Worship was cancelled as the region attempted to dig out from Saturday’s blizzard. The scheduled reading was Mark 5:21-43
Many of the words used in academia and the sciences are derived from ancient Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean during the time of Jesus and the early church. A common root for many of these words is logos, found in biology, the study of life, and anthropology, the study of humans. Logos itself, like so many words, is multivalent, but most often means speech or word, though it always carries a secondary meaning of reason, or logic, another loan word from the same root. “-Ology†then is the reasonable or logical study of something, and in our religious heritage, it begins with theology, the reasonable study of Theos, or God. We have pneumatology, the logical study of the Holy Spirit, something I personally find to be a bit of an oxymoron, as the Holy Spirit does not seem to me to have much to do with logic or reason as humans understand them. Finally, there is Christology, the study of Jesus, often divided into high Christology and low Christology.
In the high form, Jesus is fully God at every moment during his earthly ministry, knowing everything that God knows. Taking this approach to the gospels requires some serious mental gymnastics. If Jesus is omniscient, omnipotent, then he cannot make mistakes, be taken by surprise, lose his temper. Every moment, every interaction, must be preordained, carefully scripted as part of the divine teaching drama of incarnation.
For example, in today’s reading, the gospel might say that after he had been touched by the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, Jesus pretended not to know who had touched him or why power had gone out of him. Jesus would be another brown-skinned actor not recognized for an incredible performance, for every time he makes a mistake, loses his temper, all of it would just be part of a play.
This is, of course, one of several issue that weave themselves into today’s reading. We have a story nestled within a story. The bleeding woman brings up issues of cleanliness and uncleanliness, with the misogyny so carefully woven into most ancient religions, for menstruation was disease, was disordered and uncontrolled, and in the Hebrew world, uncleanliness was as contagious as leprosy. The woman was unclean and by touching Jesus, she should have made him unclean until he took part in the rituals required to restore cleanliness. But that isn’t what happens. One of the recurring themes we find in the gospels is that Jesus reverses the flow of cleanliness and uncleanliness. In touching the Christ, the woman does not contaminate him. Instead, his super-abundance of cleanliness flows back into her.
Then there is the whole question of bodily resurrection. Though we know that there are several stories of resurrection in scripture, we tend to ignore the others because we need to see Jesus as unique, the event of his incarnation as being outside of the bounds of human experience. But even Elijah raises the dead.
Of course, Jesus says she isn’t dead at all, if we choose to believe that. But Jesus wants the whole event to be hush hush, for the Gospel of Mark is filled with the Messianic Secret. Jesus is deliberately vague, for there is that carefully scripted plan. So he heals publicly sometimes, at other times tells people to keep his miracles a secret. He proclaims the kingdom and assumes important Hebrew titles, but then doesn’t really want to own them, doesn’t want folks to know he is the messiah. Maybe he doesn’t think he can do the work of re-configuring the Hebrew faith, of refocusing Hebrew longing, if he is swarmed by a mob, for they might well begin an armed rebellion and drag him to the front. Who knows? Though I must admit that the messianic secret reminds me of the country singer Kenny Chesney’s song “Welcome to the Fishbowl,†where an artist who spent years seeking fame and fortune whines because when you put that much effort successfully trying to get everyone to look at you, it turns out that all that scrutiny is uncomfortable.
This one little passage, then, is loaded. We could study it for weeks, turn it into a semester seminar at a seminary. We can spin our wheels and be confused, even walk away, for we want logos, we want reason. We want to understand exactly what Jesus meant and exactly what boxes we need to check to guarantee that we will never die.
But life doesn’t work that way. It is filled with false starts and interruptions and things we didn’t finish on time.
Like Jesus, heading toward the home a Jairus, interrupted and distracted, and the little girl is dead.
Life happens, even to Jesus. Especially to Jesus.
And death happens. Even to Jesus.
Jesus is certainly God-with-us in some way we may never fully understand, but he is not a two-dimensional puppet in some divine play. He gets irritable, makes mistakes, arrives late for an important meeting.
Just like me. Just like you.
And maybe that is exactly the thing we take away from today’s reading. Not some clear understanding of the Messianic Secret or the role of bodily resurrection in the Hebrew religious trajectory. Not an understanding of the tension between Jesus and the Law he declared he meant to fulfill even as he reversed and exceeded it again and again. Maybe we can take away from this story how Jesus handles what looks like a failure.
He just gets on with it. He doesn’t say “Oh, she’s dead. Whatever!â€
He just does what needs to be done. And not only does he bring her back from the dead, or rouse her from her coma, or wake her up from her really deep sleep, or whatever it is you choose to believe he did. He also thinks ahead and gives instructions for what comes next.
Give her something to eat.
Life is going to throw you curve-balls this week. Things will not go as planned. You might have a plan for your life, but it ain’t gonna happen exactly like you planned it. Things will not always be logical or reasonable. People are going to reach out as you are passing by, disrupting your plans.
Do what needs to be done. Then get on with what needs to be done next. Think ahead, but be willing to adapt.
It is what Jesus would do. It is what our faith has always done. Talitha koum. Young woman, get up. Get up. Get on up. Keep moving.
Amen.