Daughter
Mark 5:21-43
Click here to view the full sermon video for June 27, 2021, entitled "Daughter."
Click here to view the June 27th worship bulletin.
Put the word ‘faith,’ and the word ‘healing’ in the same sentence and reactions fall all across the spectrum. What does faith have to do with healing? A while back a physician I knew said that day in, day out he sees people with one of three wishes: to stay well, to get well, or to keep from getting any worse. Then he added, “I suspect that you could say the same thing about church.” Each week, online and in-person, we gather together with folks who yearn to be made whole and who long for an experience of God. I think that mix is what keeps many of us coming back week after week. Now, some of us know we need to be healed, to be saved in some way from whatever it is that afflicts us. And there are some who have no idea. Some of us have pasts that are marked by deep darkness; some have lost their vision- they can no longer see what the future holds for them or someone they love. Some are consumed by guilt, or shame, or anger. Still others have nothing more complex, but no less painful than a broken heart. There are needs buried deep inside each of us, needs that have something to do with faith, and something to do with healing. All the while Jesus’ words to Jairus ring in our ears. “Do not fear, only believe.”
That’s easier said than done. That’s easier said than done when you’re the one facing a terminal diagnosis; or trying to escape an abusive ex; or looking for a place to live and a job that will pay the rent. Still, Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” Believe what?
When Jesus steps off the boat and into the crowds that await him, he his met by a man of status, a man with standing in this first century middle-eastern culture. As a father, Jairus holds the privileged position as head of his household. As a leader in the synagogue, he holds a privileged position in his religious community. None of which stopped his daughter from falling gravely ill. But his status means he has nothing to fear and everything to gain from this rabbi who has a reputation for miraculous healing power. He has nothing to fear and everything to gain by falling at his feet and begging Jesus to come to his house. Jairus believes that by laying his hands on her, Jesus can save the girl from death’s icy grip. So they go. And the crowds go with them.
In that crowd, we are told, is woman who has been suffering for as long as Jairus’ little girl has been alive, twelve years. For twelve years she’s been bleeding in a way that makes her ritually unclean according to the practice of her people, untouchable. You wonder if she belongs to anyone. Not only has her condition isolated her from the people around her, but all her attempts at a remedy have only caused more distress- exploited by so-called doctors who did nothing but take what little money she had only to leave her worse off than when she began. Unlike Jairus, we aren’t given her name. Unlike Jairus, she has no standing, no privileged status. And because of that, unlike Jairus, she has everything to fear from trying to ask this Jesus to heal her. She doesn’t have the same kind of access to Jesus that Jairus does. In fact, she has to approach him from behind. But she too believes. She believes that he doesn’t even need to stop and lay his hands on her to save her from this affliction; not just saved from the condition itself, but saved from her shame, saved from her isolation, saved from the poverty that has left her destitute. She believes that simply touching his clothes will be enough to set everything right and make her whole. So, she sets aside everything that she has to fear in that moment and reaches out her hand to touch Jesus.
In that moment, we are told, two things happen immediately. The first thing that happens is that she stops bleeding. And she knows, she can feel within her body that she had been healed. The second thing that happens is that Jesus feels it too. And he stops. He was a man on a mission, a man on his way to save a little girl from death. What did it matter that someone touched him? What did it matter that he felt the power exchanged in that touch? Hadn’t he heard what Jairus had said? The girl was at the point of death. At the point of death, Jesus. There is no time to waste. Still, Jesus stops to find out who touched him.
What you are talking about, his disciples want to know. Are you kidding me right now? Look at all these people pressing in. Who hasn’t touched you? We really don’t have time for this, Jesus. But he begins to look at the crowd to see. When it comes to faith and healing, Jesus takes the time to stop and see the one who would be saved. That’s because faith is not a transaction, a good to be acquired, it is a relationship that puts us in touch with the one who is the source of our salvation. And when she falls at his feet just like Jairus, and tells him her story, the response isn’t condemnation or shame, it is rather inclusion and belonging. She is given a name. He calls her daughter and tells her that her healing came from her faith.
It isn’t just the children of the privileged who get Jesus’ attention. The need to be healed is always about more than any particular physical malady, and faith isn’t a commodity reserved for those we deem worthy. With a touch this woman who had been disconnected from her own body and everyone around her is suddenly restored. And with a single word, daughter, she is named as one as worthy of healing as the child who lay waiting for Jesus’ touch. The grace of God is never a function of who we are, what we have, where we stand relative to anyone else, or anything else this world looks to in determining a person’s value. The grace of God is always a function of God’s steadfast and unrelenting love that will stop everything else to see us in our affliction, and name us as God’s own beloved children, regardless of whatever systems of caste, rank, or worth the world would use to classify us.
The happy ending is interrupted by the word that comes to Jairus that while Jesus has been stopped to attend to this woman, his own daughter has died. It’s a tense moment. Sure, we’re all glad that this woman has had her condition remedied, but at what cost? Is this the way it works? Salvation for some, while others perish? Is healing some kind of zero-sum game where someone must always lose in order for someone else to win? There is always the risk that by naming and responding to the very real need for one person’s healing that another will feel they have been neglected or forgotten. That by affirming that a single broken, forgotten and exploited life matters to God, we are suggesting that someone else’s does not. But that isn’t how God’s love works. It is not a commodity subject to scarcity. That is our fear. If someone else is getting something good, there won’t be enough for us, we’ll be left out and all those deep needs that we’re carrying around will go unmet. To which Jesus says, “do not fear, only believe.”
Don’t simply believe there will be enough. Although that is certainly true. With God there is always more than enough, there is abundance. Believe that not even death is an obstacle if we trust in the healing power of God to raise the dead to new life.
The writer Tony Campolo tells the story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing. That next week he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that the cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, “He died.”
Compolo felt terrible. But she continued, “Don’t feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.”
But the lady told Compolo, “After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.”
Finally, she said, “He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.”
Put faith and healing into the same sentence and you’re bound to get some skeptical looks. Maybe we’re afraid of looking foolish, or being disappointed, of having our hopes dashed. The power of God doesn’t always come in the form of a cure. But when it comes to faith and healing, the one who takes the time to stop and see what we’re going through, who claims us as daughters and sons, assures us, “do not fear, only believe.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.