Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 324

She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him,
turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who has touched my clothes?"
But his disciples said to him,
"You see how the crowd is pressing upon you,
and yet you ask, Who touched me?"

If Saint Mark has a sense of humor, it's a very dry wit, and easily mistaken for dead seriousness. Or perhaps, it's the other way around, we mistake his serious message for comedy. 

In today's dual story about two women, one suffering a lifelong, chronic illness and the other snatched from life as she is about to blossom into fertility, we're also told about the mocking remarks Jesus must suffer. 

First, his disciples are amused by his odd question, "Who touched me?" He is being pushed from all sides by an eager, boisterous mob and he asks, "Who touched me?" 

Well, everyone did! What are you getting at? 

And then he is mocked by the mourners who have flooded into Jairus's courtyard -- very likely, professionals paid for their loud lamentations.  

Or is Jesus laughing at them? 

For he will have the last laugh.

 

I have long believed that true faith has a deep, confident sense of humor. Believers can take the most serious matters lightly for they believe the Lord has everything in hand. 

And, more importantly, they can laugh at themselves and their uncertainty, for they have at least some appreciation of their own infidelity. Who doesn't pretend to be better, more generous, more faithful, more patient and kind than they actually are? 

The faithful hope, believe, and pray that God is more faithful to us than we are to him. And as soon as we're discovered in sin, anxiety, or doubt we can say, "Well what did you expect of this mortal flesh?" And then we cite Psalm 131 for the umpteenth time, 

"If you, Lord, mark iniquity, who can stand? But with the Lord is mercy, and fullness of redemption." 

Ideologues, on the other hand, have little sense of humor for they are never sure of their correct belief or their eventual victory. They might be wrong; their mission might fail; they might be caught in a moment of political incorrectness. Their confidence is too anxious; and their life, too dangerous for humor.  

Saint Mark tells us of other occasions when the Lord laughed at his disciples' lack of faith. I think especially of the storm on the Galilean Sea and his command, "Oh, pipe down!" 

And then, in the sudden calm, he turned to his astonished apostles and quietly said, "Did you really think that I might be drowned and that my mission to save the world might fail? 

Stay with me and you will see far greater things than this!