A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — June 28, 2009
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Text:  Mark 4:35-5:20;  5:21-43

She… came up behind [Jesus]…

I will be made well.” — Mark 5:28

[Jesus] took her by the hand and said

“Little girl, get up!” — Mark 5:41

There’s so much going on in Mark that it’s hard to know where to start when it comes to preaching.  Whatever story or episode is chosen, we land smack dab in the middle of it all, dealing with but a tiny portion of the “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” [Mk 1:1], as Mark terms it.  Actually, the full story isn’t all that long.  In most bibles the book of Mark takes about 20 pages.  I could probably read the entire book aloud in less than hour or so—about half the duration of a short play or movie.  Try it sometime.  Read all of Mark aloud without stopping.  Most likely that’s how the Gospel was intended to be experienced.  For the good news is embodied in the entirety of Mark’s brief account of Jesus’ ministry.

The problem with focusing on a single passage, as we usually do in worship, is that it’s a bit like reviewing a play based on a single scene lasting only a minute or so.  Hamlet is far more than any single scene or even collection of scenes.  So we need to know more than just what’s happening here!  How does this episode fit into the whole?  What went on before this?  Where’s the story heading?

Just five chapters into his gospel, Mark has already made several things clear.  First, Jesus is a man of almost constant action.  Starting with his baptism in the Jordan, he travels; he heals; he calls followers; he teaches; he preaches; and he even calms a stormy sea.  Mark conveys a constant sense of urgency to the story.  One of his favorite words is euthus, a Greek word that means “at once” or “immediately.”  Things are always happening “immediately” in Mark.

Second, Jesus represents the power of God present in the world.  “The kingdom of God is at hand!”  These are among the first words Mark attributes to Jesus [Mk 1:15].  And divine power has declared war on evil in all its many forms.  According to Mark, evil forces surround and confront Jesus at every turn—directly in Satan and various unclean spirits who recognize him and his divine power, as well as more indirectly in various forms, such as human need, illness, and suffering and the opposition of religious authorities who accuse him of sin and blasphemy.

Mark tells his story very quickly.  Events cascade one after another.  Yet from the very beginning, a third thing comes to the forefront.  In scene after scene, Jesus consistently questions, challenges, and sets aside much of the system of distinctions, boundaries, dividing lines, and barriers that existed in his culture.

All human societies have such a system—our own included.  Sociologists speak of “conceptual maps” to describe the ways human communities go about structuring and ordering their existence.  Just as on maps of the globe, imaginary lines are drawn—only these line are drawn around self, others, nature, time, and space.  They serve to give meaning to life, but they also function as barriers that determine what behaviors are proper or improper, which groups are in or out, whether something is pure or impure—even what is right or wrong.

As I said, all cultures and societies have such maps.  Those of another culture different from our own may appear strange or even irrational.  As an example out of today’s reading, a woman with a flow of blood was considered unclean in Jesus’ time [Lev. 15:25-30], and her impurity was highly contagious.  Whoever came into contact with her, or even with a bed or a chair she had touched, would themselves be defiled and rendered unclean.  For 12 years she would have had to live apart, in social and religious isolation, under threat of severe punishment.  The little girl as well, after she died, became unclean.  Touching or otherwise coming into contact with a corpse also rendered one unclean and in need of purification.

How strange this all seems to us!  Yet the conceptual maps within our own culture are largely unspoken, unquestioned, even unquestionable.  I once heard someone say, “I don’t know who discovered water, but I’d bet it wasn’t a fish.”  Our cultural boundaries are largely unnoticed from the inside and only seem odd from “outside” …or after the fact, when they’ve faded away.  For instance, I grew up in a time and place (the 1950’s in a Dutch Reformed area of southwestern Michigan) where Sunday was sacrosanct.  Certain things just weren’t done on the Sabbath.  In 1958 we moved to a new neighborhood, and I recall that after a few weeks a neighborhood delegation came to our house to inform my mother that it was totally improper for her to hang laundry outside to dry on Sundays.  Racial discrimination is another form of conceptual mapping.  I was surprised when I moved to Oregon to learn that “Sundown Laws” were common into the late 1950s.  Such laws required black people to be out of town before sundown each day.

A couple of more contemporary examples…  In today’s paper there’s an article about Czech women who are refusing to add –ova to the end of their last name when they get married because of sexist connotations.  The norm is for girls when born to have the same last name as their father with the addition of –ova.  Then when they are married, they take their husband’s last name and add –ova.  This is so ingrained that the Czech language expects it in adding endings to distinguish things like subject/object and possessives.  It’s literally impossible to speak correctly without the –ova.  Meanwhile, in other countries without this conceptual map, people question whether a couple is married or not because their last names are different.

Closer to home… I live in NW Columbus.  I pay taxes in Columbus, and my kids went to Columbus City Schools.  If I moved 3-4 blocks west, I’d still live in Columbus and pay Columbus income taxes, but my kids would go to Dublin City Schools, and part of my property taxes would go to Dublin schools but then be passed back to Columbus schools.  Just 3-4 blocks, but the difference for my kids would be schools in Columbus that are 65-70% black, and schools in Dublin that are 90+% white.  Methinks that racism played a significant role in this historical artifact that goes by the odd name of Win-Win.

Not all conceptual maps are bad.  In fact, they’re a necessary part of the ordering of community life.  Yet we should remember that the resulting boundaries, divisions, cultural taboos, and social norms are human constructions.  They’re not absolutes.  In essence, most are just as arbitrary and moveable as lines drawn on a map.  When one of the early astronauts looked down on the earth from space, he said it looked quite a bit like the globe he’d had as a child, except he couldn’t see any national borders.  Nationality can be important in defining culture and identity, yet the first photos of the earth from orbit gave us powerful images of how we all must live together on the surface of a single “Spaceship Earth.”

The principal problems with conceptual maps arise when the “rules” for living become more important than life itself—when the maps become rigid and absolute. Then, instead of being life-giving, they foster dehumanizing prejudices and practices.  Racism, ageism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism are all prime examples of mappings that deny full personhood to entire groups of people.  Again and again Mark depicts Jesus crossing the boundaries of the cultural maps of his day—challenging cultural norms and customs that divide people from one another and oppress so many.  For the kingdom of God is at hand, bringing boundless blessings and the fullness of life for all.  Jesus’ actions, stories, and teachings all give notice that human boundaries or definitions do not limit God’s reign.

From a distance of almost 2000 years, it’s easy to miss just how revolutionary all this was.  But the first readers and hearers of the gospel would have understood immediately why two competing groups of authorities—the Pharisees and Herodians—were so quick to unite in plotting to destroy this Jesus [Mk 3:6].  This man was a threat to the status quo.  He mixed with the wrong sorts of people, teaching, healing, and forgiving them, gathering a group of followers from the lower classes.  He even called a tax collector (an outright traitor!) to follow him [Mk 2:13-14].  Jesus showed little or no respect for the accepted cultural norms of his day.  He touched lepers and other unclean persons and declared them clean.  He shared meals with sinners and challenged long-standing rules concerning the sabbath and fasting.  He even broke down the boundaries of family.  In his story parables he burlesqued treasured religious ideas and images, holding them up to public ridicule.  And perhaps worst of all, he was totally indiscriminate in his healings.  He even crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and healed Gentile foreigners!  Angry?  Of course the Pharisees and Herodians were angry!  Not unlike those pastors this past week, who have been denouncing the churches and pastors who marched for justice in last weekend’s Gay Pride Parade.

With each episode in his Gospel, Mark offers a growing picture of Jesus moving freely across all religious and social barriers, bringing the good news of God’s blessing for all.  In the double healing story I read today, Mark fills out this picture even more, while at the same time offering reassurance to his audience that God’s boundless blessing is available to any who come seeking it.  Notice what the synagogue leader Jairus and the woman suffering hemorrhages have in common… as well as the profound differences between them.

 
In common… both come to Jesus in search of healing, and both succeed.  In this, Mark offers a model for all who are in need and would make their way in faith to Jesus.  First they both recognize in Jesus the life-giving power of God—a power that brings healing and wholeness.  So should we.  Second, they both turn to Jesus in ways that, although different, demonstrate trust in Jesus’ ability to meet their needs.  Jesus will meet our needs.  And third, they’re both willing to take risks in acting on their faith.  Jairus puts his stature in the community at risk by humbling himself, begging Jesus to heal his daughter.  Recall how other religious authorities have attacked Jesus and are plotting his death.  The woman pushes her way through the crowd just to get close to Jesus, risking disapproval and punishment, maybe even death by stoning.  Recognition, trust, and risk… both Jairus and the woman demonstrate these three elements of genuine faith as they come to Jesus.

Yet these two people could not be more different in circumstance.  And it is their differences that make clear how Jesus ignores conventional boundaries and breaks down cultural barriers.  Jairus is a man of power and influence.  He’s a respected leader of his religious community, the synagogue.  He is named in the story.  The woman is unclean because of her flow of blood.  She’s an outcast.  She has impoverished herself to pay medical costs.  And she is nameless in the story.  Yet Jesus responds fully to the needs of both.  In fact, Mark structures his story to show Jesus interrupting his journey to Jairus’ home to seek out and converse with this nameless, poor, unclean woman.  Her needs are no less important to Jesus than those of the daughter of a prominent religious leader—including her need to be reassured that Jesus was not offended by her touching him.

Touching is another thing shared by both healings.  In both, Jesus comes into direct contact with something the conceptual maps of his culture declared to be unclean and, hence, untouchable—first the woman with the flow of blood and then the corpse of the little girl.  Yet instead of becoming contaminated by their touch, Jesus “contaminates” them with God’s healing and restoring grace— a grace fully sufficient to meet the needs of both the woman and the little girl.  To the woman he says, “Daughter… go in peace, and be healed of your disease,” and she is fully restored to life in the community.  The law in Leviticus requires a seven-day waiting period [Lev 15:28], but Jesus pronounces her clean on the spot.  With Jairus’ daughter, Jesus takes her hand and says, “Little girl, arise!”  And she too is restored to life immediately.  Divine grace is never bound by human boundaries.

Mark’s story will rush on from here, with Jesus becoming more and more of a threat to the status quo—until finally the authorities will bring sufficient force to bear to succeed in destroying him.  Crossing boundaries is always dangerous.  That’s where we’re heading.  Yet the story does not end there with destruction.  God raises this Jesus from the dead—an event that threatens all of our status quos, yet also offers a boundless grace fully sufficient to meet our every need.  Such is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!  Amen.