In the name of God-
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I can’t imagine. Can you imagine it? We use those phrases
when we encounter something that stops us in our tracks, whether it is good or
bad. Sometimes when we rhetorically ask “can you imagine?” it is because in our
horror and disbelief we, ourselves, cannot actually imagine it. We hear stories
of the violent atrocities committed by ISIS and we shake our heads, saying “can
you imagine that?” That reality simply does not fit into our frame of
reference. But sometimes we lack this imagination in the positive sense of the
phrase. “She donated a kidney to a complete stranger,” or we see a beautiful
painting and say I can’t imagine. Sometimes we observe something that seems to
be larger than life, full of more beauty or compassion than we thought was
possible. When we hear this reading from Mark, a fitting response very well
might be “I can’t imagine.”
Mark, in telling us about these two healing stories of
Jesus, is resetting our imagination. In the case of the bleeding woman, she had
tried everything that was imaginable to be healed. You may have heard that the
problem with this woman was her ritual impurity because she was bleeding. And
while that that is technically true that she would have been considered to be
ritually unclean, that wasn’t likely her chief concern. The Galilee region is
about 100 miles from Jerusalem; the fact that she wouldn’t be allowed to enter
the Temple didn’t affect her on a daily basis. But her discomfort was a
problem. Notice that she’s only referred to as “the hemorrhaging woman,” and
that may have been how her neighbors knew her as well. She came to be defined
by her disease, and that is a problem.
Hers is a story that is, unfortunately, imaginable. The
text notes that “She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all
that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” The problem isn’t
a new one- we have systems that become so large and complex, that the founding
principles get confused with year-end goals. Is the hospital or insurance
company supposed to make money for its stock holders, or make sure that people
can afford and receive the care they need? Are schools supposed to prioritize
the needs of each student, or make sure that they do well on standardized
tests? Is the criminal justice system intended to punish people or rehabilitate
them? Does the Church exist to heal a broken world or to make sure that everyone
thinks the right things? This isn’t to condemn any of the people involved in
these systems, but embedded within this Gospel text is an indictment against systems
that redefine success in terms of their own self-aggrandizement instead of
living into their mission. That is hard to imagine, and a part of our response
to this text might be addressing these broken systems.
The unimaginable is also found in the healing of Jairus’
daughter. Here, a young girl has died far too young. When Jesus finally makes it
to the house, they say “why bother him any longer, she’s dead; it’s over.” But
Jesus answers, “she’s not dead, just sleeping.” And so they ridiculed Jesus.
“Can you imagine?,” they laughed, “this guy thinks she’s just sleeping.” They
could not imagine. It was the perfect chance for Jesus to do the unimaginable.
He said that she was sleeping, not as a refutation that she had died, but as
the unimaginable proclamation that death is not final. Imagine that.
But, at least for me, it actually is really hard to
imagine these stories. The author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor writes “The
trouble with miracles is that it is hard to witness them without wanting one of
your own.” Don’t we all know someone who could use a bit of this miraculous
healing? Sometimes I really wish I could have been an editor to the Bible. I
would have made sure that there was a story in the gospels about a time when Jesus
went to heal someone, but they died instead of getting up and walking, because that’s
the way life is. When I read these stories about healing, I really struggle
with the fact that healing seems to be stuck in the pages of the Bible. We talk
about healing of the soul, even if not the body, and part of me gets that. But
I really wish that we had a story about Jesus encountering that reality. We
want a part of this miracle that Jesus provides, and when we don’t find it, we
look for it different ways.
So we often
talk about how healing doesn’t always mean a cure. In the midst of her own
illness, the 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich said “All shall
be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” In the end, isn’t that what
we all hope and trust is true: regardless of our scars and mistakes, that we
will be redeemed in God’s perfection? Despite whatever evils are suffered here
and now, we proclaim that God’s glory awaits us. We even say that suffering
produces character and brings us closer to suffering of Jesus on the Cross. And
some point to the girl’s rising from death as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ Resurrection,
and therefore ours as well.
The
theological word for this is “eschatology,” which deals with the idea of “final
things.” In the Prayer Book, there is
a wonderful prayer that prays “let the whole world see and know that things
which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are
being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by
him through whom all things were made.” That is a prayer of eschatology; a
prayer that trusts that all things shall be well. So even though we might not
be cured of our ailments and our loved ones are not raised from the dead, we
trust that in God’s time, all shall be healed and made well.
I really
do believe in God’s power to bring healing to brokenness, and that, at the
last, all things will be redeemed. But I’m not convinced that’s what this
passage from Mark is talking about. After all, Mark didn’t even feel the need
to editorialize the story to make sure that we read it as a metaphor. But yet,
that is how we often read and hear this passage- as talking about future
salvation instead present salvation. Perhaps it is our discomfort with the
story and our apparent lack of such miraculous healings that make us search for
something deeper. So we read this a parable about what happens to us when we
are dead instead of hearing Jesus speak to our life.
The
preacher Peter Gomes said that “fear is the poverty of imagination.” Jesus
says, “do not fear; but believe,” that is, “don’t be afraid, but open your
imagination.” I wonder if our fear that time is running out to be healed has
skewed our reading of this passage. Has our inability to see outcomes other
than the ones right in front of us restricted our ability to find any Good News?
When we say “I can’t imagine,” what possibilities to we miss out on?
What
might these stories be conveying about the way in which God imagines the world?
Let’s stay in the story and consider what very real and practical things
happened for each of the women who were healed. For the bleeding woman, she
stopped bleeding and whatever pain and humiliation that she was in has ended.
She is now able to be a part of the community in a different and more complete
way. And there is also the possibility that she might have children. New life
can be imagined for her, both in literal and metaphoric ways.
The
story is the same for Jairus’ daughter, who died at the age of twelve, the same
number of years that the woman had been bleeding. Being twelve years old means
she is entering her child-bearing years. But death snatched that possibility
from her. And, of course, in her death, she was taken out of the community. But
in being healed by Jesus, she is restored to her community, and given the
opportunity to have new life come through her, just like the no-longer-bleeding
woman.
What if
this is what we are to imagine as being possible after hearing this reading-
that Jesus is able to restore us to our community and enables new life to come
through us. What if this is a narrative about present salvation more than it is
a future promise? That might be more than we can imagine. You don’t necessarily
have to give birth to experience this present gift of new life. We all know
that it takes a village to raise a child- so you might tutor children in an
after school program, you might support the school system’s Impact Summer
Reading Program, you might work with Food for Thought, making sure that no
child goes hungry. Perhaps new life for you is about the wider Creation, so you
take part in working to protect and preserve the environment, or you volunteer
at the animal shelter. Even listening to a friend or neighbor who is going
through a tough time or has recently lost a loved one might be a way in which
to bring new life to a new situation in their life. Can you imagine the way in
which new life might come through you?
And I’m
also wondering how we might welcome back people who are restored to the
community after being away. We all hear about the mental and physical scars
that many veterans bear when they come back to civilian life. And when people
are released from prison, they might not know where to turn or how to
reincorporate back into society. There are ways for us to welcome them into our
community- first by acknowledging their presence and reality, but also by
reaching out to them with compassion. Can you imagine a way to form a community
where all are welcome?
Our
imaginations are the most powerful and subversive tool that we have. So often
though, fear and anxiety reduce what we imagine might be possible. As Mark
tells the story, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years is cured of her
bleeding, and a twelve year old girl who died is brought back to life. Can you
imagine? Though we long for this sort healing today, and we hope for it to be
fully realized in the future, the fact that such miracles seem to be restricted
to the Bible constricts our imaginative interpretation to only having salvation
come after death. Can you imagine though that, today, salvation has come?
Restoration to the community is never out of reach, and new life can come
through you today. As St. Paul wrote in one of his letters, “Glory to God whose
power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Amen.
