everyone in the crowd, what Jesus was required to do to restore his own cleanliness – a ceremonial bath, a change of clothes, off by himself until sundown – then he’d be ready to go and heal Jairus’ daughter. By then, Jairus knew it would be too late. He let go of the worthless lottery ticket in his pocket.

And it appeared that Jesus was going to have a long conversation with this woman – Jesus listened as she laid it all out. And then Jesus said the most surprising thing, instead of condemning her for breaking the purity laws, instead of shaming her for making him, a rabbi, unclean, breaking the barriers that have kept her in the margins - Jesus calls her daughter – he names her as part of God’s family. No longer excluded, he gives her a place in the circle, daughter, and he blesses her, go, your faith has made you well.

Shocking really, because in the eyes of that community, she was of very little consequence – why would Jesus waste his time, his healing energy on her? Her condition – the “bleeding” is really code for vaginal bleeding, which meant if she’s bleeding for 12 years, she’s not able to bear children, which was the accepted sign of God’s approval of a woman. Its inferred that she has met with God’s disapproval) So Jesus comes into contact with her, and heals her bleeding, but then he places her directly in God’s embrace – Daughter, he calls her – this was code for child of the covenant, daughter of Abraham, Daughter he calls her, this makes her part of the family of faith again. Jesus demonstrates that God’s love goes out as far as there are people wanting to receive it. Any one can win God’s love.
A miracle for her and instructive for us. We can know that God’s love extends to us. There is no longer such a thing as being beyond redemption.

SO we can sit back in our comfy philosopher chair, with a nice cappacino and imagine the most dramatic situation in which this Gospel truth would apply – would Jesus reach out to someone of no consequence? A murderer? the serial killer on death row? sure, of course…God’s love goes to the ends of the earth.

But perhaps God’s radical reach is needed closer to our homes than we think. An more common experience for us is to be broken and marginalized by everyday life – to be broken by the familiar economic struggles and social marginalization that is so much of the air we breath that we don’t even see its face or sense its power to keep people on the edges, unable to find the healing they need.
We don’t even realize that we are just going through the motions of life
–crushed slowly by low grade depression, without energy or conviction to get what we need
– consistently passed over for promotion because we don’t work like our euro-American male co-workers.
– Its like the high school student’s I talk with, who tell me about teachers who expect little of them, who tell them they aren’t smart enough to pass, and pretty soon, these students believe what they are being told, and they drop out of school.
God’s love and God’s healing break through the margins and reach us here too, God reaches out to us, even when we are only a shell of our former self and restores us to a place at the table.

In Mark’s action-packed style, just as Jesus is turning from the formerly-bleeding woman, the people come from Jairus’s home with the terrible news, Jesus is too late, she has died. They dismiss Jesus, free him to return to his original plans for the day. We’ve learned from playing the lottery, where there is a winner, there is always the losers.
The street starts to spin out from under Jairus’s feet, his heart explodes with grief, Jesus catches him by the elbow and speaks calmly into the blur, “do not fear, only believe”.
So Jesus, now an unclean healer, dripping with impurity, heads to the home of the man charged with the responsibility of keeping the whole community clean and pure in God’s eyes. Jairus is desperate, he’s way beyond hope purchased by keeping the rules and he is clinging with all his might to a very small ticket of belief that God’s love could transform even this.
Jesus orders the crowd to stay put, and Jairus and Jesus and three of the disciples turn the corner to Jairus’ home. The women were already wailing and mourning, they laugh at Jesus when he tells them the girl is only asleep. With Jairus and his wife in the room, Jesus breaks the cleanliness law for the second time that day and touches the dead child, “get up little girl”. And again there is enough of God in the person of Jesus to go around. Its not some parlor trick, Jesus urges the parents to give the girl something to eat.

A gift of life from death is almost too big to receive, too big to grasp in the moment, winning millions after working for pennies each day. In the aftermath of the miracle, the everyday task of making a sandwich becomes a welcome refuge. But I imagine Jairus’ heart opened in a new way, maybe months later as he sang happy birthday to his daughter at her 13th birthday, his daughter now crossing into womanhood, maybe entering into marriage, now able to fulfill what society understood as God’s desire for woman.
There was enough love that day, Mark is teaching us, in God’s love, everyone can win. I imagine the bullet proof glass thick with tape and lotto tickets, every ticket purchased has won the jackpot! the multitude of winners declaring God’s kingdom has arrived.

Mark teaches us about God’s love – there is enough of God’s love for everyone. But just like the chaos at the convenience store where every lottery ticket is a winner, chaos accompanies God’s love as it breaks in. The world as we’ve understood it, a world where there is room for only one winner, the rules that keep that world in place get broken.
Being an overly obedient person, I find this a bit unsettling. I find comfort in knowing what the rules are, knowing what is expected of me, knowing how to function within a system to get what I want, knowing how to earn the “A”, the approval, the blessing. Even when the rules work against me, I still rely on them to understand the lay of the land.
But when God’s love breaks in, God doesn’t follow the rules – the bleeding woman didn’t stay obediently at home, hoping that Jesus would come calling – no, she went out, she sought him out, her hunger for healing, for inclusion in God’s family was a part of the equation.
And Jairus, he didn’t wait for Jesus to appear at the synagogue reception area. He didn’t wait for the official meet and greet cocktail hour to talk with Jesus – no, he was on his knees in the sand as Jesus stepped out of the boat.
Jesus didn’t stick to the agenda or the religious structure of the day. He poured out God’s love to those in need of it. And they were transformed by the experience – sickness to health, death to life, outsider to daughter.

We need to be clear on what Mark is NOT teaching us.
This is no domesticated Gospel. Jesus isn’t a puppet on the strings of our desires and agendas. There is no secret formula of prayer & desperation that will turn God’s hand.
I need to tell you that I’ve played the lottery, and never won the jackpot.
I’ve prayed for healing until my heart was broken open – for my own healing and for loved ones. Sometimes my prayers were answered. Sometimes they weren’t.
My guess is you’ve prayed similar prayers with similar results. My guess is the people following Jesus and Jairus around that day did too. For every woman who’s bleeding stopped, another’s continues. For every daughter restored to life, another succumbs to sickness.
The take away from today’s text isn’t about trying to touch the hem of Jesus’s jacket in the same spot or to get Jesus to kneel at the bedside in just the same way.
There’s no formula. There’s no guarantees. There’s no way even to calculate the odds. We learn from the text that God remains God – mysterious, powerful, and in the person of Jesus, ready to break into the whole of humanity in the most surprising way.
What Mark gives us is a glimpse of God breaking into the world in the person of Jesus. Reaching out in love and healing where healing was unimaginable. We see that God’s love knows no bounds. On that day and today Jesus comes to town and the reach of God’s love transforms with healing everything in its path.
Amen.