THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

Today’s Gospel reports two stories of healing. One story tells us about a father’s great love for his dying daughter. The other story tells us about a desperate woman who risks much as she seeks healing from Jesus. In each story, the request for healing is itself a courageous act of faith, and yet very different circumstances are represented by the lives of each suffering person.

Jairus is described as a synagogue official, a man of considerable standing in the Jewish community. Distraught over his daughter’s poor health, he approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her. Although Mark doesn’t provide many details, we can imagine that his daughter has been ill for some time and that her condition is deteriorating.

As he makes his way to Jairus’ home, he is interrupted by an encounter with a woman who would have seemed destined to die unknown, unremembered, unremarked. But this woman showed her great faith in trusting that all she needed to do was reach out and touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. Nothing more was required, but nothing less would do. Clearly, she had heard of Jesus’ reputation as a healer. As we learn from Mark’s Gospel, for twelve years, “She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” .   She found him that day on the seashore. She gathered with a large crowd of others, all bent on hearing Jesus, many wanting healing as well.

 Through her faith that she just needed to touch the hem of his garment, we see how much she invested in this one last hope of healing.   To have Jesus touch her might bring her healing, but it would have made him ritually unclean as well

As Jesus started toward Jairus’ house, the woman knelt, reaching out for the barest edge of his robe. And her plan worked. The bleeding stopped. Her body was finally healed after twelve years of suffering. Then everything the woman planned went wrong. Jesus stopped, wanting to know who touched him because he too felt the miracle.
There is much power in this moment as the woman everyone came to ignore became the centre of attention. Mark’s Gospel tells us she fell at his feet and recounts her whole story. Twelve years of suffering. Trembling, she tells Jesus the whole truth down to the hem of his garment.

After so many people had cast her down, Jesus lifts her up, looks into her eyes and says the words which make her healing complete. With the eyes of love on her, ‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has restored you to health; go in peace and be free from your complaint.’  “Daughter.” Not an outcast.   She was a beloved child of God.  We see the very heart of God. Others may have judged her harshly, but God never forgot her, always loved her, and wanted to welcome her home. Jesus knew what great faith she had come to have that even the very hem of his robe could heal.  

 Sickness had defined her. Then Jesus set her free to be a daughter of God.  Jesus does this so often with his healing. He doesn’t just cure disease but restores people to their community. She wanted, needed, the bleeding to stop, but what she needed more—and Jesus knew it—was to be accepted once again. To have God look into her eyes and call her “daughter.”

So often, people, are judged by society and found wanting. They are named in various ways as outcasts and treated as less than human. Today, too, we have categories of people who are excluded or who feel excluded from taking part in the Christian community. And until all of God’s children, are welcome at the table, we will be falling short of the kingdom of God.   

Out of his compassion and generosity of spirit, Jesus healed a woman and restored life to a dead girl. We have experienced the benefits of that same compassion and generosity. For the Son of God took on flesh, came among us, suffered, died, and rose so that we might be healed of sin and raised to a new relationship with God.
 
If we appreciated the care and generosity God has shown, and continues to show us, we would need no further motivation to make us generous and compassionate people.  Remembering how generous the Lord Jesus was should lead us to gracious generosity just as it led the Christians of Corinth to respond to Saint Paul.