NRSV MARK 5:21-43
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 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.” 24 So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 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?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 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. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Power, or the lack of it, has been much on our minds lately. Tropical Storm Michael’s visit left us with thousands of folks in our area struggling in the darkness. Of course, as has been noted by many of you, we got off fairly lucky. The scenes of utter devastation in Florida were enough to make us realize that there is a difference between inconvenience and despair.
Still, that lack of power was a great teacher. Not being able to take a warm shower, or to wash your clothes (never mind drying them), not being able to cook something for dinner or watch the TV, all of these things we take for granted dissolved into the darkness. Even the simple act of going to bed was altered as the days saw less and less light, and we found ourselves heading off to sleep at unheard of times. That alone was enough to change the way you look at things.
The arrival of the lack of power was rather ironic for me, in that I had just returned from a conference in Montreat when the storm hit. The conference was about power; the ways we use it and abuse it, as well as considering ways we can let it transform ourselves and others. I had to drive through the storm, impressed and I will confess scared out of my wits at all of the power of nature’s storms. When I got home I thought, uh-oh, we’re going to get slammed.
But it was still worth it. The conference, that is. Thanks to your graciousness I was able to participate with others in three days of deeply moving worship services, stimulating presentations, and thought-provoking questions – which made up for the fact that it rained most of the time up there, and the mountain leaves hadn’t changed yet. Phooey.
There was too much meat in that conference for me to feed you all at once – even if I could – but the gist of it was taking a term we often neglect or use casually and examining how it takes on life in the church. Power – the ability to influence your world and that of others. I know that is not an exhaustive definition of the term. But it still provoked all kinds of thoughts.
Power is neither good nor bad. It is a given, it just is, like so much of our worlds. It is what we do with it that makes it good or bad. Do we use power to keep people oppressed, or to open ourselves to their world? Do we give up power because we don’t think we are worthy or because we fear it, or are we willing to embrace it and use it for good, for ourselves and for others?
We may not think of ourselves as people with a lot of power. But each of us does possess a certain amount of power, whether we acknowledge it or not. Some have it because of their skin color; some have it because of their gender; some have it because of their socio-economic status; some possess it because of their educational level; some possess it because of where they were born, and/or their family of origin. In other words, were you raised in a family which empowered you, or which took power from you?
In the first lecture Dr. Eric Law of Austin Theological Seminary showed a chart which showed the flow of power. Not just any flow, but the flow of power as it exists in a Christian framework, with the cross as the symbol of powerlessness, and yet also of ultimate power. He said that for all of us there are two miracles, things that happen because God gives us the power to do them. For those who are powerful, there is the miracle of the ear; the ability to keep quiet and listen to the other, to enter into another person’s world without trying to tell them what they need. We of western European backgrounds have traditionally been bad about this, in oppressing people of other colors, or in the ways we in the church sent out missionaries because people in other places couldn’t do things as well as we could – or so we thought in our distorted power. Now thankfully – hopefully – we are in a more collaborative model.
That is because for those who are powerless, there is the miracle of the tongue. Those who are without power need to stand up and speak; to speak their truth, to tell what it is they need – rather than having someone else tell them what their need is.
There were so many stories told about this, but none better than one given by Dr. Christena Cleveland, a professor at Duke Divinity School. She didn’t cite a personal story, though she had plenty of those. She used this story from the Gospel of Mark, one I have preached on many times, including fairly recently here. But the way she wove the tapestry of power in this story opened up new insights for me, and I hope this morning, for you. If I mess up the interpretation, the fault is on me and not on her.
You might remember that Jesus had sailed with his disciples to Gerasene, which was Gentile, non-believer territory. Now he is back among his own, and the first person he runs into is a person of power. That person is Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue. Jairus undoubtedly knew all about purity laws and how important it was to keep away from unclean people – lepers, people possessed, those with illnesses of all kinds, the kind of people who clamored around Jesus. And yet in spite of the laws of his time he must have walked past many of these same people. But he’s desperate. He asks Jesus to heal his daughter, and Jesus goes.
As they are walking along another person comes up behind Jesus – a woman with a bleeding disorder, one that she has had for many years. She is one of those very unclean types, but she knows if she just touches the hem of Jesus’ garment she will be made well. She touches him and feels her cleanliness restored.
But in the midst of that Jesus asks a question: Who touched me? This always seemed rather comical to me, as it probably did to the disciples. What do you mean, Jesus, everyone is touching you? Why would one touch be different than another?
But I, like the disciples, am a man. What do I know about powerlessness? What do I know about what women go through when they are marginalized, shoved to the corner, given no power and no voice? With that question, Jesus does more than acknowledge that power has gone out from him. With that question, Jesus flips the power switch. Before, it was all on Jairus, the one who had power. Now the power belongs to the woman, the one who was powerless.
It’s what happened next that really took me back. Mark tells us that the woman came in fear and trembling, and “told him the whole truth.” I always thought that she just came up, confessed that she had touched him, ‘sorry, Jesus, for me, an unclean person, touching you but I just had to do it.’
But Dr. Cleveland helped me to see this woman differently. Suppose she was a rather vocal, demonstrative person, like so many desperate people we know. What if she was not a shrinking violet but one of those people who often come by the office and asks for help. What is she was one of those who, when you ask how they are doing, dispenses with the superficial niceties of “Fine, thank you,” and really, honestly lets you know how they are doing and how they are feeling. What if she were one of those who feel that they can lay out their whole life story – after all, Mark says she told him “the whole truth” – regardless of how long it takes.
Jesus provided the miracle of the tongue, and this lady took advantage of it. But something else I have missed all these years is how Jesus also provided the miracle of the ear for Jairus. As far as we know, Jairus did not intercede; he didn’t say, “that’s nice, now Jesus if we can just get moving again, please?” For all we know, Jairus stays there, listening with Jesus to this woman.
And in that experience, in that uninterrupted listening, he receives healing as much as the woman. Like the Trinity of God, Jairus indwells with this woman. Do you remember that icon I shared with you a couple of times about the Trinity, the three persons of God; how they are all different, but they are reverential to each other, and they shower love on each other – a dance, a divine flow of love, that is unimpeded, one person of the Godhead indwelling, living within the other. The same holds true here – as the Triune God indwells with each other, so each of us can indwell with each other, when we listen to each other, when we seek to enter each other’s world, when we share each other’s pains and joys. When we empower each other. Jairus enters her world, not interrupting, not stopping, not disrupting. But he listens and is open to her truth.
Someone comes and tells Jairus that his daughter has died. Why bother the teacher any further? Death is death; there is not enough grace to go around. The scarcity model – the story of their time, and ours. There is just so much grace, so much of God’s work, out there and then there is none for you, even when you do the right thing. As Dr. Cleveland said, “Hopelessness is an artifact of the privileged.”
But Jesus clues him in on something. “Just believe” – well, that’s easy for you to say, Jesus. You are the Son of God. But didn’t you also challenge us to do the same things you are doing? Didn’t you tell us to keep believing, even when it seems impossible? Didn’t you teach us that God’s presence, grace and mercy is abundant, and constantly flows through life, uninhibited? Didn’t you tell us, by implication, that the only one who can stop God’s grace is ourselves? Keep on believing.
And, again as far as we know, Jairus does. He does so not because he has more faith than anyone else, but because he has just seen Jesus’ work before his eyes. He can also believe because he has been impacted by the woman’s story. Jairus needed the woman for himself to receive the healing he needed – the healing that comes with belief.
Power is like that, especially the power God gives. You can’t receive it in isolation. It is given to bless the whole community, and when we share it with the community we find ourselves doubly blessed as we receive the blessings we are giving away. There is enough grace to go around; we don’t have to buy into the world’s idolatry of scarcity, “what’s going to happen to me/us”. There is enough power to go around. There is enough love to go around. There is enough resurrection to go around. It is that way because God is that way – an eternal flow of love, one to the other, and we are part of that divine dance of love and power.
The child is raised back to life, and so might we be; raised back from all the deaths we experience. We have been raised with God’s gift of power, but more especially with God’s gift of resurrection. Life comes, and death comes, to all of us, many times in our lives. But with God, resurrection is always possible. Just believe. Amen.