Cross Examinations: Presence Isn't Power

Lectionary Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

TEXT: Mark 5:21-34

LISTENING TO THE TEXT

Mark combines two miracles accounts with the story of a woman who has been bleeding her life away for twelve years with the story of Jesus raising Jairus's daughter from the dead. Jairus is well known and identified in the story. Conversely, the woman remains nameless and faceless in the crowd.

Her predicament has left her a physically hurting, socially an outcast, and religiously a sinner. The length of her illness suggests she has exhausted her financial resources on medical treatment. According to Leviticus 15:19-33 her flow of blood poses the danger of ritual impurity for anyone who comes near her. And with a bleeding uterus she must bear the weight of social shame and condemnation from those who believed her illness was the direct result of some personal sin.

Jairus is an insider - the woman is an outsider. Jairus is respected - the woman is ridiculed. Jairus has power - the woman is without power. Yet, despite her hopeless predicament something about Jesus inspired new hope in her. Based on Jesus' past healings she believed that merely touching his clothes would be sufficient to heal her. She was content to slip away again unnoticed in the crowd. All she wanted was relief - Jesus desired a relationship.

Jesus' insisted the woman identify herself indicating that it wasn't the touch of her hand that brought the healing she sought - it was the grasp of her faith. "Her touch had brought together two elements - faith and Jesus - and that had made it effective."1 Not only was she freed from her suffering, she became a "daughter" of God (5:34).

Many were in Jesus' presence that day - only one experienced his power. Many touched Jesus that day - only one really touched him. As is often the case in the Scriptures, those who thought they were "insiders" discovered they were not, and those who knew they were "outsiders" discovered grace. The one who entered the scene as an unnamed woman, exited the scene as a child of God.

ENGAGING THE TEXT
THE NEED

To be holistic people we need God's healing touch to pervade every aspect of our lives: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But being in God's divine presence does not guarantee the experience of his divine power. The rush of religious activity does not insure intimacy with Jesus. We can know about God and never really know his healing power. We must recognize our need for God, and reach out with faith believing only His touch can bring our lives back into balance.

GOD'S ANSWER

When we reach out to touch God we are amazed to discover that through His Son, God was already reaching out to touch us. God's powerful touch is not prompted by our potential, prestige, or personality. Jesus' divine authority is initiated solely by His compassionate love and acceptance for desperate and disregarded people.

OUR RESPONSE

Our response to God's unconditional love is faith (James 5:13-15). Faith is a gift from God - but faith is not passive. It is our 1. William Lane, The Gospel of Mark: New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 193. active response to God's active grace. Faith persistently believes that regardless of what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands, God's powerful touch can make us whole. For that conviction we risk our very lives, only to discover that in so doing we find our very lives!

PREACHING THE TEXT

(For a full manuscript of this sermon, go to www.preachersmagazine.org).
The crisp images of this miracle story practically beg the preacher to fill in the blanks. Eugene Lowry suggests there are at least four ways to preach a narrative sermon.2
Running the story is effective when the biblical story is fairly complex and lengthy. Because the preacher does not need to transcend the story for contextual information or break up the flow of thought with contemporary analogies, the biblical story is entirely the sermon.

Delaying the story is effective when the preacher perceives a pastoral need within the congregation of such importance that they decide to begin with that issue. Often the chosen text is not even read until well into the sermon. Once the problem has been named and given time to gain complication the preacher then moves to the text for resolution.

Suspending the story begins inside the text, runs into a problem, and hence requires the telling of that story to be suspended while another text provides a way out of the dilemma. Once accomplished, the sermonic process moves back to the central text for the completion of the message.

Alternating the story features the recurring movement of the sermon from inside to outside (or vice verse) the biblical story. Because more transitions are involved, it is a bit more complicated, if done well. The key here is in the multiple shifts or transitions between the text and other sermon material.

I am convinced that when a text is explored thoroughly, with the preacher asking, "What is the focus here?" rather than "What is the message here?" the homiletical work is energized remarkably. Moreover, the question of focus naturally evokes the question about the turn: "How can this issue get resolved, and where is resolution to be found? Is it in the text, or before it, or after it, or outside it?" Answers to these questions very quickly and quite naturally will suggest an obvious shape the final message can take.

I have chosen to alternate the story by beginning with contemporary life situations that would be similar to the stigma and bitterness that this unnamed woman must have felt. The seemingly hopeless examples given up front not only serve to pique the interest of the listeners, it also helps to build the necessary tension before introducing the biblical story.

Introducing the biblical story will not immediately bring relief to the conflict. Rather, it could deepen the life questions being asked, making the final gospel resolution of Jesus' wholistic touch all the more powerful.

An appropriate means of response would be to conclude the sermon with an invitation extended to those who would like to come and be anointed with oil for physical, emotional, and spiritual healing in their lives.

2. Lowry, How to Preach a Parable.