I have to confess that sometimes when I’m reading the Gospels, I don’t pay the closest attention to the healing stories. There are just so many of them, and they don’t seem to offer much narrative punch, to my eyes. But, of course, they are there for a reason, and which stories among the hundreds, if not thousands, the Apostles chose to include was a deliberate choice. So it’s important to pay attention to the details to see why perhaps an evangelist chose to include a particular healing story and to frame it as he did.
Today’s Gospel reading, Mark 5:21-43, includes two healing narratives: the raising of Jairus’s daughter, and the healing of the haemorrhaging woman. Not only are these stories completely different from each other and so stand out in their juxtaposition, but the second story is actually told in the middle of the first. It’s an interesting narrative choice and one worth investigating further.
At the start of our story, one of the leaders of the local synagogue, Jairus, breaks through the crowds to ask Jesus for help:
… [W]hen he saw him, he fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him. (5.22-23)
The father’s love is palpable; he is on his knees begging and calls his daughter, whom we later learn is twelve years old and so almost of marriageable age in their society, his “little daughter.” Jesus is moved by his pleas for help and so agrees to go with him.
But at this point the story is interrupted:
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” (5.24-28)
The contrasts between the two situations are great. Jairus is a man in his prime, in a position of privilege and authority. He pushes through the crowd confidently and addresses Jesus directly. But this woman by contrast is marginalized many times over: As a woman, it would have been seen as unseemly for her to address Jesus; moreover, since she’s bleeding, it would have been considered unclean for her to be out and about at all, and since she’s been bleeding for twelve years (as long as Jairus’s daughter has been alive!), she’s been ritually unclean — and therefore unable to go to the synagogue or temple — for much of her adult life, not to mention infertile in a society in which not having children was understood to be shameful and accursed. She’s spent all her money trying to get better, but it’s only gotten worse. But still this woman, impoverished, ill, ritually unclean, and alone in the world, presses forward in hope that she might find healing. She doesn’t dare address Jesus as Jairus had, but she trusts that even touching his cloak might be enough.
The story continues:
Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?'” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (5.30-34)
So, the woman is healed, and Jesus — entirely unnecessarily — calls attention to her before the whole crowd. And he calls her, “Daughter,” as though daring anyone to exclude her from the community of faith. But as this interaction happens, Jairus’s greatest fears come true:
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. (5.31-43)
And so, it’s a happy ending after all. For everyone. And that, I think, is the key to these nested stories.
At the start of the story, Jairus’s daughter is a beloved daughter of a privilege, whereas the bleeding woman is poor, chronically ill, and stigmatized socially and religiously. But at the end, both are healthy, healed, restored, and whole. At the start, one is a daughter, the other a nothing by society’s standards; at the end, both are revealed to be beloved daughters of God. And it’s only once the marginalized are brought in and attended to that the people of God, symbolized here by the synagogue and its first family, can be healed and made whole.
Jesus’ battle against the idea of ritual impurity and social and religious stigma is one of the Gospels’ biggest themes. And yet, it’s a message we still need today. There are still so many kept on the margins of society and the Church for reasons either outside their control or beyond their ability to fix. Today’s Gospel story reminds us that it is only when these barriers are broken down and the ‘unclean’ welcomed as ‘clean’ that we can be made whole as the people of God.
Matthew Root 