Carrying out God’s work
in the community around us,
St. Hilda St. Patrick
is a spiritual home
built on caring relationships.
We strive to engage our minds,
hearts,
and souls
as we follow Jesus.
You’ll be hearing that a lot
today
and going forward.
Valerie and Gerry even have a presentation
for during our coffee hour brunch.
Carrying out God’s work
in the community around us,
St. Hilda St. Patrick
is a spiritual home
built on caring relationships.
We strive to engage our minds,
hearts,
and souls
as we follow Jesus.
A crowd is following Jesus
in the passage we hear today.
It’s long, numerically,
and unusually for miracle stories
it’s actually two stories
interwoven with one another.
As Jesus is walking,
Jairus comes to him.
A synagogue leader
comes to the itinerant rabbi
because his daughter is about to die.
Think about how desperate he must be.
Not just concerned with his daughter
but willing to try anything.
His contemporaries
have already said that Jesus
is casting out demons
using Satan’s power!
Jesus goes with Jairus
to heal his daughter,
but he’s interrupted.
A woman who’s had a hemorrhage for 12 years
is as desperate as Jairus is.
She’s a woman,
she’s ritually impure,
and been swindled
with fake cures and empty promises.
Jairus steps outside the mainstream.
Even with all his power
he’s willing to try anything.
This unnamed woman
who society never have much power anyway
is willing to try anything.
“If I can just touch his clothes,
I’ll be healed.”
Even with plenty of people around him
Jesus knows that a prayer has been made
and that it has been answered.
Jesus’ ministry,
Carrying out God’s work
in the community around him,
isn’t just deeds of power, though.
Most translations
in saying “your faith has made you well”
or “has healed you”
before Jesus says,
“go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
It reads too easily
like Jesus saying
her faith has healed her disease
so go in peace and be healed of her disease.
Really Jesus is saying,
“Your faith has saved you,
go in peace
and be healed of your disease.”
This woman’s faith
hasn’t just healed her bleeding.
It’s saved her life.
She can be restored from ritual impurity.
Her life in community can be rebuilt.
She doesn’t have to worry about
spending money on crooks and swindlers.
Jesus isn’t content
for his work to be just deeds of power.
Carrying out God’s work
in the community around him,
Jesus puts the synagogue leader on hold
and has a conversation with this woman.
Rather than rebuke her
Jesus shows the care of his relationships
with all us humans.
He tells her that her faith
has made her fully saved
and to go with the peace of God’s reign
healed from her disease.
By this point,
someone comes from Jairus’ house.
It’s too late.
When Jairus is encouraged
to leave Jesus alone,
Jesus tells him
“Do not fear.
Only trust.”
A woman has come to Jesus
and had faith that she’ll be healed
if she can only touch his clothes.
A synagogue leader has come to Jesus
hoping for his daughter to be healed,
and she has died.
Making the crowd leave him,
but bringing his closest followers,
Jesus has a powerful statement
for those who laugh at him
when he says the girl is only asleep.
Mark and Jesus want us to know
that this girl is dead.
This is not a coma
or a nap.
Yet in the presence of Jesus the Christ
death is merely being asleep.
Having delayed to talk with the woman,
Jairus’ daughter dies,
but death has no power over Jesus.
He sends everyone out,
and tells her to get up,
like calling a dead Lazarus
out of his tomb.
She gets up, and starts walking around.
Carrying out God’s work
in the community around him,
Jesus immediately moves
into a caring relationship.
He tells them
to get her something to eat.
The disciples are amazed
and Jesus tells them not to tell anyone about it
until they’ve seen that death loses to Jesus
even when Jesus dies.
This raising of a dead girl,
is pointing the way for what’s coming.
Carrying out God’s work
in the community around us,
St. Hilda St. Patrick
is a spiritual home
built on caring relationships.
We strive to engage our minds,
hearts,
and souls
as we follow Jesus.
We’re here today,
engaging our minds, hearts, and souls
as we follow Jesus.
We’re opening our hearts
to God’s grace
that we can’t and don’t earn.
Jairus, his daughter,
and the woman with the bleed
didn’t earn healing.
They had faith that Jesus could save them
bodily and otherwise
and he did.
Following Jesus
is a life of trusting
that God is saving humanity and creation.
As we live in our caring relationships,
making a spiritual home
as we carry out God’s work
in the community around us
takes that same trusting and having faith —
even if we’re not looking
for bodily healing miracles.
When the messenger from Jairus’ house
comes to tell him that it’s too late
Jesus says,
“Do not fear, only believe.”
“Do not fear, only trust in me.”
That’s my vision for you (and me)
as I depart for sabbatical
and a new program year starts
in my absence.
I see how we follow Jesus,
and hope you do, too.
I see how we carry out God’s work
in our community
and live and build caring relationships.
I won’t be here,
but you’re not here for me.
I can’t heal you physically
or tell you
that your faith has saved you.
Look to Jesus.
Do not fear,
only believe.