Sermon for the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time

On Friday morning, I was walking by the lake in Guntersville, and noticed the ubiquitous geese. It’s been fun to watch the circle of life by this lake. Last month, there were lots of goslings along the way, with their soft downy feathers. In just the last few weeks, those goslings have lost their down, grown adult feathers, and now they look like grown-up geese, just smaller. So I was walking along the way, and then I noticed a small flock making its way from the lake. But in front of them, walking alone, was a young goose, limping. I couldn’t figure out if its leg had been broken, or if it had been born with a leg too long. It walked ahead of its flock, alone, then eventually walked behind another, alone.

What does this have to do with Jesus’s healing of the bleeding woman, and raising of Jairus’s daughter? The point of these mighty works of Jesus is not to prove that Jesus has supernatural powers. Once you understand the religious culture that Jesus and these women were living in, then you see that the greatest healing, the mightiest work, the most powerful thing that Jesus did here was to put an end to isolation and loneliness.

Mark has this habit of “sandwiching” stories, of inserting on story into the middle of another. At first, it might seem like he’s breaking the flow of one story for no obvious reason. But the truth is that Mark is hammering home his theme by saying it in different ways. In one case, a grown woman is healed from incessant bleeding. In another case, a young girl is resuscitated. Different ages, different maladies. But look closer and you can see the parallels. The woman has been hemorrhaging for 12 years. The young girl is 12 years old. And both live in the world of “The Unclean.”

In that time and place, where running water and soap were not a part of everyday life, to be “unclean” did not mean being covered in dirt. Nor was "uncleanness" a matter of morality as we understand it today. In the woman’s case, she was “unclean” because of her blood, which contained the life-giving power of God himself. That power of life and death was so awesome that to come into contact with it might as likely kill a human being as give her life. Under Jewish law, this bleeding woman could not worship in the synagogue, and anyone who came into contact with her fell under the same prohibition. So, for 12 years this woman had limped along, alone.

Now she sees Jesus, and she knows what he can do. But if he touches her, then he too will be “unclean.” Perhaps if she just touches the tip of his cloak, no one will notice. But nobody touches, or is touched, by this man and escapes notice. She is healed of her physical illness, thanks to the power of Jesus. But as Jesus says, it was her faith, and her courage to break the boundaries of “uncleanness” that healed her. She was alone and isolated. Now, she has been restored to relationship, with her family and community.

But now, the terrible news comes. The girl is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? To touch the dead also rendered one “unclean,” which a faithful teacher of Israel would certainly want to avoid. So, again, Jesus must make the point that he has the power to decide what is “clean” or “unclean.” And so he does by taking this dead girl by the hand and saying, “Little girl, get up!” And she who was “unclean,” is now “clean,” restored to relationship, with her parents, her future husband and children, and her whole community.

If we at Christ Church are called to be “an outward and visible sign of Christ,” then surely we are called to be a sign of friendship, of service, and of reconciliation to the lonely and isolated, to the “unclean” of our time. Sadly this week, the Church that calls itself Christian increased its self-isolation. The "Anglican" Church of North America met in Texas, elected an archbishop, and ratified a constitution and canons. To be fair, they claim that this is a response to the actions of General Convention in 2003, which risked isolating the Episcopal Church from the rest of the Anglican Communion. In 2003, General Convention risked isolation for the sake of "justice." This week, ACNA risks isolation for the sake of "morality." In both cases, they forgot that Jesus takes risks for relationship.

You're not going to persuade anyone to repent, of injustice or immorality, if you are not first in relationship with that fellow human being. Of course you're risking something too. Maybe you'll discover that you're the one who needs to repent. Yes, there is risk in relationship. But the clean women, the clean girl, perhaps even the clean goose, all can tell you truly that loneliness is worse.