Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 98

He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction."

Jesus said to the synagogue official,
"Do not be afraid; just have faith."

Scripture scholars have long recognized Saint Mark's "sandwich" device. It begins with a story, tells a second story, and then returns to finish the first; thus connecting two stories whose similarities might otherwise go unnoticed. The first story is two pieces of bread with the second story between them. 

Mark employs the device in his account of Jesus's return to Capernaum after his miraculous adventure in gentile territory. The Lord is met by Jairus, a synagogue official, who begs the Healer to save his daughter from imminent death. He sets out for the man’s house immediately, but pauses a moment to heal an elderly woman. 

The stories are linked by several similarities: in both stories Jesus is mocked first by his disciples, and then by mourners and keeners. Jesus insists upon the power of faith in both stories; the sick persons are women though one is elderly and the other just coming of age; both illnesses may be feminine afflictions; the situations are quite desperate as one woman has suffered for many years and the girl is dying; both women are miraculously healed; and their faith in Jesus is effective. 

Feminist theologians have rightly highlighted the Lord's particular compassion for women, and today's dual story fits the pattern. In fact, in none of the Gospels does the Lord utter a sharp word toward a woman. He shows kindness and compassion to women, children, gentiles, and aliens; and many of them become devout followers. His rebukes are aimed only at Jewish men -- Pharisee, Sadducees, Herodians, rabbis, priests, and levites -- because of their self-righteousness and not for who they are.

Some feminists might object to this story's being ranked with other incidents of the Lord's compassion for the anawim. But we overlook the forest for the trees if we miss Saint Mark's reason for linking the two stories. The trees are their many similarities; the forest is faith. Whether we're praying for someone else or praying for oneself, we come to the Lord with faith and confidence in him. 

To be healed, we must set aside our pride, our sense of entitlement, our sense of wounded victimization, and our carefully guarded dignity, and with full awareness of our sins and unworthiness, ask the Lord for mercy. We hear our desperation in the prayer of Jairus, "Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live." And in the woman's sad plight, "She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse."

As a hospital chaplain, I saw patients who were truly desperate for help and eager for prayer. And I met other patients who only felt insulted by their affliction and that something ought to be done about it. One fellow complained that when he takes his car to the garage the mechanic fixes it! Why can't the doctors fix him? "Aren't they paid better than mechanics?" 

Many patients, their families, and caregivers dismiss the mystery of sickness and human suffering, and overlook their opportunities for grace. They fixate on medicines, surgeries, therapies, and counseling; and ignore the reality of mercy. In the wilderness of suffering, they do not want to hear Isaiah's ecstatic announcement: 

See, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

In the wilderness I make a way,

in the wasteland, rivers. Isaiah 43:19

Nor can they be bothered with the Lord's joyful announcement: "Behold, I make all things new!" (Rev 21:5)

They only want to get back to a normal which was never very good. 

When Jesus heals the elderly woman and Jairus's daughter, he is not sending them back to a doomed normal. He invites them into faith in God and faith in him. 

Nor does he send us into a world where the poor become powerful and the overlooked become overseers. His authority will not recognize any human authority which avenges wrongs; that is not at the service of  others, nor obedient to the needs of others, nor docile before the Holy Spirit. His vindication does not make anyone powerful by this world's standards.

I asked a young woman who suffered with a genetic affliction how she had experienced the blessings of her particular cross. Astonished by the question at first, because no one in her family or friends, nor her pastor, had ever asked it, she went on to tell me of the compassion of many dedicated health care workers, of her self-sacrificing parents, and of many companions who suffered with the same disease. Although she had not volunteered to join them, she found mercy among them, and had learned kindness for others. 

"What is needed is faith!" Jesus told the frightened Jairus. The official could not conceive of his little girl's death; he must have been overcome with grief when messengers said, "Your daughter has died." But he followed the Lord into his own house; he surrendered the child, his family, friends, and neighbors; his home and all his property to the Authority and Presence of Jesus. After shutting out all the skeptics and scoffers, he and his wife followed the Lord and his disciples into the child's room where they received their daughter back to life. 

"Eye has not seen; ear has not heard, what God has ready for those who love him." 

Because we know the man's name, we can suppose he remained among the disciples of Jesus. The Gospels do not tell us all the names of all the healed; apparently some of them disappeared despite the health they enjoyed and the wonder they had seen. Jairus and his family remained. They took their place in the Church after the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord. They saw something new and unheard of, and did not return to their old, "normal" way of life. 

With our lived experience and ancient memories of faith, we cannot return to the world with its threats, violence, and polarization; with its endless list of self-described victims, and its failure to own or recognize its sin and its lack of faith. 

As sinners we know we have no claim to God's mercy or justice, but we come nonetheless with our prayers, and plead with Jesus, "I do believe; help my unbelief."