It his hard to decorate a set to look two thousand years old. I think the only thing familiar would be the faces. We have a distinct lack of imagination. Frenzy is a word that does well to hold the kernel of my message for you today. There was a frenzy of activities and priorities that we have no relationship or experience. Parts of the world still eat with the seasons not all of it is lost, but certainly most of it. We have experts who can tell us what they did and what they had, but they are little better than the tabloid reporters digging through the trash. The trash of the past is our best source of information on the distant past.
We can make fire many ways, but we will never know what it is to know one way to make fire. The past is as lost as the future. We can do things they did but our enjoyment comes from novelty. For them it was survival. Were they right? Well we are here.
Life involved fewer faces. Less reading. Less writing. Less sharing of information. It took a long time. If your food had a face you knew it. Figured so much out. I've heard a pretty good description of bravery as the first person to look at a lobster and say I am gonna eat that. Several scientific areas of investigation point to a bottle neck in human history. They talk of a scientific eve along a shore in Africa. Where we learned the abundance of life at the tides. Maybe why we get prune hands? Better grip they say.
There is more in the past than will fit in the bible. There is not much room
We are in a frenzy 1.2. We have a comforter that was sent to us. A new covenant. A new testament and a new life. We see so many faces. We read all the time, We write almost as much. We share information. It still takes a long time. If your food had a face you don't know it.
We look today at a passage from Mark and see there are things that don't change. I usually like to break things apart and show simplicity in the heart of each piece, but today I want to do something different and take this whole passage as something that it doesn't seem to be: a whole.
There are two stories here that seem mixed together. We know Mark doesn't add lots' of extra to his narrative and when we find him doing things that at first seem confusing we must watch for the sign posts to find then illumination. If this section was a beetles song they might have called it revolution 12. Some of you may know Revolution 9 off their white album that repeats numbers. Listen for them repeating hear in Mark 5:21-43 from the Amplified Bible
21 When Jesus had again crossed over in the boat to the other side [of the sea], a large crowd gathered around Him; and so He stayed by the seashore. 22 One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up; and seeing Him, fell at His feet 23 and begged anxiously with Him, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death; [please] come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will be healed and live.” 24 And Jesus went with him; and a large crowd followed Him and pressed in around Him [from all sides].
25 A woman [in the crowd] had [suffered from] a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26 and had endured much [suffering] at the hands of many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but instead had become worse. 27 She had heard [reports] about Jesus, and she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His outer robe. 28 For she thought, “If I just touch His clothing, I will get well.” 29 Immediately her flow of blood was dried up; and she felt in her body [and knew without any doubt] that she was healed of her suffering. 30 Immediately Jesus, recognizing in Himself that power had gone out from Him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched My clothes?” 31 His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in around You [from all sides], and You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 Still He kept looking around to see the woman who had done it. 33 And the woman, though she was afraid and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34 Then He said to her, “Daughter, your faith [your personal trust and confidence in Me] has restored you to health; go in peace and be [permanently] healed from your suffering.”
35 While He was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue official’s house, saying [to Jairus], “Your daughter has died; why bother the Teacher any longer?” 36 Overhearing what was being said, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; only keep on believing [in Me and my power].” 37 And He allowed no one to go with Him [as witnesses], except Peter and [a]James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the synagogue official; and He looked [with understanding] at the uproar and commotion, and people loudly weeping and wailing [in mourning]. 39 When He had gone in, He said to them, “Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is sleeping.” 40 They began laughing [scornfully] at Him [because they knew the child was dead]. But He made them all [b]go outside, and took along the child’s father and mother and His own [three] companions, and entered the room where the child was. 41 Taking the child’s hand, He said [tenderly] to her, “Talitha kum!”—which translated [from Aramaic] means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” 42 The little girl immediately got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old. And immediately they [who witnessed the child’s resurrection] were overcome with great wonder and utter amazement. 43 He gave strict orders that no one should know about this, and He told them to give her something to eat.
Mark is doing something unlike himself here and putting in everything. He is holding up a sign to show what many of us spend our entire life trying to express. We have a broad ranging discussion to have about the story, but did you hear Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve. The woman was healed after twelve years of hemorrhaging. We are going to depart for a discussion of this sign Mark is holding up for us.
There are twelve pairs of cranial nerves that come out of the human brain. We count twelve months each year. The keyboard on our computers have had twelve function keys for the simple reason that they were designed by people not computers. In all those years those twelve function keys have found little use.
The Ancients knew Jupiter as a wandering star with a twelve year cycle. Few today take notice, but was not always so.
We can find numbers everywhere, but twelve Mark is reminding us has a special relationship to Jesus and his apostles and his form of perfect governance focused on service not domination. The original twelve tribes of Israel. Abundant life that these two outsiders are returned.
How do I know they were outsiders? Talitha kum they were both female and the heart of these stories tied together with the twelve and the abundant life our lord and savior brings us. Mark is not the reporter that Luke was and these numbers no simple coincidence. Perhaps more than not Mark is described as a spartan writer, but to my sensibility he is the most poetic and we simply forget the scope of what he is saying in the number twelve. He made the sublime and inexpressible reality of our world into a number: 12. A poetic heart to be sure. We could continue forever talking about the number twelve. In my mind he wrestled not unlike Jacob to form his Gospel into words.
She had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but instead had become worse. This world of ours I find even today the cure can be worse than the ailment. The first time I had a tooth removed I was stuck by how brutal the procedure was in such a modern polite setting. Nothing had prepared me for the barbarity.
We often pray for our doctors to work God's will and see more good than bad I hope. We still are born. We still die. We just saw the largest reduction in life expectancy in my life. "We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It's a horrific decrease in life expectancy," said Steven Woolf of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. Somehow the world doesn't seem so modern.
Three months times four seasons gives us our year. There is something infinitely correct about God's rule. We often count on ourselves and find ten numbers. But God and abundant life equals twelve. Old math we have forgotten and yet remember. People who hate new math also hated old math. It was rather enjoyable to tell a room full of fourth graders most adults don't know math. It is surprising to them.
We often approach our gospels as just stories. But they are something more like the scene of a crime. Real struggle and blood and sweat and tears and certainly all the emotions we have. But lets take a closer look at our story in this frenzy 1.0. Jesus was still with them and we envy them, but the truth was as Jesus said, it would be better when he left. He would send the Holy Spirit.
We listened to Pastor Wilma talk last week about excitement they had out in the boat and here we began the story as they cross again the water. Didn't do much good as crowds gathered around him again and kept him near the seashore. Things happen that people don't expect all the time. We don't have trouble understanding why these people would respond so strongly to Jesus. We in fact respond strongly to Jesus. Even those who hate God the most respond strongly to Jesus.
There is something we all share across all of human history and that is a sense that there is something missing. That there should be some meaning. As the only animal as far as we know to make this leap it is ironic that we are an animal that does so much wrong.
There is a simple humble wisdom that has a response to this:
2:24 but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.
This passage is from the wisdom of Solomon. This is a uniquely Methodist response. This book comes from the Septuagint a Greek translation of the Old Testament not accepted generally by protestants. It is part of our liturgical calendar today and I had to look twice for the wisdom of Solomon.
It is easy to see the problems we create and it is easy to lose hope that things will change. Twelve years of hemorrhaging will make you think many things. Being at the point of death at twelve just is not fair. It evokes in us innocence. We can all understand something of losing a child at twelve. In the Jewish tradition not yet adult but so close. A promise it would seem not delivered. Too great to fathom is the mind of God. But there is no just death at twelve. The Wisdom of Solomon says there really is no just death, but Moses seeing the promise land but not entering does not seem as cruel. I think of Martin Luther King Jr and believe he got a similar glimpse of something we still have not seen.
At my age Martin had been dead a decade. Cruelty and grace are relative experiences for everyone. Here we have a synagogue official Jairus begging for his twelve year old daughter's life. What we know was this crowd was all in for Jesus. The leaders of the town who gave them direction had seen the direction. Jairus wasn't asking Jesus for an appointment he was essentially accosting him upon the shore. He had just arrived. What is interesting is that Jesus heard him. Do you think this was because Jesus knew he was important? Maybe because the people let him pass because he was important and he got to Jesus first? I think it was because of Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve. The things for Jesus to do are uncountable, in this time and place we have a story of what he did.
As Jairus gets his request out and the entire crowd presses up on Jesus. The people who had the best chance of understanding Jesus where mystified again.
Again a woman of no name. We might call her the hemorrhaging woman we know so little of her. The excitement we understand, her crisis we might imagine, but we fail miserably. You see this sense. We know what they were doing here in this crowd, but what were they doing with Jesus out upon the water. What were they doing all those regular days. Well one women was hemorrhaging and surviving somehow in this society that had we can say issues with blood and women.
Blood libel is a very old anti-Semitic story that lives today in the Q stories we hear about today. It is born from confusion and hate and ignorance and this woman surely knew them well for twelve years. When I hear incredible stories I often wonder about their parents. Well our twelve year old girl in this story had a parent who knew what time it was, did not discriminate on the source of hope and found it. Lead it would seem his community to it. Demonstrated it. Lived it.
My favorite parent story is of famous female scientists from the past, majority had a scientist as a Dad. About the only way through then was to have a cool Dad. Still comes in handy.
The hemorrhaging woman I can only guess had a supporting family or even a more harder to understand story. Again we know what they are doing, but we don't know what they were doing while Jesus was upon the water. How could they survive? How do we survive is what leads me to God.
When you have no value in society how do you survive? Actually it is the most creative space in the world. It is where people really have something to talk about.
They both saw their chance. Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve and the hemorrhaging woman. One in her innocence was protected by the ideal of parental love looking everywhere and not dismissing anything. When you do this you must answer for yourself what then is this man Jesus. The other with her own fear surely a long time companion reached for his cloak.
The twelve were surely stunned when Jesus asked who touched me, but she was even more. Healed already and ready to make her exit. Surely he would not notice one more hand upon his cloak and really as the twelve point out, how could he. He felt the power leave. This power something of its own mind. Great is the mind of the lord.
And the woman, though she was afraid and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. Healed she was still afraid, why did Jesus make such a point to find her, for us as well as her? She was still in the shadows. The leader was still pleading for his daughter. She had been healed. He wanted her to know , "“Daughter, your faith [your personal trust and confidence in Me] has restored you to health; go in peace and be [permanently] healed from your suffering.” She was healed and happy to leave, but Jesus wanted to set her free.
Emotions are what keeps us from acting, but also what makes us act at other times. In all times and all places where there have been and will be people: nobody wants to be an outsider.
We know what the father is doing, but not what he was doing. Crisis we understand something of the past. Hard we understand something of the past. Loss we understand something of the past. What I am doing right now would make no sense to someone of the past. We think of this as a one way street, but it goes both ways. We would be quite useless to our ancestors.
Mark gives us a story out of time and place and out of female. What our world has made outside. Even today women make 77 cents on the dollar for reasons we can not agree upon. I know one thing those reasons come from the past. I also know they are wrong. How? I know how Jesus feels about outsiders. Might call it route 12. Mark has clear sign post for us to go where we are all together in a crowd pressing against Jesus and we find abundance where people saw scarcity.
Let Us Pray
Lord help us to see those who are not seen.
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Isaiah 53:3
Help us share your power to heal and make whole our community and our families.
In our struggles thank you for allowing us to press on all sides.
Amen
Benediction
As we leave here from the inside seek those on the outside
Tell them they belong
Show them they belong
Help them belong
through the grace of our loving God we belong
Amen
Nottingham UMC 6/27/2021
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