Cleanliness and Godliness: Mark 5:21-43 - Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

²¹When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. ²²Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³and 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.” ²⁴So he went with him.
  And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.
  And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. ²⁶She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” ²⁹Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” ³¹And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” ³²He looked all around to see who had done it. ³³But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
 
  ³⁵While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” ³⁶But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” ³⁷He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” ⁴⁰And 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. ⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” ⁴²And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Terry Clark

In 1968, Mister Fred Rogers shocked America… But not by breaking from his tender, gentle persona…

In an episode of his children’s television program, he is cooling off on a hot day by soaking his feet in a plastic wading pool.  Officer Clemmons happens to be walking by on neighborhood patrol, and Mister Rogers invites him to soak his feet in that same pool.  By the way, Officer Clemmons is African American.

NPR

This may not shock us, but this was 1968—the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  Swimming pools throughout the country were still segregated.  White people would often dump bleach or acid into pools that blacks had been swimming in, as if they had contaminated the water.

This is an example of Fred Rogers’ genius.  If he had said something to oppose racism and segregation, they might’ve cancelled his show and most of us would’ve never heard of him.  But with this simple gesture, Mr. Rogers said more by his actions than words ever could…. No one can argue with Mr. Rogers that this is the way we should live with one another.

Yet we still have this irrational fear of other people—most often the people who are most different from ourselves.  We don’t want to be troubled by their troubles.  Sometimes, they are people who are experiencing hardships that would be the realization of our worst nightmares.  Or, for whatever reason, we don’t want them as neighbors.

In today’s Gospel, we encounter three persons for whom the absolute worst has happened.  First, we are introduced to Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue.  His daughter is at the point of death.  He falls at Jesus’ feet and begs Jesus to lay hands on her.

Then out from the crowd comes a woman who’s been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She is completely destitute and with no hope of recovery.

Bear in mind that because she was bleeding, she was unclean.  She was morally and legally obligated to live in complete isolation from other people—lest she make them unclean.  Yet since she pushed her way through a large crowd of people to touch Jesus, all of those persons—and Jesus—became unclean.  Anyone unclean was unfit or unworthy to be in the presence of the holy God.

Jesus paid no attention to the cleanness or uncleanness of the people he served.  If he was going to become unclean to love them, so be it.  And this is precisely where we as disciples fall short: we are far too unwilling to get ourselves dirty with other people’s uncleanness, whatever it may be.

Christian love and compassion are so easily sacrificed to our insatiable need to be safe, to be secure, and to be “in the right.”  We lay aside mercy for power and prestige. Instead of putting our bear feet in the troubled waters our neighbors tread, we stand at a safe distance-- and we judge.  We criticize.  We shame.  We count them unworthy of any compassion.

I failed in this regard not too long ago at a synod event: I had just met an African American man who’d been homeless, drug-addicted, and estranged from his family.  But Jesus had healed him and made him clean.  His testimony was inspiring to me.  And yet, immediately after he departed from me, I pumped hand sanitizer out of a dispenser.  It hit me like a lightning bolt: I felt contaminated by a fellow child of God. I wanted to keep his blackness, his poverty, and his disease at a safe distance from my white, male, middle-class world.  I wanted to be cleansed of any thought that the same things could happen to me, minus his race.

Jairus, a man prominence and honor, finds himself in every parent’s worst nightmare.  A woman had been bleeding for twelve years, enduring unspeakable physical pain along with isolation and ridicule.  It wasn’t because they’d sinned.  These horrors don’t care if you’re male or female, rich or poor, Gentile or Jew.  But in the midst of that horror, Jesus delivers them.  A woman estranged from God because of her bleeding is named “daughter.”  A twelve-year-old girl is helped back on her feet.

Jesus is not afraid to immerse himself in your troubled waters.  This is exactly what he did for you on the cross.  He takes on your vulnerability.  He immerses himself in your uncleanness.  He forgives your sin.  When the unthinkable happens, his grace that raises you up again.

Your challenge is to own your vulnerability and uncleanness, and face it with faith.  Your challenge is to learn to see the face of Jesus in people who are struggling to keep their head above the troubled waters they’re in.  As our nation is bitterly divided over issues of race, immigration, and political persuasion, your challenge as an American Christian is to see beyond those differences and embrace God’s image in that person.  We as a church are challenged to leave behind the safety of our sanctuary and meet people where they are.

Love without judgment has the power to heal.  To welcome the stranger is to discover again God’s welcome for you.

Christian discipleship has an unclean feel to it—because our priorities and pursuits are so different from the rest of the world.  We don’t barricade ourselves within walls built out of our success, our good fortune, and everything we think makes us better than everyone else.  We don’t prequalify people before we count them as “one of us.”  As people of the one who took on our uncleanness at the cross, we minister amid the uncleanness of this world.  We embrace mercy over judgment, just like God does.  If cleanliness is next to Godliness, it is because mercy and compassion heals