Two Daughters: Sermon on Mark 5:21-43

Good Evening.

Tonight I’m going to be a picking up a story from the book of Mark chapter five. It’s a double story actually, a story within a story and really well known. It’s about two woman, or a woman and a girl, but two who are referred to as ‘daughters’.

So if you’ll turn there with me in your Bibles. Mark chapter 5, and we’ll be reading from verse 21:

²¹ When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. ²² Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and ²³ pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so she will be healed and live.” ²⁴ So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. ²⁵ And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. ²⁶ She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. ²⁷ When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” ²⁹ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

³⁰ At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹ “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

³² But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³ Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

³⁵ While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

³⁶ Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

³⁷ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.”⁴⁰ But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). ⁴² Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.”

May God bless to us the reading of His Holy Word, now and forever.

Let us pray: Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you and bring you glory. Spirit we invite you to speak to our hearts this evening

Amen.

Mark in writing this story uses a sandwiching technique, it’s really two stories in one, and they can be used to understand each other. So I’m going to look at understanding a little more about who these two ladies were, what they had in common and what was different, and then pick up some lessons we can take away with us.

The first similarity we see here is that this is a story of desperation. Two desperate people – a Father and an older lady. And both bring their desperation to Jesus. But here is where the difference sets in.

Jarius is a well-respected Synagogue leader. He as a man is entitled to speak with Jesus and implore him to come help. We can hear the desperation in his voice as he falls before Jesus. It could be very detrimental for his career for people to know he had gone to Jesus to ask for help – but he has reached the point where he will try ANYTHING to save his little girl.

The unnamed woman however has no status, no rights, and if anything comes from the margins of society. We are told that she has impoverished herself in search of medical treatment. And while she had spent all her money on treatment, none had helped – she had only become worse – many commentators actually reckon that physicians actually preyed on people like this, oppressing them further by promising cures, taking their money, and not helping at all. Due to the nature of her condition she cannot participate in normal life. She was unclean. She wouldn’t have been able to have children. She has no man to come implore for her, none who could help. And so where Jarius comes publicly, she sneaks up from behind, using the crowd as a cover, and in desperation musters up enough faith to believe that a simple touch of Jesus clothing would be enough.

In a moment of such beauty though, Jesus turns immediately and looks for her. Just as she knew that her bleeding had stopped, He knew that healing had been granted. That someone had needed His power and it had flowed out of him in response to her faith. And so he stops. In the middle of a dire emergency, in the middle of a Father’s desperation for help – he stops and he looks for her. She finds the courage to come before him, falls down as did Jarius and tells her story.

Jesus responds saying: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Daughter. She belongs. Not only is she healed from her condition but Jesus takes it a step further and welcomes her to the family – daughter. You had no one to speak for you, you have no man to care for you. But God is your Father, he welcomes and accepts you, he accepts your faith – you can go and be free from suffering and have peace.

Meanwhile, other men run up and inform Jarius that his daughter has died. It’s over. Don’t bother Jesus any more. Come be with the family – come mourn and grieve.

Jesus, finishing his conversation with the older woman, simply turns to Jarius and says – “Don’t be afraid. Just believe”… Jarius – you see the faith this woman had? Have the same kind of faith. Jarius – it may seem hopeless – but don’t give up, don’t give into fear… Faith Jarius, just believe.

As they arrive at the house, Jesus addresses the weeping and wailing crowd, but when he tells them she is only asleep he is laughed at. So he has the house emptied and takes just the parents and his three closest disciples, and taking the little girl’s hand, raises her to life again.

Two desperate people find that on meeting Jesus hope and life is restored, whether the healing was gained by reaching out in faith, Or Jesus reaching out and taking a hand – the encounter with Jesus has miraculous consequences.

But I’m going to stop here and look at two other groups of people in the story who almost missed what was going on and what was going to happen.

Firstly we have the disciples. Mark describes to us a scene where the crowd is jostling together, it’s a tight squeeze… I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in that kind of a situation, maybe leaving a cricket match or standing in a queue where people keep joining in at the back even where there is no space… for those of you who were here last week you will remember the video Theo showed with Zacchaeus, where he desperately tries to get a glimpse of Jesus but is simply shoved away by the crowds, and so climbs a tree. This is the kind of crowd that is around – and anyone who had heard Jarius’s request would be pushing to see a miracle occur.

And it is in this hustle and bustle and jostle, that Jesus stops and asks – Who touched me?? In fact he even takes it a step further and says – Who touched my clothes?

In verse 31 we see the disciples’ response:

³¹ “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ 

 You can surely understand how ridiculous that question sounds – and the disciples must have been incredulous, almost laughing, saying – Jesus, are you serious? What do you mean – “Who touched me?”

But Jesus knows. He knows what has happened. But he gives this woman an opportunity here for even a greater healing. Not only has her flow of blood been stopped, but she is then commended for her faith and sent away in peace – restored, whole and accepted.

Jesus was so in touch with the Spirit’s movements that in the midst of busy and bustle, in the midst of a crises – He is aware that the Spirit was at work, and that there was a miracle in progress.

And so my first thought for tonight is – how many miracles are we missing out on because of the crush of the crowd? How much of the Spirit’s work do we ignore because we’re too busy or in crises management mode? How much more might we see of God if we allowed ourselves to become in tune with what and where and how he is moving and align ourselves with that?

The second group I want to look at are the group at Jarius house when they arrive. The wailers and mourners. It is possible as was customary at the time that these were paid professionals to come and weep for the child. And the stakes here are high – we are no longer dealing with a serious illness. This child is dead. It is beyond help. It’s over.

And again we can understand when Jesus offers an alternative – she is not dead, only sleeping – that the crowds laugh and scoff. Clearly this man is out of his mind. I think today people would do more than laugh and scoff – but would perhaps even be angry… how dare you give these parents false hope?

And so they laugh at the impossibility of what he is suggesting, in the same way that Sarah laughed at the idea of being able to have a child. Facts are facts. The girl is dead. I’m over 90 I can’t have a child. Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days… he’ll be decomposing by now… Jesus was flogged and crucified… the disciples watched him die. These are the facts.

And yet we serve a God for whom all things are possible. I wonder sometimes if we aren’t too much like the crowd… we battle to believe that it’s possible for God to really do anything contrary to the facts. And so again we miss the miraculous because we have laughed off the possibility of God really changing anything.

We miss the miraculous because our lives are full of things crowding into them that we don’t feel the touch of the Spirit. And we miss the miraculous because we believe we know better, and instead of asking, trusting and allowing God to work in any way he chooses, we believe that a situation is too far gone, too dead, too much….. you fill in the blank…. For God to truly work.

The last reason I believe we miss what God is doing is because we believe we know how and who he should do it for. Peter Wood writes a blog, and in his blog he describes this entire story in this way:

"It’s a narrative of two healings.
A dying little girl, the daughter of synagogue leader Jairus, and the no-name, hopeless nobody woman who has been that way for twelve years.
It is also a narrative of the man of power. The healing rabbi from Nazareth.
Could it be a narrative about who is most deserving of his attention?

Given the views of sickness and suffering as outcomes of God’s judgement and prejudice for the righteous in Jesus’ day, it may well have been.

If it is, then there is no contest as to who is more deserving.
Jairus’ daughter wins.

She has her whole life ahead of her and anyway she is from the correct family with the correct connections. At twelve years of age she is ready to begin being fertile and menstrual.

The woman in the crowd is a hopeless case. Already judged by the futility of her expended resources and the duration of the disease that renders her permanently unclean, she is a waste of the master’s time and his limited power. Her life is finished.

In fact, the very guerilla tactic she employs by sneaking up on him under cover of the crowd to be healed, is in itself grounds for her disqualification.

With all the drama of a novel rushing to its climax, Mark inserts the older hopeless woman into the story of Jesus’ mission to heal the just girl. The old bleeding woman is an interruption and an energy thief to boot!

Yet, as the story unfolds both are healed. The young and the old, the hopeful and the hopeless.
There is enough time, power, compassion, and grace to go round so that no one needs be written off.

I wonder when our selective, cozy, judgemental congregations will learn that?

We just cannot determine who Jesus should prioritize for his attention.

At times of great disaster medical personnel are trained to practice triage. To decide who is most in need of medical attention and care.  The injured are tagged with tape.  Green for not serious. Yellow for serious. Red for critical. Black for terminal.

If Mark’s edit of the gospel tells us anything it is this…

It’s time to pack away your tape and labels. There is no need for triage in the kingdom of God."

God has no favourites. He isn’t going to work in this one’s life and not in that one. We are no more deserving of his attention that anyone outside the walls of this building. We are also no less deserving – the beautiful truth of grace is that there is enough love and compassion, healing and peace to go around.

There is enough for me, for you and for those you love.

Two daughters. From completely opposite sides of the spectrum, wealthy and poor, old and young, with status and without, within a community and marginalised, approaching Jesus publicly or privately…

And yet God knew them both. God had time for them both. God healed them both.

Let’s go into our weeks and not miss out on what God may be wanting to do in our lives. Let’s find moments in amidst the crazy to be aware of the Spirit moving, Let’s choose to “not be afraid and only believe” even when situations in our lives, in our families or in our country may seem beyond God’s help. And let’s believe that this grace and peace and healing and inclusion is available to everyone we meet, and available for you and for me.

Let us pray.

Authentically Me

Good morning!

In the Cambridge English dictionary the definition of Authentic is given as “If something is authentic, it is ​real, ​true, or what ​people say it is.” Thus if our Christianity is to be authentic, it must be real, true and what we say it is.

And this is what authenticity really means – for something to be Authentic it can’t be a copy or a replica – it needs to be the real thing. The real deal. 

The original.

And our world is so desperately looking for something real. We are inundated with false advertising, false promises, and false prophets. From the big scale politicians who promise the earth but deliver dust, to close friends who lie to us – we all know what it’s like to look for truth, for authentic love, authentic relationships, authentic leadership – and the world is looking for the authentic church.

Brennan Manning made the following statement that has often been quoted “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

And apparently Ghandi said, “I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity.” Whether he said it or not the truth remains. People look at the church today and they judge us on being Authentic.

Are we for real? What does it mean to be authentic?

Last week we looked at the basis for our faith – he looked at what it meant to be authentically Christian. He presented the gospel to us and challenged us to follow through with where we were personally – have we handed over our lives to Christ? Have we admitted to him that we cannot do it alone and we need him – that we need his forgiveness and his mercy? Have we abdicated the throne in order to allow Him to be King and Master?

This morning – we are going to be looking at what it means to be authentically me. Who are we? Having understood the gospel, how should we view ourselves? How can we be authentic, true and real versions of who God made us to be?

Our reading to help us unpack this idea comes from Romans chapter 12 – if you’ll turn there with me in your Bibles its on page…– Romans chapter 12 and we’re just going to read the first three verses:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

May God bless to us the reading of His holy Word, now and forever

Let us pray: Father may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you – Lord speak to us, to our hearts through your Word this morning. Reveal your truth. In Jesus name we pray – Amen.

The book of Romans is one of the best systematic layouts of the gospel we have anywhere in the Bible. Paul slowly and systematically unpacks the basics of the Gospel in the first eleven chapters, from unpacking the fact that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” to “the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” to the Spirit testifying with our Spirits that we are God’s children.

It finishes with a doxology, a praise song to God at the end of chapter 11 –

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counsellor?”
³⁵ “Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?”
³⁶ For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen.

And then we launch into chapter 12 with the word, “Therefore…”

“Therefore I urge you…”

And this is an important word to begin our journey into what it means to be authentically me – because we need to start with what we have already established. In many ways the first 11 chapters are what it means to be authentically Christian – from here on it looks at what it means to be authentically me because of what God has done.

This is the shift from what God has done for us – to what that means and looks like in our day to day lives. It moves from an explanation of this is what God has done – to this is what we do in response to his mercy.

And it’s one of the glorious truths of the Christian faith and one that sets it apart from all others. In other faiths, and even in the world’s way of seeing things – you earn… you do in order to get, you perform tasks and achieve things to gain approval, love acceptance or mercy.

Here we are given grace and mercy and acceptance and love – and therefore… we respond.

Our first place of understanding who we are and what it means to be authentically me, is to understand who God is and what God has done for us. It is understanding that God loves us so much that he gave his only Son that we might have life. Not because of anything we have done, or will do. Not because of who we are or where we live or what we look like. Not because we are worse or better than anyone else.

But because God loves us. Because he chose us. Because he cherishes us. Because he delights in us.

Being authentically me means knowing that I am loved, accepted, cherished and that I belong to him. I don’t need to try be something I’m not, I don’t need to try earn his favour, I don’t need His approval – I have it.

It is a place of security. A firm, solid rock to base all that we feel and think about ourselves on. A port from where we go out and live as the loved children of God.

If you remember the definition of authentic from earlier, it’s that which is real, true and it matches what people say and people do. The Scriptures tell us what is real and true about us – but part of the struggle of being authentic is that we often tend to journey between two extremes when it comes to what we think and believe about ourselves.

There is the inflated self – the person who believes that they are the Master of their fate, the self-made-man, the one in charge and in control and who has it all together all of the time. ‘I did it my way’ is the song on their lips. And people like this are often praised for their confidence and surety. Trust no one but yourself. You get nothing for nothing in this world. But it is not true, and it is not real. Our very next breath is a gift from our Maker. We cannot control our own heartbeats let alone the course of our lives. And the truth that the gospel tells us here is that we cannot save ourselves – the reality is that God reached down in mercy and pulled us up. That is what is true and real.

The second trap is that we live with a deflated sense of self. This is the feeling of unworthiness, of being unloved, not good enough, and unimportant. Interestingly, this low self-esteem can often lead to behaviours and character traits that seem contrary to it. Brene Brown, a researcher in the areas of vulnerability and authenticity talks about narcissism saying:

“When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.” 

The deflated sense of self says – I’m not loveable or I’ve done such and such that God could never forgive me. What we don’t like to see is what this really is saying is that God isn’t enough. That the cross wasn’t enough. That my sin, badness, ordinariness, unlovely-ness is greater than God’s forgiveness, grace, delight and love.

And the problem is that both extremes result in us gazing at ourselves, 

whether with delight or disgust and not gazing at God.

How do we do this? How do we learn to be authentic? How do we fix our warped perceptions and skewed ideas of who we are – and become truly real, become who God says we are?

Our passage gives us three tasks.

Firstly it tells us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God as our spiritual act of worship. Authentic worship is what we’ll be looking at in detail next week.

The message Bible has a lovely way of saying verse one of Romans 12:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Worship is about living a life that is focused on God in every way. Offering everything we do to him – keeping our eyes on Him not just as we stand here and sing songs – but Monday through Saturday. That we do everything knowing that it is an offering to Him. Our work is an offering. Our rest is an offering. Our very lives are His.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians talks about whatever you do – do it for the glory of God. And this simply helps gets our focus right. We realise it’s not about us but about how we are honouring him. But at the same time we have purpose and meaning – we live lives of peace, justice, mercy, graciousness and love because we live to honour him.

The second task we have is to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed.

E.E Cummings wrote, "To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight- and never stop fighting.”  

The standards the world sets for us result in us comparing ourselves to others and judging both others and ourselves. This results in us feeling better than “those people” and having an inflated self, or feeling that we’ll never be as good as “those people” and having a deflated self.

The world’s standards are false. We are constantly being told – This is beautiful. This is perfection. This is success. This is happiness. This is love. If you have this job, this house, this car, this brand of cool drink or pair of jeans you meet the standard.

We see this judgment come through in parenting styles, in how you should dress, in what you should do with your money and where you should live.

And it goes even deeper than that. We see it in what are acceptable character traits. Being business smart is placed higher than having integrity. Being right over being kind. Doing things quickly and cheaply rather than doing them well.

We live our lives constantly being told by the world what we should do and who we should be.

God’s word tells us who we are – and because of that what we should do. Our task is to change our measuring stick. Throw out the comparisons you make of yourself to others. Ask God who it is that you are and who he is making you to be.

Verse 2 in the Message Bible reads:

 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Our final task comes in verse three

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Our first task is to worship, our second is to not compare ourselves to the world, and the last one here is to be real and honest about who you are, both in how you think and in what you present to the world.

Think of yourself with sober judgement… sound judgement… with modesty. Realise your incredible worth – the fact that someone loves you enough that he was prepared to die for you. Realise that while loved and chosen, we are just dust. Psalm 103 says it so beautifully – and compares it so clearly saying:

“As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
 But from everlasting to everlasting
    is the Lord’s love.”

In our interaction with the world, we need to remember who we are. And we need to be secure enough in it to not present any other self, other than one is broken, sinful, and limited, and yet loved, secure and accepted. We need to show the world that we are simply servants and worshippers of a great God, and that any glory actually belongs to Him. We need to present to the world a real person, not someone who is perfect, or who has it all figured out, or who knows it all and therefore can judge. But what if rather we went out as fellow travellers on a journey, seeking God, being transformed and learning to worship Him with our lives.

Being Authentically me means knowing who I am before God. It means understanding who he has created me to be, and rejoicing in the fact that all his work is good and beautiful and his plans can be trusted. It means not falling into traps of thinking we are better or worse than we are – but rather realising that in order to see ourselves clearest we need to look at the mirror God holds up rather than the world’s mirror. And then we need to live out this truth into the world.

I pray that as you go into your week, that this will be something you ponder over, pray about and ask for God’s help in understanding what it means to be authentic.

God who am I to you?

God who do you want me to be?

God help me to see the truth.

God help me not to be caught up by the world.

God give me the faith and courage to live as you have called me to live everyday.

Amen.