Like many of you I watched the debate the other night. Like many of you, I was appalled. There are many things that could be said about the event, but what seemed most egregious to me was the way that immigrants and people of color were depicted. The language used was demeaning, degrading, and deliberately inciting. No one was capable of stopping the vitriol that blamed immigrants, especially those coming over the southern border, for about every problem the country faces. The disease of hateful prejudice is tearing our nation apart and it is hard to imagine how we can ever be healed.
The gospel for this Sunday, Mark 5:21-43 is provocative. It does not read smoothly as Mark has once again started one story, only to interrupt the telling in order to sandwich another story in, before returning to the original story. In the first story Jesus has been asked by a prominent synagogue official, Jairus by name, to come to his home and heal his 12-year-old daughter who is close to death. In the second story, a woman who has had a flow of blood for 12 years, takes the initiative to seek out and touch Jesus’ garment in order to be healed. In the Jerome Biblical Commentary, Ray Brown notes that while the two stories share commonalities, their distinct styles let us know that they came from diverse sources. Mark made the decision to intertwine the stories in his narrative of Jesus.
Sandwiching, or intercalating, stories is a device that Mark uses a number of times as a way of letting his readers know that the two distinct stories are related in some significant way. Neither of the female characters has a name which is reflective of the patriarchal culture of the time. The father of the younger female is named and situated as a synagogue leader, allowing us to know that his daughter lives a privileged life. The older woman, we are told, has spent all of her money on doctors trying to find a cure for her blood flow, which makes her unclean by the standards of the purity laws, second class as a woman, and poor. The young girl was on the cusp of womanhood. The older woman at the end of her childbearing years as such a blood flow was attributable to menopause. Each of these females needed healing and Jesus healed them both, but in a manner that was counter to prevailing cultural standards.
Jesus was on his way, at the request of Jairus, to heal the daughter of an important person when he became aware of power going out of him and stopped. The disciples, who are never very clever in Mark’s Gospel, tell Jesus that it is not possible to know who touched his garment because of the large crowd that was following. But Jesus had a unique experience. He was aware and willing to ask who it might be. The woman responded by prostrating herself before him with fear and trembling, but she had nothing to fear. She was healed physically and socially since the hemorrhaging that had made her unclean was now gone. Jesus called her “daughter” and told her that her faith had saved her. “By welcoming her into the new kindred community, Jesus confirms his redefinition of family.” (Ched Myers. Who Will Roll Away the Stone. Pg 287.
Meanwhile, the official received word that his daughter had died. Jesus had let the last, the less privileged one, come first at the expense of the other, but he tells the official not to be afraid and to have faith - like the underprivileged woman had. Jesus then goes to the official’s home, ignores the taunts when he tells the crowd that the girl is asleep, sends the mourners out, and raises the daughter of privilege up. “Give her something to eat” he tells the family, for once she was saved from death, she needed the support of her community again.
What are we to make of these two intertwined stories? Undoubtedly, they are telling us something about privilege and power, about how the ‘last’ are first in the communion of God’s people, though the ‘first’ are not left out if they can learn something from the last. The poor woman initiated her healing by reaching out to Jesus. The young daughter of privilege died waiting for her advocate to bring Jesus to her. The repeating number 12 may be a symbolic challenge to the community of faith. Twelve was the number of tribes of Israel and the number of apostles. The Twelve were the basis of the community of The Way. Was Mark reminding the early church that they could not expect to be waited on like people of privilege? Was he telling them that Jesus would welcome everyone if they approached, even with fear and trembling? Was Mark’s larger point that the community would experience healing only when everyone was included?
Many of the people who have come over the southern border are escaping violence and generational poverty. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were possible to welcome them into luxury hotels, or even simple motel rooms, as our special guests, as the poor who are important to God? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could give them medical care and jobs and security for their old age? We cannot of course. We can’t even house the people who already live here, the ones who are not allowed to sleep if they don’t have a place to live, according to the new Supreme Court ruling. But the fact that we can’t feed and shelter everyone does not mean we should stop trying to do better, trying to cross the boundaries of haves and have-nots, and redistribute the wealth of the land, the nation, the world, in ways that would allow all people to live with dignity and fewer people to continue living with conspicuous consumption.
What if the wealthy elite could not access healthcare until the poor were taken care of? Sounds a little scary for those of us who live in the upper categories of wealth in the world. Maybe I should read the Sunday Gospel again. Maybe Mark was talking about something else.