6Th Sunday After Pentecost, 6/30/2024

Text: Mark 5:21-43, 2 Corinthians 8: 7-15

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I don’t think its necessary for me to tell you that we are living in challenging times in this country. Across the board, we face challenges from the political to the economic, from the social to the mental, physical and spiritual. While many of us might not be facing these challenges in the same way, we cannot deny that current events will and are affecting millions of lives, and thus, as people moved by the Gospel of Christ, it does affect us. What oppresses our neighbor is our concern.

The Gospel healing story of the hemorrhaging woman is one of my favorite healing stories in the Gospels, and the Markan writer connects this anonymous woman’s healing with a wider social situation or challenge, similar to one we face today. “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” Does that sound familiar to any of us? It is captivating to see, how even in the Gospels, we see the heavy burden that diseases can heap upon human lives, even more so, chronic disease. And then there is that crucial detail: “she had spent all that she had; and she was no better”. The Gospel writer connects physical health and economic poverty, health and money. In Jesus’ time, as ours, the fact that good health is so closely tied to how much money we can spend is a problem. And this hemorrhaging woman, who for 12 years sought out the best doctors, and 12 years had gone by where the disease remained, and her coffers became emptier and emptier. She had no more money to spend to get better. And then to add to the wound, her disease and her poverty caused her to be socially marginalized. People of the time thought that such a condition as hers, the hemorrhages, would cause ritual impurity, so she was probably often kept at the margins of social life. She understandably reached a point of desperation. And do we not know today of similar desperation? I’m sure many of us here in the United States have heard or experienced the exorbitant prices of medicine, the rising costs of care, and hospital treatments, the prevalence of medical debt, the fact that there are people that live with treatable or chronic conditions without treatment because of the restrictive costs or the lack of healthcare or access to it. We know of people caught in the labyrinth of the US healthcare system, which often treats health like a luxury, rather than a right of human beings existing in community. Unfortunately, like the hemorrhaging woman, people become marginalized today because of this marriage of health and money. So many other factors rain in to such a person, unemployment, loneliness, poverty, the list could go on. Mark’s Gospel is telling us of precisely such a person, caught between a rock and a hard place, with no fault of their own. They are only seeking their wellbeing like anybody would.

And so then comes Jesus into the picture. “She had heard about Jesus”. She didn’t know anything about this Jesus, except the fact that wherever He went, healing and restoration was taking place. And so perhaps as a final resort, she goes out to find him, and thinking to herself that if only she could touch this man, if only she could be able to get close to him, if just maybe she could have a little of whatever this Jesus is doing, she would be made well. With no money left, she only has faith. Faith that this Jesus is for real. Faith that what this Jesus is manifesting, God’s incoming reign, is for her and her body. So she goes undetected amongst the crowd, she probably has had experience in going unnoticed or perhaps walking along those who do not approach her or ignore her. And sifting through the crowd, she finally touches the cloak of Jesus and the sign of God’s reign is made manifest in her body. She is healed of 12 years of physical burden. But that is not all that is restored to her. If she thought that she could get away with perhaps a little bit of that healing, she gets something even more. Jesus notices her. In the midst of the crowd, how easy it would have been to have dismissed her presence, to let her continue to exist in anonymity. Even the disciples don’t notice her, they are focused on the big picture, the multitude of people, but Jesus insists on meeting the person who’s faith had touched Him, He insists on meeting her. And He looked around until he found her. 12 years of not being put at the center, and suddenly she has all these people staring at her, acknowledging her, because Jesus looked for her. I can understand the fear and trembling. Her whole world has changed in an instant. And she confesses before Jesus and is once again in the embrace of people. And I just love Jesus’ response, notice what He calls her: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” He calls her Daughter, she is no longer this unknown person, pure or impure, she is not regarded as other anymore. Even if we do not know her name through the text, we know that she is regarded as Daughter, no longer left at the margins, but from the margins is put right at the center, she belongs to God. In baptism, we are conferred this same reality, that no matter who we are or what station in life, we are made God’s we are called sons and daughters of God, returned to our proper place of belonging and not exclusion. So the venture of this woman, to reach out for a little bit from Jesus that would transform her whole life, she gets that and more, a whole richness of restoration and belonging. This is the mission of God’s Reign in our midst, restoring us to the wholeness we were made for. And this is a gift you receive freely. The woman did not need to spend a single coin, it was hers by the grace of God: the healing, the belonging, the new life in Christ.

Beloved, in faith, we are in invited to live out its gifts. And often when we lean into these gifts they will run contrary to what the world designs. As part of the Jesus movement, we should be concerned that we still have neighbors suffering like the hemorrhaging woman, marginalized and crushed by the burdens imposed by the world. We praise God and His gift of salvation by living like Jesus taught us, looking to those at the margins and looking for them, putting them in the center of our lives. To act in such a way that our lives witness to the God revealed in Jesus Christ, that by our love and compassion, by our thirst for justice and truth, the world might get to know God. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians as he was raising funds for the poor: “ Now as you excel in everything–in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you–so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking…For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ” Because of Christ’s generosity with us, because God calls us sons and daughters, how eager we should be in encouraging life-giving conditions for our neighbors. As we face the uncertainties and oppressions caused by the different systems in our society, like our current healthcare system, we can open our eyes and not look at a crowd of anonymous and amorphous people, but see the beauty and worth of each individual face that God loves and wants us to love them. The reign of Christ is a liberating movement, defeating the power of death. Be hopeful in the power of this Jesus, that touching even at least the hem of his garment, to touch upon even a little bit of Jesus into your life, you may be full of the power that transforms and makes us new for the good of all.

Let us pray:

Lord God, increase our faith. Instill in us the trust by which we might reach out to you and be restored to wholeness. Allow us to praise You with a heart thirsty for justice on behalf of the oppressed that You are close to, O God. Open our eyes, allow us to see what You see in every person we meet. Make of us conduits of healing for this ailing world. Inspire change through our very lives, that the world might see the overflowing love that comes from You, that You desire justice and care, that people might not be crushed by medical debt, or the increasing costs of needed medical care. Father, uplift and be with all people who are ailing like the hemorrhaging woman, bring healing to people with chronic and acute illnesses, enlighten the minds of people that govern, that they might see that health is a right of human beings living in community, and not a luxury. Disciple us, O God. In the name of Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.