Sermon Title: Jesus and the Outcast
Sermon Text: Mark
Sermon Date:
Scripture Mark
25And a woman was there who had been subject
to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal
under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of
getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she
came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she
thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately
her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her
suffering. 30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He
turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31"You
see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and
yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' " 32But Jesus kept looking
around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had
happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him
the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." 35While Jesus
was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue
ruler. "Your daughter is dead," they said. "Why bother
the teacher any more?" 36Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the
synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe." 37He did not
let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38When
they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with
people crying and wailing loudly. 39He went in and said to them,
"Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but
asleep." 40But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he
took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and
went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her,
"Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get
up!" ). 42Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was
twelve years old).
We had an interesting conversation at our CE
meeting this week. It started out about
menopause and ended up talking about extreme menstrual pain. Poor
I
know that most of you men would have felt uncomfortable in such a conversation
but I’m not sure why. It is a normal function
of life. But we are easily embarrassed
by such topics and it probably started back in the holiness codes.
You
might remember that in the book of Genesis, Rachael, wife of Jacob, stole her
father’s idols by sitting on them and telling him that she couldn’t get up
because “it was that time.” He wouldn’t
dare come near her in that case!
The
Holiness Codes of Leviticus set the stage.
You may not realize this but even after lovemaking, the man and woman
had to be ritually purified. They had to
bathe in water and were unclean until evening.
(Lev. 15:16-18). Now purification
took longer for a woman who was menstruating.
She had to be separate from others for seven days (Lev.
So
if you have been menstruating for twelve years, this would obviously mean that
you were to be separate from society for 12 years. 4,380 days.
105,210 hours.
I realize this may be the first time
the words “menstrual cramps” have been mentioned from this pulpit. Guys, you may have watched us, but you
haven’t experienced it. Let me just say
I can’t imagine twelve years of it.
Twelve years of excessive bleeding with no end of stopping. She had been to the doctor over and over with
no relief, and now she was broke. She
was in a hopeless situation. She was an
outcast.
I can appreciate what she must have
felt. When my daughter Courtney was in
junior high she became sick. Exhaustion,
fever, headaches. She would stay home
from school for a day or two and then feeling better, she’d return to school
and resume her normal life, only for the cycle to repeat itself a couple of
days later. We spent a lot of time at
our doctor’s office. He ran blood
tests. No leukemia. No mono.
No nothing. And then finally one
day he said, “I don’t know what is wrong,” and he said goodbye to us.
He didn’t refer her to a
specialist. He didn’t ask how we were
doing emotionally. He didn’t offer any
hope at all. He didn’t call her illness
psychosomatic but the implication was there.
“It is all in your head, kid. Get
over it.”
I was devastated, much more than she. She was tired of being sick (having missed
about a month of school at this point) but I was scared to death that she was
dying. I was afraid there was a terrible
diagnosis on the horizon and he just robbed me of any hope I had left. And I was angry, furious to be honest.
I went home and sobbed and the next
day I called a doctor’s office on the IUPUI campus where I worked and made an
appointment for her. This new doctor
took a lot of time listening to our story and running tests. She got to know Courtney as a person. And a few weeks later she decided that while
the tests didn’t show it, she was going to treat Courtney for mono. She was to go to school each day and come
home and go to bed. She was not to
resume her daily activities until the doctor cleared her but to rebuild her
stamina a little at a time. Having mono
a few years later myself, those were wise words. And the situation was vastly different from
one doctor to another.
One doctor, a good man, actually
robbed us of hope and could have made her worse. Another doctor, who took the time to offer us
something, however small. She eased our
fears and burden and soon Courtney was back to normal.
It is really awful when your doctor
won’t listen to you. However my experiences
have shown me that most doctors do listen.
They just can’t always make the pain go away like Jesus could.
I find it helpful to look at the
Gospels and ask two questions: First,
what was Jesus trying to convey to the people of that day and second, what does
Jesus want us to get out of it…..today….July 15, 2007?
I’m sure the story was told to us so
that we could see the tremendous faith of both the woman and Jairus. Both had faith that Jesus could heal with his
touch. The woman only needed to touch
Jesus’ robe and be healed. Jesus needed
only to touch Jairus’ daughter and she would not only be healed but return to
life. The writers of the day would have
wanted people to know about this tremendous faith.
The crowd of that day had to be
astounded by the event. Maybe they were
as astounded that Jesus knew he had been touched as they were by the healing
that followed. This would have been a
teaching moment for the people following Jesus and for the disciples.
Maybe in a later moment Jesus said to
them, “She had been made worse by the doctors who took all of her money and
they left her with no hope. But you, my
disciples, can heal her as I did…if you have the faith, her faith.”
But I don’t think that is why Jesus
wants us to hear this story today. It
may be that we can heal if we have enough faith but that isn’t the rule
today. We rely on modern medicine to do
the healing. We rely on our own strength
to heal ourselves. And if all this is true,
how can we help this woman or others like her?
What does God want us to do to help
those who don’t have the resources to get medical help?
I will admit that I am an advocate
for some kind of national health insurance and I think Jesus would be too. I don’t know how it should work but I believe
that having medical care should not be a privilege of those of us who are
fortunate enough to have jobs that offer benefits.
A
study, published in the journal “Health Affairs,” estimated that medical
bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans every year, including the 700,000
children. Dr. David Himmelstein, an
associate professor of medicine at
Most of the medically bankrupt were average
Americans who happened to get sick.
Health insurance offered little protection.
"Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs
averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the
onset of illness."
The average bankrupt person surveyed had spent $13,460 on
co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services if they had private insurance.
People with no insurance spent an average of $10,893 for such out-of-pocket
expenses. (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0202-08.htm)
What can we do? As
individuals? As a church? As a people?
What does Jesus want us to do?
I remember as a single parent being frustrated with the medical
system. AND I HAD INSURANCE. No doctor was open at night when I wasn’t
working so we used the emergency room because at night I had more time to wait
and it didn’t require a co-pay in those days.
I was frustrated that I couldn’t take a lunch hour for a
doctor’s visit because the wait was too long and by the time I picked up a sick
child and got them to the doctor, then back home, my lunch hour had grown to 2
or 3 hours.
When Courtney was sick I was lucky to have a boss who
understood and allowed me the time to be a mother. But not all parents are that fortunate. Not all illnesses go away as easily as her
illness did. What would I have done had
she had leukemia and needed me at home to care for her? Most likely I would have had to quit my job,
move back to Scottsburg and live with my parents or go on welfare.
The bottom line is really this: Jesus calls us to care for the least of
these. Those who are sick and those with
lots of other problems. Matthew 25 is
very clear:
35For
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed
clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison
and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will
answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give
you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you
in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in
prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I
tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of
mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to
those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave
me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I
was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not
clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes
or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell
you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did
not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away
to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Jesus
wouldn’t have said these words if he didn’t mean them. And when we take care of the least of these,
we take of each other, without judgment.
And that is grace for the outcasts of yesterday and today.