Sermon 7/2/00, Mark 5:21-43
On the Road to Jairus' House
(view lectionary notes for this text)
In the gospel lesson for today, we hear of Jesus' hand at work in the lives of many. A woman is healed of a several year-long illness. A child is raised from seeming death. A synagogue leader experiences Christ face to face. So many miracles for one journey. But more than these outward occurrences happen on the road to Jairus' house. Between the lines, beyond the visible events, other miracles take place, unseen to the eye, but visible to the heart. Here, on the road to Jairus' house, we confront, once again, the matters of riches and poverty. Who would guess that the road to Jairus' house would lead us to struggle with our stewardship as faithful disciples? Jesus brings this issue to us for consideration and confrontation. We delve into the ever-troubling issue of suffering. Why do we suffer? Where is God in the midst of our trials? Jesus has the answers ready, if we will only listen. We explore, on this journey, the eternal truth of God's right time, in comparison with our faulty human conception of time. Jesus shows us God's right time in perfect action. All of these matters meet us on the road to Jairus' house, and demand our attention, our comprehension, our work.
Jairus, a synagogue leader, is a figure in society who carries some weight. As a leader, he is well-known, and well off. His opinion counts. Onlookers probably thought it only proper that Jesus would take time to attend to Jairus' daughter – after all, he was a religious leader. He deserved Jesus' help. On the journey, however, to see the sick daughter, another figure enters on the scene and stalls the trip for a while. A woman, hemorrhaging for twelve years, also seeks out Jesus' help, though not confident enough to ask for it directly. The woman lacked in every was that Jairus had status. First, as a woman, she did not have the ability to command attention like Jairus could. Second, her disease made her ritually unclean, a state of being in Jewish code that made it unlawful for others to touch her. By touching Jesus, she risked violating the law herself and making Jesus unclean also. Third, where Jairus was well off, the woman, we are told, had spent her whole livelihood in search of a cure. She had nothing at all to recommend her to Jesus, no reason to believe he would care about her story. n our journey, we come upon the issues surrounding riches and poverty. These two, Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman, bring to the front for us the issue of stewardship. The way in which Jesus responds to each person reveals a lesson for us today. How do we faithfully use our money and our possessions? What is the significance of our wealth, or of our lack of wealth? The passage allows us to dig deeper.
Jesus treats the woman's suffering and pain in the same way he treats Jairus' pain, despite their contrasting financial states. No doubt Jairus was in a hurry to get aid to his dying daughter. But Jesus stops the procession to care for the needs of the woman – needs Jesus deemed equally important. To Jesus, it does not matter that one person is wealthy and the other poor. The only thing Jesus attends to is the need that he can provide for, the life he can act to change. How would we act in Jesus' situation? What would we do if we had to choose between stopping for the poor woman, or pressing on toward the home of the wealthy man? The gospel text itself shows us two responses of contrasting views. Peter, Jesus' closest disciple, urges Jesus to press ahead when Jesus asked who touched him. He says, "Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you". Peter's attention is on the goal of Jairus' house, but he neglects the importance of the journey there. Jairus, on the other hand, makes no complaints. One might expect that Jairus would complain or hurry Jesus, considering the state of his daughter. Imagine if your loved one were ill and in need, but the ambulance stopped on the way to your house to quibble over a fender-bender. You might get anxious, nervous, or even angry. For Jairus the circumstance is magnified by the fact that the woman turns out to be an unclean woman. What a disgrace to Jairus, to be put off by such a person! Yet Jairus makes no complaint. He waits patiently, not even arguing with Jesus when a messenger brings word that the daughter has died. Surely Jarius must consider that if Jesus had neglected the poor woman, his daughter would still be living. He expresses no such sentiments, however, and follows Jesus trustingly.
Jairus' attitude reflects the attitude of good will and stewardship that we ourselves need to follow. Times have not changed so much. Though today we have no terms such as "ritually unclean", we have new ways of classifying by status and material possessions. Today the gap between the richest and the poorest is at its widest, and it is increasing. How has our society responded? Unfortunately, we have responded too much like Peter. We seek to brush the poor aside, to hurry on our path to Jairus' house. Jonathan Kozol, author of a novel on poverty called Amazing Grace, brings us this quote: "I believe what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something a preacher could call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people – that's my idea of evil". As Christians, we have power. Even if we ourselves don't have the power of money, we have the power of the good news, that Christ is ready to lend a hand. We have that power to share, and if we don't take time to stop on the road to Jairus' house, we are not being good stewards of God' word. In the epistle reading for today we hear, "it is a question of fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance." Search your lives for the abundance God brings to you, and be ready to share with the poor women you meet on your journey, that there may be a fair balance.
We meet other obstacles, other possible stumbling blocks on the road to Jairus' house as well. Suffering. A 12 year old is on the verge of death. A woman hemorrhages for 12 years. Parents watch anxiously over their only child. Is this fair? There is in one passage deep and profound suffering. Where is God in this picture? Suffering is one of those questions we all face at one point or another in our lives. None of us can escape suffering. Perhaps we have lost a parent, a sibling, a spouse, a child. Perhaps we have suffered disease, or looked on as another battled an illness. Some starve. Some face war in their homeland. Some have homes destroyed from disaster. In one way, or many ways, we have all faced suffering in some form. Why? Why do we suffer? Does God care about our pain? As faithful Christians, we know that answer to be yes, even though it is hard to understand. We cannot believe that God wishes us to suffer, or that God punishes our wrongs through suffering. Instead, we suffer because of our own actions, though not always indirectly. We suffer because we work against God's will. We suffer because we seek to work on our own, instead of with God. We suffer because we can do it on our own, or so we think. We suffer because we fear the things that God has planned. We fear pain, we fear loneliness, we fear death. We fear things that are a part of life, a part of God's good creation for us. In our passage for today, Jairus, his wife, his daughter, and the sick woman were all suffering, until they let their faith guide their actions to God. No doubt Jairus was hesitant about seeking help from a man who gave trouble to synagogue leaders. No doubt the woman feared acting against the law to trouble the great teacher. However, despite fears, they acted in faith, and their faith was rewarded by an end of their suffering. We must be like these to faithful servants.
We must also be like Jesus in this story. We, like Jesus, have the ability to alleviate suffering, at least in some forms. Jesus stopped on his journey to care for someone in need. In our hectic goal-oriented world, it is hard to think about stopping, pausing to attend to something other than our final destination. Jesus did not give it a second thought. The woman, we must remember, was healed without Jesus speaking a word or slowing his pace. But when he realized what had occurred, he still paused to attend to the woman, face to face. He heard her story. He looked into her eyes. He shared and relieved her suffering. Can we do the same? Karl Shelly, worker for the Mennonite Church offices in Washington writes, "The good news is that we as a people of faith are on the road to Jairus' house. The challenge, however, is whether we will be touched by people we pass along the way who are suffering". We have the challenge. Will we accept?
Finally, we confront the issue of time. In Christian theology, human time is called chronos, regular time. We are a culture, a world, obsessed with time – this chronos. We microwave food and cannot believe we must wait four whole minutes for popcorn. Airplanes fly us around the world, barely getting us across the country fast enough. And computers – here is my personal downfall – we can send email to anyplace in the world at the click of a button, but we cannot believe how long it takes our computer to send and receive information. We also want to slow time in other areas of our lives. "Age-defying" makeup promises to remove outward signs of our growing older. Actor Nick Nolte is rumored to be experimenting with scientific measures to ward of death as long as he can. Sometimes time moving forward is our enemy too. Either way, we are not happy with time. It goes by so fast, yet it takes so long.
God's time is different than our time. God has a right time, called, in theology, kairos. Kairos means the appointed time, the correct time, the "right" time. Interestingly, the word's roots are in no way related to the roots of chronos. Kairos is an understanding of time totally unrelated to human understanding of time. Think of God's time, God's kairos, at work in our passage today. A woman is ill for twelve years, a long time by our standards to endure an illness. But on this day, she happens to be where Jesus is, happens to cross paths with him. If she had been anywhere else in the world, she would not have been healed. God's kairos is at work – the woman is healed in just the right time. Think of Jairus' daughter. At first, one is tempted to think Jesus is late. He spends too much time with the woman, and the little girl dies. A child of twelve years, a short time for our standards of long life. But, despite our doubts, despite the laughter when Jesus claims the girl is only sleeping, despite the wailing for the loss of life, Jesus acts to save the girl in God's right time. Only think, instead of merely healing a sick girl, Jesus exhibits God's ability to work even through death to bring life, by allowing Jesus to raise the girl from the dead. What a powerful message that Jesus will make only more clear through his own death and resurrection later on. God acted in God's right time, to bring a better message to the world. We grow impatient from waiting for what we want to happen now, and we grow anxious when the days pass by too fast. But we must remember, God works in God's time, and the best things happen when we let God do God's work.
On the road to Jairus' house, we have a lot to discover about who we are, and who the teacher and healer is with whom we travel. Are we ready to confront our material life, to see if we are being good stewards of God's gifts? Are we ready to notice the suffering around us, on the sides of the road, or in our own lives? Are we ready to open ourselves to God' right time? To accept the wonderful events that might unfold if we are willing to work in God's time instead of ours? If we can answer "Yes" to these questions, then we are ready to pack our bags. We have a journey to take, side by side with our teacher and master, on the road to Jairus' house.
Let us pray: God of the journey, help us prepare to follow you. We are often tied down by our possessions. We are often paralyzed by the suffering all around us. We are often obsessed with time, our faulty time. Let us turn to you instead, so that we can accompany you the journey, on the road to Jairus' house. Lord, we are ready. In Christ's name, Amen