June 27, 2021 – Proper 8 (5th Sunday after Pentecost)

Today’s lectionary texts invite us to consider the universal need for healing. We need healing of our experience of loss, of our sense of moral failure, greed, brokenness of body, mind, spirit, and relationships. We need social transformation. Given the darkness of our time, we need to pray for personal, congregational, communal, national, and worldwide healing. Healing heals not only us, but helps us to become agents of healing for others. 

Today’s Hebrew Bible reading comes from the book entitled “The Wisdom of Solomon” or sometimes simply “The Book of Wisdom.” We don’t often read this book in our lectionary, so I thought it would be helpful to give some background on it. Most scholars think the book was written by a Jew probably living in Egypt. He (because usually only men wrote these texts) was equally proficient in Greek philosophy and the Jewish scriptures (even though he modified some of the Biblical stories to suit his purposes). He valued his faith and held to the belief that God’s sovereignty was what mattered. The book was originally written in Greek probably somewhere between 250 BCE and 50 CE. It was probably written to encourage Jews living outside of Israel. The author tries to make Biblical traditions relevant to Jews in new situations. He realizes that they live in a secular culture and it is difficult for them to maintain their culture. So his intention is to highlight God’s concern for humankind. 

The reading provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the universality of loss and death. “God did not make death,” the writer says. We were created to be eternal, and so death is a loss, but not an ending; we who are in God’s family experience death but are immortal. And so when people die, we may be overwhelmed by grief because life changes, but is not forever ended.

The lectionary provides two options for today’s response: a passage from Lamentations or Psalm 30. In Lamentations, the writer says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; … Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone,” which, in a similar way to the first reading, describes a God who does not make death and does not delight in death. In Psalm 30, the Psalmist proclaims a theme of desolation: “O Lord my God, I cried out to you, and you restored me to health. You brought me up, O Lord, from the dead; you restored my life as I was going down to the grave.” The Psalmist, while thankful, is isolated and saw no relief, but God provided. While we may experience isolation from a variety of sources, we learn that we need healing, and that healing comes from our relationship with God. Through prayer, the Psalmist is reconnected with God; God brings us home through times of despair.

2 Corinthians is a call to be generous. We need healing from our cultural norms of greed, stinginess, and economic individualism. Feelings of abundance, not thinking of scarcity, restore us to health, for our abundance is not a private possession to be used without considering the needs of others. Our possessions ought to be resources for persons in need. We are to live simply and generously so that others might live; generosity connects us with God and all of God’s creation. When we let go of our possessiveness and open ourselves to the needs of others, we discover the unity in humanity.

The Gospel reading today describes healing. While the passages are not prescriptive, they describe several ways to be healed. Jesus’ healing ministry — and our own — is not contrary to the laws of nature, but an expression of the powers available to us when we are in tune with our deepest selves, with God, with the well-being of others, and with our environment. Nature is filled with energy and may be used to bring wholeness to others. So Jesus’ healing ministry is not just sociological and political, but spiritual and physical in the most holistic sense. Healing is God’s intention for humankind and creation.

The writer of Mark’s Gospel gives us two healing stories: the healing of Jairus’ daughter, which surrounds the account of the healing of the woman with the flow of blood. Jairus is wealthy, the unnamed woman is impoverished. Despite his wealth, though, Jairus, like the woman, is feeling powerless and desperate, and calls upon the only one who can save his daughter, who is in a coma and near death. He asks the healer Jesus to come to his house, and Jesus leaves the crowd immediately to respond to the need. I’m sure that many of you have been in a situation where you have dropped everything to get to someone who you were certain was going to die, and you would have done anything to insure that person’s survival; you may even have been willing to change places with that person and taken their pain on yourself. I think Jairus felt the same way. While he may have previously been suspicious of Jesus, his daughter’s condition broke down any judgment he felt towards Jesus. And Jesus the healer felt Jairus’ pain, and nothing would stand between him and restoring the girl to health.

The path to healing is often surprising and unexpected. On the way, a woman reaches out to Jesus and is healed. We assume that her illness had alienated her from her husband, family, community, and religion. She was an outcast socially and spiritually. She might even have wondered if she had sinned and that led to her ailment, or if God was punishing her for some sin of which she was unaware. For her, the moment for her healing was now, and in her desperation, she found the courage to face the crowds, the stares, the comments, and the risk of rejection from the healer.

This was her time, and she wasn’t going to let it pass. It was now or never, and she pushed her way toward the healer, guided and sustained by her mantra, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” This was the lens through which she viewed her future.

When she touched Jesus, the healing energy of the universe was released. A power flowed from Jesus that healed her cells as well as her soul. Jesus felt the power, and it unsettled him so that he looked around for the recipient of the energy. Healed, she comes to him, elated but simultaneously filled with fear and trembling at what she just experienced and how he will react. She receives his blessing as he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”

Her faith is a factor, but not the only factor, in her healing. The passage loses a lot of its meaning if we view it as fully dependent upon her faith. Through this lens, those who are not healed are somehow lacking of faith to transform their lives. In truth, her healing came from a divine concurrence of her faith and divine power. Her faith opened the door to healing power residing in the healer. You see, healing is not about us, but a connection among our faith, the faith of others, our condition and previous behavior, the nature of the illness and medical responses, and God’s ever-present goal of abundant life.

The healing of Jairus’ daughter is also the result of this interplay. Jesus dismisses the naysayers and allows only those who trust his diagnosis that the girl “is not dead but sleeping” and his healing power. He creates a healing circle to bring about her recovery. Healing is always a communal event, grounded in a community of faith that believes on our behalf. In this story, the faith of others opens the girl to God’s healing touch. When others are unable to believe, our trust in God can be a tipping point from illness to health, opening up new pathways for God’s healing power.

The message of Mark’s Gospel to us today is that our churches can become healing circles, opening us up to God’s energy of love that transforms not just souls, but cells. When we let go of our fears and need for control, miracles occur, energies are released. These energies are not contrary to the laws of nature, but in accordance with God’s vision of abundant life for all of creation. May we, too, be like the Psalmist who cried out to our God, who “does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone,” and was restored to health.