Sermon: From Fear to Faith: a story within a story

Date Preached: Sunday 28th June 2009

Bible Reference: Mark Chapter 5 verses 21-43

Why does Jesus insist on identifying himself with all the wrong kinds of people? Have you noticed? And why does he seem to be making a point of shocking people out of their comfort zone as he demonstrates his power (in this case) to take people out of their fears and into faith? Because that’s what this is all about today. So let’s at least try and understand what’s behind Mark’s ‘story within a story’.

The outer one (if you like) is about Jairus’ daughter (who features as the young heroine in the animated movie The Miracle Maker if you’ve ever seen it –if not do!). 12 years old, almost old enough in that culture to be getting married, and very, very sick – so much so that her distraught father, with his hope slipping away like sand through a sieve, pins all his hope on this strange teacher who’d just come back from over the lake. And then there’s the inner story about a much older woman, who for the same period of 12 years has been suffering from severe internal bleeding.

Now we have to understand that the other religious leaders of Jesus’ day saw their task as being to keep themselves in quarantine – hermetically sealed from possible sources of moral and spiritual infection. While Jesus on the other hand saw himself as a doctor who’d come to heal the sick – and who wouldn’t be doing his job by distancing himself from people who needed healing – or staying aloof.

This is all about something new happening – and people just couldn’t handle it – it wasn’t what they were used to. And Jesus gives lots of pictures that all show how impossible it is to combine the new thing he’s doing with the old way things used to be: like patching old clothes with new material, which doesn’t work – or pouring new wine into old skins – which again doesn’t work because ultimately there’ll be an explosion.

And he’s not saying the old is bad.  Matthew’s gospel particularly insists that Jesus hadn’t come to destroy, but to fulfil. No – it simply means that ‘morning has broken on a new day’. As the Bishop Durham calls it, ‘God’s new day’ – and the practices appropriate for night-time activity are now no longer needed.

We’re not alone battling disease in our culture: swine flu, foot and mouth, BSE, MRSA C-Difficile. All societies have hygiene regulations – and they did in Jesus’ time too. Remember this was before infections could be cured as easily as they are today – so they had strict rules – mostly sensible, practical rules about what you could and couldn’t touch. And I wonder can you guess what particular things these might have been from the gospel reading? 2 things at the top of the list of things to avoid if you wanted to remain ‘pure’? (yep – you got it!)

One (1) was dead bodies (Jesus is on his way to the house of the synagogue leader where, as we already suspect, he’ll find a corpse); and 2) women with chronic internal bleeding – including their menstrual periods – which would have made the woman in this story perpetually unclean – with all its horrible consequences for her family and social life, because she would have been ostracized.

So in this double story we find Jesus being touched by a haemorrhaging woman – and then he himself touching a corpse. No self-respecting Jew would have missed the point here. In the ordinary course of events, Jesus would himself have become doubly ‘unclean’, and would have had to bathe himself and his clothes and wait until the next day before resuming normal social contact. 

Looking at the stories, they’re fascinating. It all begins with a flurry of activity: the man, Jairus, a leader in the synagogue, would normally have been expected to exercise some decorum, some dignity (let alone deep suspicion about this young Rabbi), but his little daughter was dying. What else could he do? He’d heard that Jesus was back in town, heard that he was healing people – perhaps he could help. And before he knows what he’s doing he’s pocketed his pride, forgotten his fears, rushed out of his house and flung himself at the feet of Jesus (ugh! How undignified - what would they have been whispering about him next Sabbath?). But who cares about your self-image when your child’s life is at stake?

The story then keeps us in suspense while attention shifts from this little girl to the older woman. Having suffered for twelve years from internal bleeding, she sees her chance of healing and takes it. Knowing she’d be making everyone else unclean by pushing through the crowd, she comes up and touches Jesus. And a new thing happens here. Her ‘uncleanness’ doesn’t infect him. Something in him influences her – & changes her life.

Jesus turns around, sees her and tells her, as he’s told others, that what made the difference is her own faith, And yet here’s the mystery. Jesus has the power to heal, but those who receive it are those with faith – and without faith he can’t heal – or better ‘save’, or ‘rescue’ because that’s the word being used here. So this isn’t about a magician doing conjuring tricks by some secret power for an amazed but uninvolved audience. He is God’s son, the very one through whom the living God is remaking Israel, humanity, the world, you and me. This is the beginning of the whole work of rescuing all things from the pollution defacing and destroying them. One of the most remarkable things about the story is the way Jesus knows at once that power had gone out of him. To the disciples it would be like the hookers at the centre of yesterday’s Lion’s/South Africa scrums asking ‘who touched me?’ (But we’d better not go there!).

This little exchange highlights for us the intimate, meaningful nature of the contact between the individual and Jesus that Mark expects and hope his readers to develop for themselves. Because (I’ll say it again) this shouldn’t just be about churchgoing, it’s about a life-changing relationship with Jesus himself, if only we’d realize it and let him get close to us.

The greatest destroyer and polluter is, of course, death itself. Jairus’ daughter is already dead – and the people of the house know it. They’ve already begun the sorrowful process of expressing their grief at a lovely young life cut short. Professional mourners had come in weeping and wailing, making it possible for family members to vent their feelings without restraint or embarrassment. But Jesus won’t have it – and he’s taking a huge risk – they’re already laughing at him – and now he’s going in to touch the corpse. He holds the little girl’s hand and says to her one of the few things to have come to us in the original Aramaic: Talitha koum. ‘Time to get up little girl’ And up she got up (it’s a resurrection word) walked ‘round the room and was given something to eat.

If you think about it, there are many kinds of pollution. Like that which gets into our own minds and hearts – into our imaginations and memories. How can we get rid of that? Tom Wrights says one way is to spend time with a double story like this. Perhaps imagine yourself as a character in the drama. Suppose you were the parent …or the woman who was bleeding…or one of the flute-players in the little girl’s house…or one of the dumbstruck disciples looking on, trying to fathom what’s actually going on.

It’s an ancient way of praying the scriptures using your imagination. What it does is to put us in touch with this amazing Jesus. Where are you in the story? Do you feel Jesus leading you out of your fear into faith – into a closer relationship with him - into a joy at the reality of his healing and life-giving presence in your life? If you sense that desire to go deeper, then respond, don’t wait – he’s calling you.