SERMONS

The Reverend Alan Storey
Ordained Minister of the Methodist Church of South Africa
November 8, 2009

Mark 5: 21-43

Suffering – tragedy-illness harbor no prejudice against anyone.

They do not discriminate.

Suffering – tragedy- illness embrace everyone.

They are not afraid to reach out to touch all.

Regardless of whether one is young or old, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, homeless or executive, believer or nonbeliever — or the king of pop!

Suffering – tragedy – illness do not discriminate.

Suffering – tragedy- illness randomly taps this one and that one on the shoulder.

We notice this same random, indiscriminate nature of suffering in the Scripture reading for today.
On the one hand, we have Jairus – a powerful somebody

a leader in the synagogue

when he spoke – people listened

A person of means and influence

An educated person

A home owner with multiple servants

He made things happen around the place

Religious, upright, model citizen

Yet, he couldn’t keep his daughter from being close to death.

A religious leader – yet things at home were in such deathly shape.

And then sandwiched into the story of his life we find a nameless woman without introduction or fancy resume — except that she has bled – nonstop for twelve years, and is considered unclean and needing to be kept in isolation.

On the surface, Jairus and this woman couldn’t have been more different from each other — and yet suffering – illness – tragedy was what they had in common.

Suffering – illness – tragedy respect everyone by respecting no one!

That is how they show their respect to all of us.

They treat us all the same.

They do not discriminate.
And there can be a strange gift in this. Namely, their non-discriminating nature may help us to get over our discriminating nature.

Note the behavior of Jairus – the synagogue leader

-who must have been meticulous at keeping

the purity code — religious spin for segregation

-kneels before Jesus begging Jesus to return

with him to his home to attend his nearly

dead daughter

But Jesus had just re-turned from the other side — Gentile territory. Himself now considered unclean and defiled – according to the purity code.

A person Jairus would never normally dream of communicating with.

Yet, his suffering helps him over this isolating, separating, discriminating prejudice.

Jesus is equated with dirty Gentile stained hands.

Jairus’ pain of his suffering daughter enables him to careless for matters of purity that had long since protected and promoted his prejudice.

Now with his suffering daughter, he risks life as he knows it, breaks cultural norms, betrays family tradition, and forsakes his religious heritage.

It is amazing – the power of suffering has to unite the un-unitable — Jairus and this nameless woman now share the page forever.

Suffering as the great leveler – turns us all into beggars.

In a hospital in South Africa, people who had been segregated came face to face with their mortality — came face to face with their powerlessness. The hospital wanted to keep us segregated, so we would not know we are more the same than we are different. That suffering would reveal and expose the illusion of control, security and safety.

Another possible gift of suffering is empowerment. Suffering takes me to a place where it feels that one has got nothing left to lose. And thus, sometimes one is empowered to do things that if one were not suffering so, one would not dare do.
The nameless woman takes the initiative, breaks the rules of isolation.

She is weak, fragile, frail and anemic, but not powerless.

She refuses to be content with her discontent.

She comes out.

She was dying in secret, so she figures she has gotten nothing to lose.

Jairus is backed by the powers

The nameless woman is up against the powers – the powers like that of Jairus.

She knows — her life is as nobody.
Now – suffering may not discriminate, but sadly too often getting access to healing does. All can get sick. Not all have access to healing.

Because of who Jairus was – a respected man with position and power, he was able to walk straight up to Jesus and make his request known to Jesus — in the open. It is almost a sense of entitlement in his approach — his asking almost something like he was ordering.

Not so for the woman though – if she wanted to be healed, she would have to steal if by sneaking up on Jesus from behind – in secret

at risk

amidst a shoulder bumping crowd
She had spent all she had on many doctors and had run out of health care insurance.

All can get sick – not all have access to healing!

Jesus however refuses to discriminate and gives both Jairus and the nameless woman free and EQUAL access to healing.

It could be argued that Jesus giving the nameless woman equal access to healing plus extra benefits cost Jairus. The nameless woman’s need seemingly causes Jesus not to reach Jairus’ daughter before she dies.

Money does not make one person more worthy of health care than someone without. All life is sacred and worthy.
The health care in South Africa has broken from its racial discrimination, but it is still numb to class, which has not located our country’s conscience.
People speak of a public option. We need a Gospel option.

Jesus is unbiased and shows no favoritism. He gives us a vision of what health care should look like.
Slow it down – come back to the text. Zoom in.

Jairus begs Jesus to attend to his nearly dead daughter. Jesus does. As he is on his way, the nameless woman touches him and he stops — having felt power go out of him. He says, “Who touched me?” Some yell, “You lie.”
From the touch, the woman is healed of her disease. Healed to bring life. Jesus aware that power had gone forth from him turned and asked who touched me. Crowd sees this as a silly question. But the woman came – fear and trembling. She fell down and told Jesus the whole truth. Jesus does not just cure her, he heals her and then calls her “Daughter.” The nameless woman is made family.

While Jesus was still speaking – some people arrive to inform Jairus of his daughter’s death and not to bother Jesus any more. Jesus overhears his — he overhears the bad news told to us.

Jesus says, “Do not fear – only believe and trust.”

The miracle is – Jairus does!
At Jairus’ home, Jesus raises his daughter from the dead.

I confess that as much as I celebrate Jesus’ life giving power and the reconciliation of Jairus with his daughter — I can’t not think of fathers and mothers whose daughters are not restored to life. Of parents who have had the terrible pain of burying their children. Of other people whose bleeding never stopped.
The only way I can reconcile these unresolved tragedies with texts like this – these healings and restorations — is that they are signs or a preview of what will be true for all.
The wound like the woman’s bleeding – never seems to go away, perhaps only a little now, but never fully repaired.

The pain of never again – to hold, to touch, to laugh, to share.

The irreplaceableness and that one is present only through one’s absence.

No fear and trust does not ease the pain of loss. I miss her/him now! Knowing the loved one is in good hands – is comforting but I want him in my hands!

Never get over it – at best we get through it, battered and scarred for life.

Don’t know what to do with this.

But I know – that if we have free and equal health care — less people will bleed in grief, less people will have to say never again, and less people will experience the pain of irreplaceableness.

[Following the sermon, the Reverend Alan Storey, in his culture, invited anyone who needed healing to come forward and join him kneeling as all faced the cross and prayed for healing.]