A Tale of Two Daughters
Year B: Proper 8
It is also possible to overdo ritual by the excessive multiplication of rites. Too many tassels or too few hinder the transmission of the healing power inherent in the discreet use of ritual. The sacred rites, like the garments of Jesus, do not have power of themselves. They merely clothe the reality concealed in them. To touch Jesus, we must not avoid the rituals or try to circumvent them, but go through them to the reality of his Presence. Ritual as a discipline is meant to sensitize our faculties to the sacredness of all reality.1 —Thomas Keating
Year B, Proper 8, June 30, 2024
First Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24
Psalm: Psalm 30
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Gospel: Mark 5:21-43
Sermon - A Tale of Two Daughters
In an previous post, I talked about Mark’s tendnacy to use interpolations to make his point. Commonly, this is called a ‘Markan Sandwich’. Our gospel text today has another example of this litereary device.
Mark 5:21-43 recounts the healing of two people: one is the recently deceased daughter of Jairus, and the other is the cleansing of a woman who had suffered with a “flow of blood” for twelve years.
The text begins with Jairus falling at Jesus’s feet and begging him to come and heal his daughter. As he moves through the crowds towards the house of the ruler of the synagogue, he feels power go forth from him, turns to the crowd, and says, “Who touched me?”
This question seemed strange to the disciples becasue of the large crowd. After all, there were a lot of people pressing in upon Jesus. But Jesus knew that something special had transpired between himself and this woman.
This woman had been suffering from her flow of blood for twelve years. After hearing of Jesus, finding him in the crowd, and touching his cloak, she was finally healed, but now it seemed as if she had done something wrong. Could this healing be too good to be true. In response to Jesus’s question, she came forward in fear and trembling as she explained to Jesus what she had done.
Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
As Jesus is speaking with the woman, messengers from Jairus’s house arrive and tell him not to trouble Jesus any longer, for his daughter has died.
But Jesus overheard their command and said to the man, “Do not be afraid; only beleive.”
Jesus then went to his house, approached the girl, took her by the hand, and told her to get up. She instantly got up and began to walk about.
Mark then tells us she is twelve-years-old.
Here’s a few observations from this passage:
Disease and death affect everyone from the rich to the poor. They do not discriminate, but the One whom we follow is greater than both sickness and the grave. The grace and mercy of God are available to all, and Jesus has time for everyone.
Sometimes great acts of faith come from the people we least expect. The synagogue ruler, who must have been knowledgable in the Scriptures, had faith in Jesus, but it was the woman who had been sick for twelve years who demonstrated an even stronger faith. As a woman who dealt with this problem for twelve years, she suffered much physically, but she also suffered much in her community since she would have been unclean. Her faith restored more than her health.
Jesus called the woman “daughter” to cement her place in the family of Abraham. But there is something else going on here too. At the end of Mark 3, Jesus said that his disciples are his true family (Mark 3:31-35). This woman was reestablished in the community of Israel, but she was also grafted into the kingdom of God.
The woman was sick for as long as the girl had been alive: twelve years. If we understand Mark as using the Exodus as a template for the life of Jesus, then it’s easy to see how this story is linked to a larger story of how Jesus fulfills the promises made to Israel. In him is found resurrection and healing.
Everyone brushes shoulders with God. As Paul said, none of us are far from God. But there is a difference between being one in the crowd and having the faith to reach out and “touch” the Lord.
Second Reading: Christ Became Poor For Us
In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he encouraged them to give financially to worthy causes such as the relief of the needy saints in Jerusalem, the support of each other, or the support of ministers of the gospel. Within this context, he said, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Our generosity is an extension of the generosity of God. As Christ loved us and gave himself for us, so we too are to pour ourselves out for each other in love.
When we consider who Jesus was from a human perspective, he had a lot to give up. He had a large family, a widowed mother, a family business, and he was the rightful heir to the throne of David. But when we consider who the Christ was from an eternal perspective, we know him to be the Son of God, the eternal Word, and the Creator of all things.
Despite being so rich, Jesus chose the path of actual poverty, having no place to lay his head, but he knew that his radical lifestyle of elevating the outcasts and poor, flipping over the tables of the rich money changers, and preaching a good news that critiqued the norms of the empire, Jesus was also choosing the path of suffering and death.
But through death there came resurrection, and through resurrection, those who taste in Christ’s death and resurrection become rich.
How do we manage our spiritual wealth? Do we live generously, or like the dragon in the old tales, do we sleep in our mountain on top of our wealth while the world around us suffers? We have been given much so that we may give much.
Thanks so much for keeping up with this blog. If you have any suggestions, recommendations, or critiques, you can always comment here or reach out through my website: https://danielr.net.
Keating, Thomas. The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience. New York: Continuum, 2008. Print.