13th Sunday of the Year
In today's gospel Jesus returns to the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, a journey from Gentile to Jewish territory. He is on home ground again. On his return a large crowd gathers around him. One person comes forward, a Jewish official. Jairus has an important position in the local community. It is his job to supervise religious services in the synagogue. But his approach to Jesus here is not on official business. He has a personal difficulty. His daughter has fallen seriously ill and he begs Jesus to heal come to his home and heal her. Jairus and Jesus are, religiously and socially, poles apart. Jairus, a pillar of the local religious community, approaches Jesus, a maverick and a virtual religious outcast, in his hour of need. Jesus and Jairus disregard the man-made barriers that separate them. Jairus recognises his need for Jesus and Jesus acknowledges the faith of Jairus. And that faith is rewarded.
Mark makes a big thing about the crowd pressing upon Jesus only because he's trying to distinguish the suffering woman's touch from that of others. Jesus emphasizes that only she touches Him with faith, the same faith which He demands of Jairus when he's told his daughter has died. "Do not be afraid," Jesus says. "Just have faith." (I'll elaborate a bit on this in a few minutes).
Christians might do many of the same things others do, but Jesus expect us to do them with faith, recognizing something in our actions that other's don't perceive.
That's why Paul can ask his Corinthians community to be generous in giving to the famine-plagued churches in Judaea (II Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15). These were the communities that most hassled Paul over his practice of baptizing Gentiles without first converting them to Judaism. In some sense, they were the "enemy."
That seems to be why he begins his request by reminding his readers that they excel in faith. Only people of faith would be willing to help those who didn't want them to exist. Among other things, this collection was Paul's way of testing the faith of the communities he evangelized. Would they cooperate with his passion of unifying all Christian churches, even those who held different theologies from their own? One had to have lots of faith to participate in such a project.
In the second miracle story a woman touches the garment of Jesus and she is cured of a malady that has afflicted her for twelve years. She tries to melt back anonymously into the crowd but Jesus will not permit this to happen. He insists on asking who touched his clothes. Clearly, Jesus doesn't want to be treated as a mobile relic, a magical touchstone that requires no relationship. His question and his looks bring the woman forward. Frightened and trembling, as the gospel writer tells us, she falls at the feet of Jesus and tells him the whole truth. It is only when she meets the person of Jesus that her action is approved and her cure confirmed.
The purpose of the personal meeting is not to publicly humiliate the woman or to upbraid her for 'stealing a cure', so to speak. It is the intention of Jesus to commend her for her faith and let her go in peace. While the gospel stories today are drawn-out and somewhat elaborate, the underlying message is simple: if we are to be healed and forgiven by Jesus, we must enter into a relationship with him. God enters our lives through human encounters, not through seemingly magical intervention. This relationship which every Christian has with Jesus is established and sustained through our own private prayer, through goodness to our neighbours, and through the public sacraments of the Church. Into this community of carers we now welcome these two little girls. In participating in their public baptism, we as a community are undertaking to look out for them and to care for them. And the sponsors do this on behalf of the community. The sponsors represent the community.