June 27: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today we have a favorite gospel with two endearing stories: Jesus heals the hemorrhaging woman and raises to life Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter. Imagine that woman bleeding for twelve long years. In efforts to stop the bleeding, she spent all her money on doctors. In desperate need, she reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment.  He said he felt power drain from him and asked a rhetorical question: who touched him? They were among many people crowding around him, “pressed upon him.”  The woman whose bleeding had abruptly stopped trembled and fell down in front of Jesus as she admitted it was she who touched his clothing.   

All this interrupted Jesus ministering to Jairus, a synagogue official, who also was desperate and also fell at Jesus’ feet.  Imagine Jairus’ exquisite robes sprawled in the dust as he pleaded with Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter.  Jesus may have wanted to go immediately to Jairus’ daughter but instead, he paused to praise a desperate woman’s faith who he assured with, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”  He attended to a woman who religious law barred from her place in the temple; the law called her ritually unclean.  That ancient blood taboo also rendered Jesus ritually unclean for having been touched by her. Response to need with loving care and compassion is Jesus’ way.    

Later, at Jairus’ home, Jesus endured mocking by those mourning the death of Jairus’ daughter.  Jesus, taking her hand in his said to her, ‘‘little girl, I say to you, arise!” And she “arose immediately.”  Jesus asked that she be given something to eat.  Practical. Thoughtful. 

The gospel writer, Mark gives us a series of Jesus’ first public acts of healing convincing generations of seekers of meaning and purpose of the truth of Jesus’ good news.  Through these wondrous stories of God overcoming even death our belief in Jesus, the Messiah, builds. God’s power overcomes the power of evil in all its ugly forms. Our first reading today from Wisdom, written just fifty years before the birth of Christ, offers comfort and hope to Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt who were oppressed and persecuted.  “Justice is undying” refers not only to the virtue of individual justice but to God’s full plan for how humanity is to live.   

Our second reading today from St Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians tells of Paul begging funds for famine victims in Jerusalem.  He teaches the Corinthians and us to exercise justice by equitably sharing.  He suggests we contribute to needs such as this as a way of imitating the love of Christ who gave life itself for others.  Paul invites us all to give generously and calls these “gifts,” “gracious acts.” He asks neither the Corinthians nor us to impoverish ourselves but to give so others' needs are met.  St Paul quotes Exodus 16:18 urging the Israelites who have been fed with manna during their desert journey to gather manna together and then give an equal portion to each person so that each had enough to eat. 

This pandemic has unveiled injustices many of us could not fathom beforehand.  We’ve come to realize the unimaginable injustice of essential workers not being paid living wages.  Essential workers have had to decide whether to pay for groceries or gas, health insurance, or rent.  The paycheck simply could not cover basic necessities.  It can only go so far.  While rich people got richer poor people became much poorer during this time when poor people of color were succumbing to COVID in far larger numbers than white people. A 50-year-old white man said, “well they just don’t take care of themselves.”  I asked what he meant and he said, “they don’t eat right.”  It is mighty hard to eat right when you have no transportation to a farm market or supermarket. It is mighty hard to eat right when all that is within your reach are small shops selling Twinkies, pop, and chips.   

St Paul would take up a collection for those who hunger. These days we also need job creation, roadways, bridges, and railways made safe and swift. Paul might demand cruise lines and airlines use their bail-out money finding and testing clean, renewable, sustainable ways to fuel their means of travel.  We are about to receive tax dollars to cushion the blow so many very poor people are experiencing.  May we allocate that money wisely to get the most bang for the buck.  Poverty is a kind of death. Zora Neal Hurston wrote, “there is something about poverty that smells like death.” After jobs creation, safe affordable housing and a healthy and accessible fresh and frozen food supply are needed.  Public transportation is a huge need. I know a wonderful, essential med-tech worker who walked one hour each way to and from work because public transportation would take 4 hours each way.  There was no safe affordable housing near her work and no work near her home. The coronavirus rescue monies give us an opportunity to change systems of injustice to opportunities through which our neighbors can thrive.  St Paul invites us to “excel in this gracious act.”         

by Deni Mack, DMin. Pastoral Associate Emerita