Touch or Be Touched
To Touch or Be Touched
Lamentations 3:22-33; Mark 5:21-43
Lamentations 3:22-33
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
Mark 5:21-43
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and 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.” So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And 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. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Prayer – Companion in life and in death, your love is steadfast and never ends; our weeping may linger with the might, but you bring joy in the new day. Touch us with your healing grace that restores us to wholeness, so that we may live out our calling as your resurrection people – amen.
The story Mark tells this morning takes place on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, which isn’t a sea at all but a large fresh water lake surrounded by high mountains and apparently roughly in the shape of a heart, which is rather wonderful if you stop and think about it – a heart shaped lake at the heart of where it all happened. It’s a quiet, low-key kind of story, not about stained-glass people at all, but people who lived and breathed and sweated and made love and used bad language when they tripped over furniture in the dark and sometimes had more troubles than they knew what to do with and sometimes laughed themselves silly over nothing in particular and were thus in many ways very much like the rest of us.
Jesus had crossed over in a boat from the other side of the lake, Mark writes, when he found himself surrounded by some of them right at the water’s edge where there were nets hanging up to dry and fish being gutted and scaled and stray cats looking around for anything they could get their paws on. Mark doesn’t say there was any particular reason for the crowd, so it’s probably just that had heard about Jesus – probably some of them knew him and were there to gawk at him because of there were a lot of wild stories about who some people said he was and what he was going around the countryside doing and saying, and they were there to see what wild things he might take into his head to say or do next.
There are so many people around him it’s hard to pick out which one Jesus is, but it’s worth giving it a try. Is he the one with his hand in the air signaling to someone he can’t get to on the far edge of the crowd? Is he the thin, sad-eyed one who looks a little like Osama bin Laden, of all people? Is he the one leaning down and reaching to take something a child is trying to hand to him? What did it feel like to be near enough to touch him if you dared? If his eyes happened to meet yours for a moment, what would you say if you could find the right words for saying it, and how would he answer you if he could so much as hear you in the midst of all the babbling and jostling? What if for just a moment as he tried to shoulder his way out of the crowd he brushed against you so that for just a second you actually felt the solid flesh and bone of him, or touched the hem of his garment?
Our gospel writer has woven two stories of healing together into a single story. It’s one of those a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-bringing-a-woman-back-to-life stories. Interestingly, at first glance, these two stories of healing couldn’t be more different. The first major difference comes in the social standing and class difference of those to be healed. In the case of the healing of Jairus’ daughter, Jairus is a leader of the synagogue who comes to Jesus for help. This was a pretty prominent position for someone to have, and it would have meant that he was at least somewhat wealthy, and certainly had a lot of power and influence in the community. As a leader of the synagogue, Jairus was seen as competent, able to get things done and able to keep it together when difficult situations arose. Until, that is, your little girl gets sick, really sick, maybe even sick to death. As a father of four kids and a beautiful granddaughter, I can imagine why Jairus runs to Jesus himself, instead of sending someone lesser on his behalf. I can understand why Jairus throws himself at Jesus’ feet, rather than address him as an equal. And I can understand why Jairus doesn’t inquire, or politely ask, or even petition, but begs Jesus to come. He is desperate; his love for his daughter has left him willing to do anything for her.
The un-named bleeding woman, on the other hand wouldn’t have had any power in the community whatsoever, mostly because of her gender. She was not a leader and had no social standing in the community. She apparently has no advocate to beg this teacher on her behalf. And if that isn’t enough, she has been bleeding for twelve years and would have been ostracized and marginalized by the community – an unacceptable outsider who had no means of rejoining her community. Not only is she impure in the eyes of those in her community, and just as important, she was likely unable to bear children so for her community she had no value. She too is desperate and for this reason braves the crowd seeking only to touch the hem of this healer whatever the potential cost.
The second difference has to do with how the healing comes about in the first place, and hot these two people were “touched” by Jesus. Jairus, the powerful synagogue leader, came to Jesus just as a mass of people were gathering around him. Jairus dropped to his knees and begged Jesus to heal his daughter, to come and lay his hands on her so that she may be made well and live. The bleeding woman, never once asks to be healed. Similar to Jairus, she found herself in the crowd around Jesus, but never would she announce her needs even though she is desperate to get better, as she’s gone through all of her means to get better. Instead of begging or asking for Jesus for help and healing, she reaches through the crowd as Jesus is making his way to Jairus’ house and secretly touches his clothes as he walks by. She reaches out and touches Jesus and takes the healing without even asking. In fact, Jesus didn’t even know who touched him, or who he healed, until a few moments later when the woman confessed her need to touch Jesus.
The third difference has to do with the condition of the two sick people. The woman had been sick – bleeding – for twelve years. This was a chronic condition that has devastated her life and fortune, and had left her without any connection to the world. Jairus’ little girl has not been sick for twelve years; rather her illness comes on suddenly and has become severe very quickly.
The final and perhaps most striking difference in the stories is that Jairus’ 12 year old daughter dies before Jesus gets to her. Jesus arrives too late to heal her before death comes through the door. When Jesus goes into Jairus’ house, everyone is grieving and devastated, but Jesus reaches out and touches her and tells her to get up. Jesus doesn’t merely heal her per se; he raises her from the dead. The woman who had been bleeding for twelve years though never dies, though she was treated as if she were dead by the community. She is still walking, talking, thinking, and moving when she approaches Jesus and touches Jesus. Though not dead, she was essentially raised from the dead, instantly being healed of her chronic condition.
The contrasts between these two little stories are many – rich, poor; powerful, powerless; asks for healing, takes the healing without asking; twelve year old girl with an acute and sudden illness, and a twelve year old chronic illness in a grown woman; a girl who is touched by Jesus and literally raised from the dead, and a woman who touches Jesus and is figuratively raised from the dead. In Jesus’ world, both the bleeding woman and the little girl who died would be considered unclean, impure, untouchable. It’s quite clear that these two stories are very, very different. And yet, at their core – they are the very same story. They are the stories of two untouchable people who whether touching or being touched by Jesus were transformed from death to life.
So what does this suggest to those of us who claim to be followers of this man who will touch the untouchables? I confess I am greatly puzzled by Christian people who believe that part of their task is keep themselves pure and separate from the world . . . because that is so completely not what Jesus did. I don’t understand why Christians tend to marginalize and ostracize – find some folks to be untouchable – and that’s the opposite of the way Jesus lived. In fact, Jesus did some of his best work with and on exactly those people who society deemed untouchable – lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, women, the poor, the dead. So where does that leave us?
Our gospel message today is about the amazing power and transformation that occurs when we touch or are touched by Jesus. It is a story about the power of Jesus’ touch that could make the blind see and the deaf hear and the lame walk. The power of touch raised a dead untouchable little girl, healed a sick and untouchable old girl and what does that mean for those old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis, and young boys and girls with tattoos and body piercings – all who may be deemed as untouchable by some folks. You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything, and you who would give most anything to believe if only you could; you happy ones and you who can hardly remember what it was like once to be happy; you who know where you’re going and how to get there and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere. Jesus says believe, get up, you are healed and the power that is in him is the power to give life not just to the dead like the child, but to those of us who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me.
It is that life-giving power that is at the heart of our stories this morning about a woman who can’t stop bleeding and a little girl who no longer bleeds, and that I believe is at the heart of all our stories – the power of new life, new hope, new being, that whether we know it or not, keeps us coming to places like this year after year in search of it. It is the power of touch – to touch or be touched.
Today, these powerful healing stories invite each of us to engage in some serious self-reflection. What are the depths out of which our own souls are crying this day? What is the dis-ease that is crippling us, draining us, slowly killing us? Who are the untouchables that we have deemed unworthy of our consideration and perhaps even God’s? What power do we find in human touch and in Jesus’ touch? And perhaps most importantly, what would Jesus say to us about those that we would deem as untouchable? May God give us the courage to reach out and touch as well as be touched – amen.