HEALING OF THE NATION

WWW.FAITHTHATHEALSUMC.ORG HEALING OF THE NATION BIBLE STUDY 2016 faith that heals 615-695-2776 faiththathealsumc@tnumc.com faiththathealsumc.org

HEALING OF THE NATION BIBLE STUDY Contents MARK 5:21-43 A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATION By Alan Storey, 2011 REFLECTION Questions to reflect HEALTHCARE IN TENNESSEE Covenant for Action Outreach Strategy 03 Suffering, tragedy, and 04 08 09 illness do not discriminate. They re not afraid to reach out and touch everyone, whether young or old, male or female, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, homeless or executive, believer or other. - Alan Storey HEALING OF THE NATION 2

WWW.FAITHTHATHEALSUMC.ORG MARK S GOSPEL TELLS US THAT HEALING, LIKE SUFFERING, SHOULD UNITE US. A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed Mark 5:21-43 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, 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. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages 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. Immediately her hemorrhages 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 round 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. 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. (NRSV) HEALING OF THE NATION 3

For the Healing of the Nation published on Sojourners (https://sojo.net) Suffering, tragedy, and illness do not discriminate. They re not afraid to reach out and touch everyone, whether young or old, male or female, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, homeless or executive, believer or other. We notice this indiscriminate nature of suffering when we read of two healings in Mark 5. On the one hand we have Jairus, a powerful somebody. When he spoke, people listened. A leader in the synagogue, an educated person, a homeowner with multiple servants, he was a mover and shaker in his town -- a model citizen. Yet he, a religious leader, couldn t keep his daughter from being close to death. Sandwiched into the story of his life, we find a nameless woman without introduction or fancy résumé. The only thing we know of her is that she bled nonstop for 12 years, which in those days meant she was considered unclean, defiled, best kept in isolation. Jairus and this woman couldn t have been more different from each other. And yet they held in common suffering, illness, and tragedy. Hoping that I will not be misunderstood, I want to suggest that there is a strange gift in this -- that the nondiscriminating nature of suffering can sometimes help us to get over our discriminating nature. Note the behavior of Jairus. A synagogue leader, he must have been meticulous in keeping the purity code, the rules of separation between that which was considered clean and unclean. And yet, we see him kneeling and begging Jesus to return home with him to attend his nearly dead daughter -- even though Jesus had just returned from Gentile territory, and would therefore be considered unclean. A self-respecting synagogue leader would never in a million years ask someone who s just returned from Gentile territory to even come into his home, let alone touch his daughter with those unclean hands. Yet, as Jairus carries the pain of a parent watching his child edge towards death, he couldn t care less about clean or unclean anymore. Jairus pain enables him to step over the long-held prejudice hidden beneath his purity code observance. He breaks his cultural laws -- betrays his family tradition, forsakes his religious heritage. Oh, how prejudice can be hidden in religious rituals that look virtuous on the surface! Sometimes, if we want Jesus to come into our home and touch us and our sick family, we may be asked to give up our religious HEALING OF THE NATION 4

For the Healing of the Nation (con t) published on Sojourners (https://sojo.net) heritage. The great idolatry of religious people is to begin to worship the way we worship, making our religion itself our God. Isn t it amazing, the power of suffering to unite? Jairus and the nameless woman are now characters of one story. They ve never shared anything else, but suffering brings them together. In the country I come from, South Africa, in the heat and heart of apartheid we had separate health facilities based on the color of our skin -- probably because, maybe subconsciously, the rulers of the day thought, If we let black and white people suffer together in the same wards, they may just discover the truth that they are no different from each other. Another possible gift of suffering is empowerment. It doesn t always work that way; sometimes suffering makes us bitter and small. But if we look at Mark 5, it seems that this nameless woman may well have been empowered as a result of her suffering. Sometimes, when we hit rock bottom, that moment can be very empowering. We reason, I m dying in silence, so I might as well die in public -- I ve got nothing left to lose. She comes out in public, joining a crowd. She is weak, anemic, fragile, frail, but she discovers that she is not powerless. Jairus was backed by the powers that be; this woman is up against the powers -- powers just like Jairus. Yet she comes and demands her time, her place, and her healing. Now, suffering may not discriminate but, sadly, too often getting access to healing does. Because Jairus was a man with position and power, he was able to walk straight up to Jesus and make his request. It sounds as if Jairus speaks with a sense of entitlement; he wants health care and he wants it now. Not so for the woman. If she wanted to be healed, she would have to steal it by sneaking up behind Jesus, in secret and at risk. She had spent all she had on many physicians and had now reached the limit of her health-care plan, and yet she still continued to bleed. I remember visiting a woman in a large Johannesburg public hospital. This woman was there with her 7-year-old son, Daniel, whose legs were as thin as my wrists. She told me that this was the fourth hospital she had come to, and they had just diagnosed Daniel with cancer; the other doctors had turned her away. Some had just given her aspirin to give to her son. No doctor would have just given Jairus daughter aspirin. All can get sick, but not all have access to healing. But here s the thing: It may be costly to implement, yet I promise you it will be more costly not to. Jesus, however, refuses to discriminate. Jesus gives both Jairus and the nameless woman free and equal access. An argument could be made that, because Jesus was taking up time with this nameless woman, this was the reason he was late in reaching Jairus house. In other words, to offer free and equal health care for all may just cost the Jairuses of the world. This is something we need to face up to. But here s the thing: It may be costly to implement, yet I promise you it will be more costly not to. Today in South Africa, health care no longer discriminates based on skin color: It now discriminates on the basis of class. If you ve got money, you have access, and if you don t have money, you don t. This classism is yet to find the conscience of the powersthat-be in my nation -- and it certainly hasn t found the conscience of the United States. When will we realize that money does not make one person more worthy than another? HEALING OF THE NATION 5

For the Healing of the Nation (con t) published on Sojourners (https://sojo.net) Even a public option would, in truth, fall way short of the gospel option we see offered to us by Jesus in Mark 5. The gospel option does not exclude foreigners, remembering that there is no such thing as an illegal foreigner. This is God s earth -- everyone on this earth is legally allowed to be here. May God have mercy on us! Now let s slow the text down a little bit and zoom in. Jairus begs Jesus to come to his home; Jesus does, and on his way a nameless woman touches him and immediately she is healed of her disease. What was her disease, that she bled for 12 years? We re not sure, but it could have been the unique bleeding of a woman. And therefore when her bleeding stops, she s healed to be able to give birth to life through her body, which she was never able to do before. You see, when Jesus heals us, he always heals us to be able to give life. Jesus stops and says, Who touched me? Someone in the crowd shouts out, You lie! Almost the entire press corps, focusing on the rude man, misses the main point of the story, except for a journalist by the name of Mark. He hangs out with Jesus because he knows what the real issue is: healing. We read that the woman comes forward, still afraid, and then we read these amazing words -- she told Jesus the whole truth. Ah, and only after that does Jesus say, go in peace, and be healed of your disease. Friends, it seems to me there is a distinction between cure and healing. Early in the text we read that she was cured, she had stopped bleeding, but here we see that there is a depth of healing that can only come once we ve told the whole truth about our life. And that is a frightening thing to do. What truth do we still need to tell Jesus or one another so that we may be healed? What truth do we still need to speak as a nation in order to be healed? Coming from South Africa to Mississippi, it pains me to see the state flag still including the Confederate flag within it. Where is the shame? And then Jesus does this incredible thing -- did you notice it? He turns to this nameless woman and calls her daughter ; he makes her family. Those whom our health-care systems leave out are members of Jesus family! While Jesus is still speaking, people come and inform Jairus that his daughter has died, and Jesus overhears them. Please trust this: Jesus always overhears the bad news that is told to us. He turns to Jairus and says, Just believe. At Jairus home, after sending out the mourners, Jesus takes Jairus daughter by the hand and raises her from sleep. A miracle! A mystery so full of meaning that reason can t explain. Our gratitude overflows in worship: Praise God! Two miracles in quick succession make sure we have a happy ending. But I must confess, as much as I celebrate this healing, I cannot not think of the fathers and mothers whose daughters were not restored. I think of the parents who had to walk from their house to the grave, placing a small coffin in the ground. Who prayed and prayed and prayed, and watched their daughter, their son, their brother, their lover die. The only way I can hold this pain is, by God s great grace, to trust that this scripture of the nameless woman (now daughter!) and Jairus daughter are a sign of the healing that is true for all of us -- like a sample poll that represents everyone. But my heart goes out to those of us whose wound of grief bleeds and bleeds, never to have that healed feeling. There are some of us sitting on our own tonight, longing for that hand to hold that s no longer there. And the pain of the words never again lives in our mind: Never again will I dance, never again will I talk, never again will I kiss, never again will I touch, and never again will I share with her or him. These are hard words to live with. HEALING OF THE NATION 6

For the Healing of the Nation (con t) published on Sojourners (https://sojo.net) I don t know if we ever get over that sort of grief -- at best, we may get through it with grace -- but friends, this is what I do know. If you and I don t work for the day when there is free and equal health care for all, if we do not work for the gospel option, then there will be more people who bleed in grief, and who carry the words never again on their heart, and who feel the pain of the irreplaceableness of their loved ones who have died, because they did not have access to health care. This I know for sure. I pray that God will give us the courage to rise up, in voice and in action, to establish a health-care system that holds all with equal care and compassion. We may feel weak, fragile, and frail, but we are not powerless! When we decide for the gospel option, the power of Jesus will be given to us for the healing of the nations. Alan Storey (aslowwalk.org) is a Methodist minister from South Africa. This article is based on a sermon preached at Wells United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. Source URL: https://sojo.net/magazine/ may-2011/healing-nation Notes HEALING OF THE NATION 7

Reflection Read Mark 5:1 34 1. What can we learn about God s mission in the world from these stories? 2. What would God s mission in the world look like if it were being fulfilled in Tennessee? Specifically, how can we imagine God s healing presence (e.g. Mark 5) being made manifest in our local communities? 3. What are the changes in behavior, commitment, attitude, relationships, actions, etc. that need to take place in our congregations and communities in order to make question 2 a reality? 4. Specific to caring for the sick, why is it important that Christians are committed to ensuring that others have access to affordable healthcare? Beyond a theological commitment, are there any life experiences that have led you to this conviction? 5. What steps can I take to help more Tennesseans get the healthcare they need? 6. Take 3 minutes right now to fill out page one of the Covenant for Action List 3 people, 3 congregations, and 3 community groups that you will have a conversation with to talk about the state of healthcare in Tennessee. Be sure to include your name and contact information

Location: Date: Covenant for Action Name: Email: Phone: Relationship Building Who are 3 people (friends, church members, colleagues, etc.) you could sit down with who might bring passion, experience, skills, knowledge, and commitment to the work of changing Tennessee's healthcare? 1. 2. 3. Things to consider: How can this time be used for sharing stories, listening, identifying passion, discussing vision, establishing connection? What skills/experience do you see in these people? What could be their level of engagement? Who else can they talk to about our vision for health care? What are their networks and areas of influence? Brainstorm a list of 3 congregations that you could connect with. 1. 2. 3. Brainstorm 3 people/organizations/community groups that you could sit down with from your community. 1. 2. 3. Things to consider: Who is working on issues that connect to the work of healthcare reform in Tennessee? Who would care about this? Who would have passion to organize/advocate about health care in our local/global community? Who is directly impacted by these issues and not yet part of the conversation? faith that heals 615-695-2776 faiththathealsumc@tnumc.com faiththathealsumc.org