Sermon for Time after Pentecost – Mark 5:21-43

So, the lectionary likes to jump around, but these last weeks we’ve kept with the gospel of Mark. It’s interesting because you can notice repeated details. Here’s an example. In Mark, everywhere Jesus goes, this crowd suddenly comes out of nowhere and CRUSHES him. Literally. Mark says things like “the crowd came together so they could not even eat.” That means no elbow room. Or Jesus is on the shore and tells his disciples to have a boat ready so that the crowd can’t crush him. His getaway car. Or Jesus is in a house, and they want to bring a paralyzed man to him for healing, but the crowd is so thick around the house that they have to remove the roof and lower the guy down on a mat (not the same thing as Jesus blowing the roof off the place!). What kind of insanity is that? What would it feel like to be in a crowd like that? Suffocating. It reminds me of the year I went out to SF for the pride festival. The crowd was so thick that I had to move with it. I’d never been in a situation like that before. I’m not claustrophobic, but now I have an idea what it might feel like.

So, maybe that’s what the crowd in Mark felt like. But, why are they there? Why do they always swarm in whereever Jesus goes?

To hear him preach? No. For healing. Jesus has a reputation. He’s got the magic fingers. It works. It’s not like some miracle faith healing telethon on TV, this is the real deal. He heals the blind. The crippled. Lepers. The fatally-ill. The dead. Ask Jairus about his daughter. No wonder the crowd crushes in on Jesus so desperately. Straining and stretching to get to him. You would too! So if Jesus can do all that, then we shouldn’t be surprised that the hemorrhaging woman touches Jesus’ robe and is fully healed. But there’s more to the story. Jesus heals a lot of anonymous people, but the gospel singles her out. She’s not just another anonymous person in the crowd. She’s been suffering for twelve long years. That’s a long time. I’ve been in seminary for only 6 and I can’t even remember what life was like before that. Now, she had endured much under MANY physicians and spent all she had. That means she’s spent a fortune on the latest medical technology and it didn’t work. Sound familiar? But that’s not everything. Her blood makes her untouchable. Her community can’t tend to her. She’s alone. Do you think she feels desperate?

So here’s the thing. Desperation is not hopelessness. It’s determination. It’s survival mode. When we feel desperate, we don’t sit still. We strain and stretch because we’re so bound and determined to find a way out of our suffering. To get out from underneath the weight that’s crushing and killing us. But when we’re in survival mode, do we make the best choices? Are we rational? No. We grab at straws. Now, this woman does something different. She’s convinced that all she has to do is touch Jesus’ robe and she’ll be healed. Isn’t that the easiest thing in the world to do? Yeah, the crowd is a problem, but the gospel kind of puts them aside so that she has her chance. But that’s what’s so odd about this story. For as tightly as this crowd crushes Jesus, they’re all constantly touching his robe too. Why aren’t they all healed? And if Jesus’ healing force is so powerful, shouldn’t it spread through the crowd like some kind of electricity? Can’t Jesus just spin in a circle and trace his hands on everyone he touches? Or is Jesus just withholding power and letting people suffer?

When we just read this story like a conventional healing story, these are the questions we ask. When we suffer we want to know why Jesus isn’t helping us. We see disaster and injustice every day and it’s like nothing changes. We still die. But this isn’t just a healing story. It’s about what we expect from Jesus. And what we expect is that Jesus only heals the ones who are persistent enough to push past the crowd and get his attention. That’s what all these crowds do. We think the Bible says that God only helps those who help themselves. Show me that verse. We think that discipleship means being obedient and disciplined and trying to be as good as we can so that maybe Jesus might have mercy on us for once. But we’re not sure. Clearly it hasn’t worked. Yet. We’re so desperate for what we want from Jesus that we press on single-mindedly because we trust our own abilities more than Jesus. See, what our suffering confronts us with is our powerlessness. Our lack of control. Our mortality. So we have a disease and we say we’re battling it because that’s an easy way to distract ourselves from the truth that we can’t bear, let alone that we might fail.

But Jesus knows all this, and he won’t let that be the last word. He sides with us. He takes all our faithlessness and powerlessness upon himself by willingly going to the cross, suffering, and dying our death. And that did not defeat him. Still he rises, the hope and dream of everyone who ever felt powerless or oppressed. By his resurrection, he shows us once and for all that death no longer has power over us. We now know there is something more, and that it is all for us by the grace of God. Folks, it’s not about us seeing Jesus or proving anything to him. Jesus saw us first, buried in the crowd, and he knows who we really are. He never asked us whether we wanted him to die for us. He did it anyway, and everything in heaven and earth has been accomplished for us.

That’s when you realize the real miracle of the story is that the woman didn’t bulldoze her way through the crowd to get to Jesus. She didn’t have to make her way to Jesus. He always comes to us. He would be there before her. And there’s no way she COULDN’T touch his robe. The crushing crowd guaranteed that. But even if there wasn’t a crowd, she would have done it anyway because it was the automatic thing to do. But she didn’t really DO anything. Faith did it all, the same faith that the Spirit does to us without our asking. And this is the real test of our faith because the world and even so many Christians endlessly repeat that Jesus is a judge. That Jesus says “Who touched me? Who dares to think that they can claim anything from me without my permission!” This is what the disciples see and hear because they haven’t yet realized that Jesus is the Son of God. That won’t happen for a few chapters. No wonder that Jesus is genuinely surprised! Wow, someone finally gets it! But we’re blessed to know the whole story. We know that Judge Jesus doesn’t square with this Jesus who does not bound his powers. This Jesus radiates healing and strength for all people. This Jesus asks “who touched me” because he just wants the pleasure of saying our name. And it’s not that the crowd aren’t getting everything that this woman got. It’s that their self-absorption keeps them from seeing what Jesus has already done to them.

But we know the truth, and we get the joy of sharing it with others. Jesus has not abandoned us in our suffering or troubles. He’s not questioning how we got to this point. But this is where we are now, and Jesus is fully present with us in the middle of it. He always was. He still sees us and calls us his own. This truth is the gift we get to give to others. It’s the only thing worth anything at all. See, the struggle is deeper than physical suffering, it’s the lie of thinking we’re alone to sit in it without God. Like God doesn’t care. We’ve all felt that. But it’s not real. And Jesus won’t abide it anymore. So he abides with us. Of course, Jesus isn’t naive. He knows tomorrow will have its own worries, but somehow this will be power and peace enough for us today.