SERMON FOR JUNE 27, 2021              TEXT:    MARK 5:21-42

          My seminary teaching responsibilities focused on late medieval and Reformation church history. However, we were a small faculty, and when my colleague who taught early church history was on sabbatical, I covered for her. Lots of interesting topics there, and the students were always fascinated by the experiences of their ancient Christian forebears. One semester I put a question on the final exam concerning certain distinctive practices of piety that developed during the early centuries of the church, including celibacy, pilgrimages to holy sites and the devotion to relics. The students formed study groups at the beginning of the class. They worked together throughout the term and then took the final, which was an oral exam, as a group. The Lutheran seminary was part of an ecumenical consortium, so students from the various denominational schools often enrolled in our classes. That semester we were blessed with a young Franciscan friar from Vietnam. He was a veritable Old King Cole of a merry soul. As he cheerily informed me, “You and me, Professor Strohl, we both laugh a lot and loud. I really enjoy your class!”

            The day of the exam we met early in the morning at a coffee shop in Berkeley where we could commandeer a quiet corner and keep the java flowing. The Franciscan surprised us by bringing along his own modest collection of relics. I think his Protestant classmates would generally have scoffed at the idea. However, he was such a powerful witness to his Lord; he was so straightforward in his faith, so good-hearted to everyone, that the other students pondered the meaning of relics with care and examined his items with real interest.

          Our Franciscan friend, like generations of believers before him, was making a remarkable confession of faith in the power of God. These Christians believed that the holiness of the saints penetrated their very flesh and adhered to the things they touched. It was so great that even after the soul departed, the earthly remains retained this power. The relics — be it a cherished possession of the saint, an item worn close to his or her body, or actual pieces of bone — were material means by which the blessings of the holy ones, now departed, continued to reach those on earth who needed their comfort and cure.

          Of course the suffering woman in today’s Gospel trusts that it will be enough simply to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment and she will be healed. The power of his holiness is overwhelming; the faith he inspires just as forceful. One biblical scholar describes her recipe for success this way: “a little craftiness, a little modesty, a little shyness due to her own uncleanness, and through it all an unlimited confidence in him.” The woman has been bleeding for twelve years; no physician has helped although, we are told, “she endured much under many” of them; she has depleted her resources only to find her condition worsening. Her desperation fuels her boldness. According to Jewish law, contact with blood made one ritually unclean, but she commits the violation, thinking perhaps that what Jesus does not know cannot hurt him. But her surreptitious contact does not go unnoticed, even in the press of the crowd. When Jesus asks, “Who touched me?” she comes “in fear and trembling,” falls down before him and confesses the whole truth. And having healed her in body, he now tends to her fear. “Daughter,” he says, “your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” The devastating physical effects and social consequences of her condition will trouble her no longer. She can have her rightful place in the community once more.

          Entwined around this account of the woman healed is the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter. At the end of last week’s Gospel, after Jesus stills the storm, Mark tells us that the disciples were filled with awe and wondered, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Now once again, after the dead girl gets up and walks about, those who witness it are “overcome with amazement,” and well they might ask, who then is this who has power over life and death, a power that is God’s and God’s alone?

          My daughter is fascinated by old gravestones. One evening she and Ivan visited Oak Grove Cemetery so she could take photographs of interesting markers. Ivan is a pathologist, and after they got home he told us about a course he took early in his studies at Syracuse University. The professor sent the class to the oldest cemetery in Syracuse to see what they could glean about mortality rates over time in the city. The graves had much to say about the deaths of the young — the clusters of little stones in the family plots, marking the resting places of still births, infants who didi not celebrate their first birthday, young children who never made it to adolescence and adolescents who never saw adulthood. These were concentrated in certain areas but then disappeared as the years advanced, along with medical science. What was commonplace became less so, and now, people enjoying the kind of security and affluence we do don’t anticipate such a loss. Yet we are not immune.

          In the reading I did on the Gospel for this week one piece eclipsed all the rest — no parsing of the Greek text or analysis of Mark’s story-telling structure, no smooth move from the suffering and death, the despair and grief to the mighty act of God in Jesus to make things right again. This Scripture scholar began her article by quoting a song from the musical Hamilton:

There are moments that the words don’t reach

There is suffering too terrible to name

You hold your child as tight as you can

And push away the unimaginable.

          Then the author wrote about a tragic event that occurred in her community just last week — a party by a Minnesota lake for twin boys celebrating their ninth birthday. There was no lifeguard on duty. The parents watching the children didn’t see him go into deeper water. When they realized he was missing and got help, it was too late. She asks the question, “[W]hat do you do when you come across stories like that of Jairus’s daughter? Why is this little girl raised to life, and so many children are not?” Indeed, while many people have experienced unexpected healing, so many others, who prayed and hoped as fiercely, have not. We watch over our loved ones, knowing we cannot    always protect them from harm; we make the best of our days, knowing we cannot escape our own loss of health and strength. And when the unimaginable becomes real, we turn to Jesus, trusting his love to hold us in sickness and in health. In the midst of things we cannot understand, we pray for signs of his kingdom coming, breaking into our world through the gift of healing, the blessing of life restored. Amen.