You may have noticed that at the foot of my emails I have put the words:

‘I can be contacted from Thursday to Sunday’.

This was at the suggestion of The Bishop Rachel who emphasised that a ‘House for duty’ Priests must protect their time and parishioners must respect their off duty days. With great respect for Bishop Rachel, I have to admit that I never thought it would work and I now prefer to say I work half days. This allows me, among other things, to answer emails when I receive them, and take funerals when the family wants them, but it also allows me to answer those unexpected calls at the door or meetings in the streets when I’m ‘off duty’.

Interruptions are important, and often lead to significant developments. Take the example of Leonardo Da Vinci’s unfinished work, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’. It is unfinished because he ran out of money and headed to Milan to curry favour with the duke who eventually commissioned ‘The last Supper’, and that was that for the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ – the painting remains a draft, but we have ‘The last supper’!

Interruptions are often the most important moments in our ministry. Today’s gospel account tells of an interrupted journey that highlights an important dimension of Jesus ministry.

Interruptions

Jesus was preaching to the crowds who had gathered to hear him, when he was approached by Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. A man of wealth and status who, nevertheless, falls at his feet and begs 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.” Mark 5: 23

But he is, in turn, interrupted by a woman who, according to the ritual laws of the day, would have been considered ‘Unclean’. Her attempts to remain hidden are uncovered by Jesus who senses that: ‘Power had gone from him’ Mark 5:30. He is not angered by her afrontary as other religious leaders would have been but commends her faith. His dealings with this woman are a sign of what was to be his most important act of service to humanity.

Faith

It appears that these two encounters are about healings, and yet we know that there were many sick and dying people who were not healed by Jesus, so we cannot assume that this account is to give us faith to pray for ‘healing’. Instead it is to give us faith to reach out to seek something more than healing. Notice several details about each encounter that speak of faith. Both Jairus and the woman are prepared to cross ritual and social barriers that were defined by the Law. Their relationship to Jesus is defined not by the ‘Law’, but by ‘Faith’.

Often our prayers are, understandably, determined by our own needs and desires, but as we reach out in prayer, whether our prayers are answered or not, we are drawn into a relationship with Jesus which will transform our lives. This is the true healing that Jesus brings, a healing of our broken relationship to God.

Notice too how Jesus reaches out to these two very different people. One is of high status, the other low status, yet he embraces both, but not before giving preference to the most marginal and lowly of the two petitioners. There are no high or low status people in God’s Kingdom, all are his children.

Family

Notice how Jesus addresses the sick woman as ‘Daughter’ and later speaks to the dead child as ‘Daughter’. This is the relationship that Jesus seeks for each of us. As we pray we are drawn into the family of God and are enabled to call God ‘Our Father’

Notice how Jesus uses touch to heal, and concerns himself with the physical need of the child for food. The sad story of the Romanian orphanages, discovered after the fall of Ceausescu’s dictatorship, demonstrates how children, isolated and deprived of love and touch do not develop normally. Although the children grew up to be physically human they did not become human persons. They could not speak, they could not relate to others, they could not give or receive affection.

Part of the healing process is through ‘the laying on of hands’, it is more than a symbolic gesture, it is the means by which wholeness is communicated by touch. We are healed in a broader and deeper sense when our humanity is affirmed and relationships are established.

Forgiveness

There is in these accounts a deep subtext which points to the moment of healing, the moment when we are uncovered and our needs exposed. Only at this point do our two petitioners access the healing faith that saves them. All the healings, all the exorcisms, all the teaching of Jesus point to the one great event of his life – his death and resurrection. In his death and resurrection he both exposes our needs and heals the broken and barren parts of our lives.

As in the encounter with the woman with the haemorrhage, Mark emphasises not only the hopelessness of her situation, all the doctors had failed to heal her, but also hints at the shame of her condition, she did not want anyone to know the nature of her illness. The compassion of Jesus is clearly seen for he stopped what he was engaged in to speak to her. The completeness of her healing is both physical and spiritual for she now has the confidence to confess her healing.

This woman in her desperation was not an interruption in the ministry of Jesus but an opportunity to demonstrate the reality of the Kingdom in our midst. No situation is too hopeless for Jesus, no condition too shameful to confess, no person beyond his healing touch, no situation that cannot be transformed by his presence.

For Jairus, as a religious leader his appeal to Jesus must have cost him considerable embarrassment. He would have been very upset that this outcast woman should have been acknowledged by Jesus. He would have been insulted that his important business had been interrupted by this disturbance, and yet he had the humility and faith to follow Jesus and trust him for his daughter’s life. He found healing for himself and his daughter through the acknowledgment of his pride and his prejudice.

The Church and Jesus: Could the same be said of the Church? Are we disturbed by the agenda of Jesus, insulted that our business is interrupted by his mission. If this is so, then we must examine how we do our business, for the business of the Church is to point beyond itself to God who is able to transform us, not just cure us, to point to a radically new life, not just a comfortable life.

Rev. Simon Brignall.