A Tale of Two Daughters
A sermon preached by the Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce
on the 3rd Sunday after Trinity
28th June 2009
In the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I must beg the indulgence of some of you here today, who have heard me before on the subject of today’s gospel reading – the tale of Jairus’ daughter, as told by St Mark. Because it is, quite possibly, my favourite story in the whole of scripture. It is astonishing: it is so powerful, and so moving, and (to risk using an adjective that may seem out of place in relation to a biblical text) so clever, that whenever I read it I cannot help but be utterly amazed by its profundity and its sheer artistry. So much so that it always seems to me that the most worthwhile thing that one can ever do with it in the context of a sermon is simply to look at it. It really is that good.
Many years ago, I remember picking up a very old book on St Mark’s Gospel, in which the author expressed the view that it really was a great pity that St Mark spoiled the flow of his story of the raising of Jairus’s daughter from the dead, by getting distracted half way through telling it, and dumping another, quite unrelated story in its midst – namely the healing of the woman with the haemorrhage. Which just goes to prove how very little that particular academic understood, either about St Mark as a storyteller, or about the two healing miracles that comprise our gospel reading today.
Because, although St Mark’s Gospel certainly has its ‘rough edges’ – it lacks some of the polish and the finely-honed story telling of Matthew, Luke and John - nevertheless, Mark always knows exactly what he is doing – and if he chooses to tuck one story inside another, as he does in today’s Gospel reading, you can be absolutely certain that he is doing it for a reason.
So, to begin with, let’s think about the sequence of events described in today’s Gospel. The story begins straightforwardly enough: Jairus, who is described as ‘one of the leaders of the synagogue’ (and that detail, by the way, is highly significant), sees Jesus, falls at his feet, and begs him repeatedly to come and lay hands on his daughter, who is at the point of death. So Jesus sets off with Jairus to his home, accompanied by a large crowd. And it is then that the second story begins.
Because a woman who had been suffering from a haemorrhage for twelve years comes up behind Jesus as he is walking with Jairus. Now, this is a woman who is at her wits’ end. Not only is she physically very unwell – and, we are told, her condition is deteriorating; not only has she had a terrible time at the hands of the doctors who have been attempting to treat her; not only has she used up all her resources in a desperate attempt to find a cure – all of this we are told explicitly; but, there is one additional dimension to her plight that is arguably even worse than all of these factors put together.
Because Jewish culture had very strict rules about such things, and a woman in her condition would have been regarded as being in a permanent state of ritual impurity. This would have rendered her, in effect, an outcast: one who was literally untouchable; unclean. That explains why she feels unable to approach Jesus directly, in contrast to Jairus. She cannot ask Jesus to touch her and make her well, for the simple reason that no-one is allowed to touch her. She has no right to ask that of anyone, Jesus included. Which is why she creeps up behind him and touches – well, she does not even dare touch his person – merely his cloak – for, she has told herself, perhaps that in itself will be enough. And the absolutely extraordinary thing is, that she is right. That really is all that it takes. She touches his garment and she is healed.
And Jesus, feeling the power going out from him says, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ The disciples are perplexed: there is a whole crowd pressing around Jesus – how could he possibly be conscious of a specific, single individual touching him? But the woman, knowing that she has been discovered, comes forward and falls before him in fear and trembling – terrified because, of course, she has done something she is expressly forbidden to do: by touching Jesus she has defiled him; contaminated him. Which is what makes Jesus’ response to her the more remarkable – but we shall come on to that in a moment.
So let’s pause for a moment to think about some of the similarities and differences between our two healing stories: in Jairus we have a named person; an important religious authority; a man who approaches Jesus directly and falls before him pleading for him to heal his daughter. Then we have the nameless woman, too fearful to approach Jesus directly, who also falls down before him after she has been healed, but does so out of fear, because she has been ‘found out’. How long had that woman been suffering from the haemorrhage? Twelve years. How old was Jairus’s daughter? Twelve years.
So what do the strange parallels and contrasts between these two stories tell us? Well, they tell us a range of things: firstly, that whether you are the most respected of religious leaders, or the most impure, unclean, nameless, fearful, outcast, Jesus sees your need and responds to it. He makes absolutely no distinction whatsoever.
Indeed, one of the huge unspoken ironies within this story that often goes unnoticed, is that it was of course the religious authorities, the leaders of the synagogue – it was men such as Jairus – who were personally responsible for upholding the purity laws, and who had the power to declare people pure or impure. It is entirely possible, then, that Jairus was himself directly responsible for that woman’s exclusion. And yet, in purely human terms, he is himself every bit as needy and desperate as the woman whom he (or his like) has excluded.
But for Jesus, not only do the distinctions between ‘respectable’ and ‘outcast’ mean absolutely nothing. Much more startling, in terms of the conventions of his time and culture, is his utter disregard for the Jewish distinction between ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’. Because his compassion extends to all, and embraces all, regardless. He is the bringer of new life – to a young girl whose twelve year old life had come to an end, and to a woman whose life has been draining away from her for twelve long years. Their circumstances mean little to him; their need means everything.
But for me, there is one little detail in this story that I find far more poignant than all the rest put together. Jairus is a man with a home; with a family; he has a crowd of attendants and servants surrounding him all the time. By contrast, the woman is utterly isolated, and comes to Jesus completely alone, concealing her presence within the crowd that throngs him. And, in the story, as I have already observed, she does not even have a name.
Except that she does. Because, when he addresses her for the first time, Jesus gives her one. His very first word to this poor, isolated, desperate, outcast, terrified woman, is ‘Daughter’. And by addressing her in this way, he not only gives her a name, and an identity, but he breaks through her isolation by giving her a relationship; a direct personal relationship with himself: ‘Daughter’.
Isn’t it interesting that when he raises from the dead the other daughter in the story, the daughter of Jairus, he addresses her simply as ‘Little girl’: ‘Talitha’. Because, of course, that girl already has all the things that the other woman seemingly lacks: she has wealth; she has people to care for her; she has, above all, a devoted father – she is already somebody’s daughter.
So, what we have in our Gospel reading is, in effect, a tale of two daughters, whose lives have run in a mysterious parallel for twelve long years: one a much loved and cherished little girl; the other a woman who is isolated and outcast by society, but every bit as precious in the sight of Jesus who, far from recoiling from her when she defiles him with her touch, draws her to himself and calls her ‘Daughter’.
Ours is a God whose love, in Christ, knows no bounds. It is a love that cannot be contained, even by death – hence the raising of Jairus’s daughter. It is a love that defies the boundaries of social convention and moral acceptability – hence the healing of the woman with the haemorrhage. It is a love that pours out excessively, profligately, touching everyone and everything: healing, transforming, saving, bringing life and light and hope to the lost and the lonely, and the suffering, and to those who are in despair.
And that is the love that we, too, are called both to proclaim, and to show forth in our own lives, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the power of his Spirit.
Jesus said: ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.’
Amen.