Telling these two stories Mark
makes a sandwich where he begins one story and then tells another and then
wraps back around to finish the first story. The gospel writer does this more
than a half-dozen times in his gospel – intentionally using two stories to
illuminate each other and something about the character of Jesus or the kingdom
of God. So as we hear today’s gospel reading we are being asked to listen for
what is being revealed to us.
Another reading of the gospel might notice that Mark begins and ends with the sympathetic story of a father and his little daughter, and that the story of the woman’s troubles with her ‘female problems’ is almost hidden within the first story.
I listened to a biblical storyteller telling this story and he dropped the volume of his voice as he told the woman’s story. He said later he wanted to mimic that Mark is narrating the woman’s inner thoughts as she approaches Jesus. But perhaps the softer and quieter voice also reflects how we tend to whisper when we speak of crises, diagnoses and trauma, as if speaking them aloud makes the suffering more real or, more to the point, not speaking them aloud lets us pretend the pain isn’t there.
Of course, the only ones we are fooling are ourselves. The pain and suffering is all too real for the parent whose child has died or the person whose illness has changed the course of their life or activities. It may help us deceive ourselves that tragedy can’t happen to us, but our reticence or silence only widens the distance between us and leaves the other person more alone.
In the story we see this distancing from tragedy happen again after the woman is healed. People come to Jairus to tell him that his daughter has died and say, “Why trouble the teacher any further?”
Even if we didn’t know what happened next, maybe the reason to trouble the teacher is that we need to share our hearts – our joy and our pain – and know that people see us when we are hurting. We need to know we are not alone.
Jesus does not leave us alone.
Jairus the synagogue leader, a Pharisee, is associated with the very same people who, in Mark’s gospel, have already begun conspiring with the Herodians to destroy Jesus. (Mark 3:6) And yet, when his daughter is near death, Jairus comes to Jesus and falls down before him, saying, “I need help.”
And the woman whose hemorrhaging made her ritually unclean hides in plain sight in the crowd and draws near to Jesus, risking everything to touch his clothes, believing that touching him would heal her. (Mark 5:28) And when he notices her touch, different from the jumbling and jostling of the regular crowd, she falls down before him and tells him her whole story, saying, “I need help.”
Why are those three words so difficult to say? “I need help.”
Some of it may be ego. We don’t
want to rely on anyone else.
Some it may be denial. If I don’t
name whatever it is I am facing, maybe it will just go away.
Some of it may be shame. If I had done x, y or z differently, this wouldn’t be happening.
Jesus hears your objections and your reluctance, and he sees how you are hurting, calls you beloved child, and tells you to believe he is in the messiness of life with you.
Jairus said, “My child is hurting
and I cannot fix it and I need help.” The woman said, “My body is sick and I
need help.”
What would you say to Jesus?
I don’t know
how I will pay my rent next week, and I need help.
I don’t have
a safe place to sleep or shower, and I need help.
I am afraid
I am going to use or drink, and I need help.
When I am
depressed or anxious, my brain lies to me, and I need help.
I am alone, and I need help.
Jesus doesn’t interrogate Jairus
about why his daughter is so sick. He doesn’t make the woman justify why she
spent all her money on doctors who couldn’t help. What he does is listen to
them and accompany them, so they are not alone.
Jesus isn’t even the one who
fixes their problems; he credits their healing to their faith and belief.
For any of us who has prayed for someone with a disease that isn’t cured or suffered the death of a beloved, when we hear these stories, even if we never say it out loud, we may think, “If only we had had more faith, my wife/my husband/ my son/my daughter would have been made well.”
That isn’t what is being said here. Many faithful people believe and pray and their loved ones continue to suffer or die. And I cannot make sense of that or explain it, but I can name it.
What I do know is that here, in these two instances, faith healed their physical conditions, but Jesus isn’t there as the faith healer; Jesus is there to bind up the broken-hearted. Jesus is there to say to Jairus that he does not need to be afraid of what is happening to his daughter. Jesus is there to say to the woman that she is not defined by her sickness and she is loved no matter what. The power of God is active in Jesus in restoring dignity and life to these hurting people and in bringing them back into relationship with others.
So, I’ll ask again, “What would you say to Jesus?”
What is going on in your life that you need to come to Jesus and ask for help? Jesus is waiting, ready to call you beloved and listen.
Amen.
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