Making Jairus' Daughter Visible
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
For June 30, 2024:
Making Jairus’ Daughter Visible
by Mary Austin
Mark 5:21-43
Jairus’ daughter is sitting next to us at the movies, babysitting for our kids, working at the mall, and going to church with us. We pass her on the sidewalk, walking her dog, and see her at the grocery store. We get glimpses of her life when we ride the bus together or sit near each other at a restaurant.
Our version of Jairus’ daughter could be named Emma, Sophie, or even James or Liam, or perhaps the modern incarnation of Jairus’ daughter is non-binary, and likes to be called Jay or El.
The illness of Jairus’ daughter is puzzling and mysterious, and so is the mental health crisis affecting teenagers in Western countries. In 2021, “the American Academy of Pediatrics along with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children's Hospital Association declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.” The return to more typical life after the pandemic has eased some of the strain, and yet teenagers are still suffering. In 2022, the National Institutes of Health reported that “almost half (44%) of high schoolers reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in the last year. Some of these feelings were also linked to experiences of racism, social stigma around gender and sexual identity, and sexual violence.”
Jairus’ daughter goes unnamed — let’s call her Miriam. Miriam’s illness is hidden away, invisible to everyone until her father intervenes. In the same way, our teenagers’ struggles happen largely out of sight, unless we really look. Or, until we have to pay attention, forced into action by a crisis.
Jairus and Miriam are inviting us to see the illness all around us.
In the Scriptures
In the original story, Jairus is determined to get help for his daughter. He is important enough to push and shove his way through the huge crowd around Jesus to get Jesus’ attention. Perhaps his household servants helped him squeeze his way through the crowd, making a path for him, so he could beg Jesus to come to his home and heal his daughter. Jairus clearly loves his daughter enough to fall at the grubby feet of a traveling preacher, abandoning all dignity to beg over and over for help.
(To maintain the flow of the original story, we invite you to switch over to Dean Feldmeyer’s reflection on the woman who touches Jesus’ garment and is healed. Then, come back.)
Jesus is not a quitter.
Even though people report that Jairus’ daughter is dead, Jesus continues on to the family’s home. People laugh at him there, and he still doesn’t give up. His comment, “Do not fear and only believe” echoes his conversation with the disciples when he quiets the storm. Jesus wades into a different kind of storm here and offers the same counsel. This healing, like the woman who touches Jesus’ hem, happens with an audience, this time a smaller one.
No matter how many times Jesus tells people not to say anything, that must have been impossible. On the other side of the healing, people must be bursting with awe, thanksgiving, surprise, and confusion. They have to say something!
In the News
In our version of Jairus’ daughter, teenagers are struggling with mental health issues, and “it remains the case that a wide variety of alarming indicators — from mental health hospitalizations to anxiety and depression diagnoses — did abruptly increase starting in the early 2010s in a wide range of Western countries. And in virtually every case, the increase was significantly larger among girls than among boys. If we were looking at random noise, we would not expect to see this largely uniform gendered pattern.”
Like Jairus, parents of teenagers are desperate for help, begging for support with a problem that’s hard to understand. Jairus stands in for all concerned parents and their anxiety, begging for any kind of help.
Research notes that the risks of social media use are linked with various factors. One may be how much time teens spend on these platforms. In a study focusing on 12- to 15-year-olds in the United States, spending three hours a day using social media was linked to a higher risk of mental health concerns. That study was based on data collected in 2013 and 2014 from more than 6,500 participants. Another study looked at data on more than 12,000 teens in England between the ages of 13 to 16. The researchers found that using social media more than three times a day predicted poor mental health and well-being in teens.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been in the news recently contending that “smartphones and the addicting social media apps we download onto them have lured the world’s youths away from those activities that are indispensable to healthy child development — such as outdoor play, face-to-face conversation with friends, and sleep — and trapped them in a digital realm that saps their self-esteem, drains their attention spans, and forces them to put on a perpetual, high-stakes performance of their own personalities. Smartphones have even hurt kids who don’t use them much, according to Haidt, because they’ve restructured communal life in harmful ways. Teenagers’ rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed as a result.”
Haidt’s critics fault him for having very little evidence to support his claims. “Yes, there is a correlation between self-reported social media use and poor mental health in some surveys of adolescents, Haidt’s critics acknowledge. But taken together, they argue, the empirical literature shows a weak to nonexistent association between screen time and mental health.” Whatever the cause is, our teenage friends are suffering, and could use a healing touch.
In the Sermon
The sermon might focus on the mental health challenges teenagers — and all of us — are facing. We think about healing for physical illnesses, and readily ask for prayers and help when we contend with surgery, cancer, and broken legs. Mental health stays hidden away, as if we can “cure” it with willpower. The sermon could explore the hidden side of mental illness, and the ways we find God’s grace in that part of our health, too.
Or, the sermon might look at the attention Jesus gives to this teenage girl and explore how we can be more focused in our attention to the teenagers we know in our neighborhoods, our churches, and our communities. Jesus doesn’t limit the attention he gives to this young girl, as we often do, thinking teenagers are hard to understand, difficult to talk to, and not interested in us, anyway.
Or, shifting the focus to the woman in the middle of the story, the sermon might explore how many adult women are being diagnosed with ADHD. “Boys aren’t the only people who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It also affects girls and young women and adults of both genders. Yet girls and women with ADHD are chronically underdiagnosed and undertreated. Individuals with this condition die about ten years earlier than those without it. They are also up to three times more likely to experience a variety of nonfatal negative life events, such as serious car accidents, unintended teen pregnancy, episodes of anxiety and depression, and suicide attempts. The use of medication can reduce the risks of many of these non-fatal events. Two recent studies demonstrated that treating ADHD with medications improves outcomes and can also save lives.” Mark links these two stories of the girl and the woman, and our health challenges are often linked, too. “Since girls are less likely to be disruptive in class and at home, they are less likely to be identified as a problem by teachers and parents, and so less likely to be referred to a clinician for diagnosis or treatment. But the fact that girls and women with ADHD may not be a problem for others doesn’t mean that they are not suffering in silence.”
Jesus is attentive to the people we might overlook in their hope for healing. A desperate woman and a teenage girl both get a gift from Jesus. What does that healing gift look like in our world?
SECOND THOUGHTS
The Doctor’s Touch
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 5:21-43
She had a been suffering from a slow hemorrhage of blood for 12 years and “she had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse.” (v. 26)
Today, chronic menstrual bleeding is called Menorrhagia and, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website, it is treated with any number of protocols that range from oral medicines to various types of surgery, none of which was available to the woman in the story.
So, she suffered. For 12 years, she suffered. She exhausted all of her resources going to doctors and only got worse. Then, just as she was thinking that her situation might just be hopeless, she decided to take a gamble and go see that itinerant preacher/teacher/healer — that Jesus guy.
In the Scriptures
Today, Mark gives us two stories about hopeless situations and wraps them around each other in a kind of theological pretzel.
In one, the temple official, Jairus, has a little daughter who is near death and will shortly appear to cross that threshold and Jesus will be told not to bother going. She’s dead. My colleague, Mary, is covering this story in her article for this week. Our focus is on the woman.
According to first century Jewish law, the flow of blood made her ritually unclean and, since she couldn’t get the blood to stop flowing, she was always, constantly unclean. For twelve years she couldn’t be touched, and she could not touch anyone in her community or even her own family for fear of contaminating them.
Twelve years without a single human touch. Ponder that for a moment.
The Menorrhagia is sapping her of her strength and her will to live. She is chronically anemic, listless, and weak. The one thing that might give her a sense of hope and even a little energy, the touch of another human being, has been denied her for these twelve long years.
Then she hears that this Jesus guy, the itinerant preacher/teacher/healer is going to be nearby and she decides to try, one more time, to drag herself out of her sickbed and onto the street where maybe they will make a space for her so she can go to him and ask…
But the crowd is too thick, too self-concerned, too rowdy, too loud and she finds herself being closed out, just as she has been for years. Desperate, she decides she’s got nothing to lose. She will break the taboo. She will touch him without his permission, maybe just his robe. So, she lunges at him and, as she falls, she drags her hand across the hem of his tunic.
Instantly, she is healed.
Jesus realizes that the gift of healing has been taken from him without his consent and turns to face the crowd. He asks, “Who touched me?”
The disciples are understandably confused. There are hundreds of people crowding in here, jostling for a place close to you. What do you mean, “Who touched me?” Everyone touched you, for crying out loud.
But Jesus searches the crowd with a gaze and as he does the woman comes forward and falls down before him and spills the whole story. Her suffering, her futile and frustrating visits to doctors, her despair, her decision to take a chance and break the taboo in the desperate hope that there might be a one in a thousand chance that she might be cured.
Jesus’ response: Daughter, it was your faith that cured you.
In the News
Seven percent of the American population, 23 million Americans, have significant medical debt, with most owing over $1,000. The estimated total medical debt across the US is $195 billion.
About 30 million American families file for bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. In France there are none.
These and many more medical bankruptcy statistics reveal the shocking effect of the soaring US healthcare costs.
While there are medical bankruptcies in Europe, Canada, and Australia as well, Americans still have the most. Over 50% of Americans believe that they wouldn’t be able to deal with the costs of a major health issue. After all, the average medical bill for a hospital stay in the US costs $5,220 per day.
The weight of medical debt has become so profound in the USA and has destroyed so many people’s credit histories that there is a proposed rule change, announced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on June 11, that would prevent almost any medical debt from appearing on credit reports.
A new survey that shows that up to 70% of Americans favor forgiving medical debt and, while politicians dilly dally and slap at the problem, some faith based organizations are actually delivering body blows.
At the same time, unclear yet Draconian anti-abortion laws are causing doctors and hospitals to turn away desperate women in need of medical assistance. So great is their fear of being arrested, fined, and even sent to prison for helping a woman who is miscarrying, that they send those patients across the state line for help.
According to Dr. Abraham Verghese, when doctors operate in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, the medical arts become little more than scientific lab experiments and patients become data points. The value of physicans’ touch, the old-fashioned physical exam, the bedside chat, and the power of informed observation are forgotten.
In the Sermon
Dr. Verghese’s TED Talk reminds us of the power of human touch.
The woman with Menorrhagia is starved for human touch and is, in the end, cured by it.
As the rate of mental illness among our children increases every year, is it possible that they have something in common with the woman in this story? Are they, too, suffering from the need for human touch?
While her chronic listlessness, fatigue, and lack of energy was caused by physical anemia, is it possible that a sort of emotional anemia lies somewhere at the foundation of the depression, anxiety, and ADHD that is plaguing our kids?
Is it possible that one treatment for this kind of anemia may lie in something so simple, so elemental, so basic as a simple touch?
Could the miracle cure we seek be found, at least in part, in a coach’s pat on the back, a teacher’s hand squeeze, a grandmother’s hands cupping your face, a grandpa’s hand guiding yours as you attempt to hammer a nail, a father’s hug, or a mother’s kiss?
Maybe we could teach our children to have faith in the possible efficacy of that treatment so that, when they experience it, they feel not just our hands calming them, curing them, lifting them, and guiding them, but God’s hands as well.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Mark 5:21-43
Laughter
There is no place in the gospels that record Jesus as laughing. There is no question that he frequently used humor and exaggeration, laughter never appears as a response. It is telling then that Jesus was laughed at. In today’s passage, and its parallels in Matthew and Luke, the people gathered at Jairus’ house laugh at Jesus, because they knew the girl was dead. Jesus, however, gets the last laugh.
* * *
Mark 5:21-43
Laughter in Greek
The Greek verb rendered “they laughed at him” in Greek, κατεγελων, has as its root, the Greek, γελαω, to laugh. The prefix “κατα” can be “at,” “down,” or “against,” among other things. It’s clear that this is a laughter of derision. The verb itself, transliterated into English, is “gelao,” which may be onomatopoeiaic, that is, mimicking the sound of laughter.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians are Paul’s most extensive discussion of stewardship. These verses are very familiar to every preacher who has ever preached in fundraising season. The focus of Paul’s plea, however, is not to retire the mortgage, or balance the budget (Jesus didn’t say, “Go out into the world and balance the church budget!”) but to provide for the needy Christians in Jerusalem. It appears that they had pledged to support the Jerusalem Christians but had not delivered on their commitment. Immediately prior to today’s lection, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they excel in faith, speech, knowledge, and eagerness; they are richly blessed. Paul is nudging them — hint, hint — to recognize that they are also materially well off, and thus able to send their collection to their sister and brothers in Christ in Jerusalem.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Cruciform
Paul uses a literary technique called chiasmus as he makes an analogy between Christ’s chosen poverty and the wealth that he imparts to his followers. “Chiasmus” takes its name from the Greek word χιαζω, which means “shaped like the letter x.”
In chiasmus elements are reversed for contrast and emphasis.
Christ was rich, but became poor, so that we, who are poor, might become rich.
* * *
Lamentations 3:22-33
There is no accepted title for the book that appears in the Christian Bible as Lamentations. Some Jewish traditions call the book איכה , an exclamation meaning “How?!” Other traditions call it “Dirges” or “Lamentations.” Later Greek and Latin versions of the book call it “The Lamentations of Jeremiah.”
In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the third division, Writings, along with the Psalms and Proverbs. Modern Jews read it liturgically on the ninth of Ab, the fast day commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem.
* * *
Lamentations 3:22-33
Bullseye
The book of Lamentations is a very carefully-constructed poem. Today’s reading is the only upbeat, happy portion of a work that may have been written as a series of dirges mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. These soaring verses are the basis for the beloved hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Out of the depths we cry to you, O God.
All: Hear our voice and be attentive to our supplications!
One: If you, O God, should mark iniquities then who could stand?
All: But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
One: We wait for our God, our souls wait, and in God’s word we hope;
All: For with God there is steadfast love and great power to redeem.
OR
One: The steadfast love of God never ceases.
All: God’s mercies never come to an end.
One: God’s mercies are new every morning.
All: Great is the faithfulness of our God.
One: God’s steadfast love brings us an abundance of compassion.
All: God does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
OR
One: God comes to bring wholeness to our lives.
All: We offer to God the brokenness and pain.
One: God comes to heal us so that we may help others mend.
All: We offer our wounded selves to bring healing.
One: God comes so that in communion we will know wholeness.
All: We open our arms to all so they know God’s healing.
Hymns and Songs
For the Beauty of the Earth
UMH: 92
H82: 116
PH: 473
GTG: 14
NNBH: 8
NCH: 28
CH: 56
LBW: 561
ELW: 879
W&P: 40
AMEC: 578
STLT: 21
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
GTG: 643
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELW: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
O Christ, the Healer
UMH: 265
GTG: 793
NCH: 175
CH: 503
LBW: 360
ELW: 610
W&P: 638
Renew: 191
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
CCB: 51
Renew: 248
There Is a Balm in Gilead
UMH: 375
H82: 676
PH: 394
GTG: 792
AAHH: 524
NNBH: 489
NCH: 553
CH: 501
ELW: 614
W&P: 631
AMEC: 425
I Need Thee Every Hour
UMH: 397
GTG: 735
AAHH: 451
NNBH: 303
NCH: 517
CH: 578
W&P: 476
AMEC: 327
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
GTG: 649
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 547/548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELW: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
He Touched Me
UMH: 367
AAHH: 273
NNBH: 147
CH: 564
AMEC: 402
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Kum Ba Yah
CCB: 69
Saranam, Saranam (Refuge)
CCB: 73
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who brings wholeness and healing to creation:
Grant us the grace to seek wholeness for all people
that we might reflect your love for everyone;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you bring wholeness and healing to all of your creation. You seek the welfare of all your children. Help us to join in your work in seeking wellness for all our siblings. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially seeking wholeness for ourselves while denying it for others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We profess you to be a God who seeks good for all but we live focused on our own wellbeing. We are willing to fund programs that benefit us but not programs which help others. Forgive us our selfish ways and help us to reach out, like Jesus, with healing hands. Amen.
One: God does seek our healing, even our selfishness. Receive God’s blessing and share God’s grace with others.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory be to you, O Healing God. Your love shines as a healing beacon for all your children. You call us to wholeness in the midst of our brokenness.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We profess you to be a God who seeks good for all, but we live focused on our own wellbeing. We are willing to fund programs that benefit us but not programs which help others. Forgive us our selfish ways and help us to reach out, like Jesus, with healing hands.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your creation is a healing place. We thank you for the ways in which our bodies seek their own healing. We thank you for those who practice the science and arts of assisting in that healing process. We thank you for those who work to help mend the broken places in people’s lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who need healing in body, mind, spirit, or relationships. We pray for those who put themselves in harm’s way to help those in distress.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
How Far Can You Jump?
by Chris Keating
Mark 5:21-43
At first blush, these two stories of healing in Mark 5:21-43 may seem to be difficult material for a children’s sermon. After all, healings and miracles may feel weird to children more accustomed to hearing about doctors and medicine. They may even struggle to comprehend the utter desperation expressed by the two people who seek Jesus’ attention.
But they will understand the ways faith encourages us to take risks. A timely way of introducing these stories may be to relate them to the preparations underway for the summer Olympics. We’ve been seeing the ways athletes are competing for a chance to represent their country in the Olympics. The athletes, much like Jairus and the unnamed woman in the crowd, are reaching forward, faithfully pursuing a goal. For Jairus and the woman, the goal was health, and the “reaching forward” was the risk they were willing to take in faith. Both of them demonstrated amazing faith!
Help the children imagine the difficulties involved in training for an Olympic sport. (You could share stories of athletes and their struggles to “reach for the gold.”) Imagine how hard it is to jump the long jump, or swim in a race, or dive from a high dive platform. The many stories of the Olympic hopefuls remind us that they are pushing themselves by training, practice, and dedication. Many of them keep believing in what they think could be possible.
You might have some fun with some mini-sanctuary safe Olympic style games like tossing a Nerf ball across a line, or (if space allows) trying to jump across a line. Or you might use a video of a recent event, or images of some of the athletes who have earned a place on the Olympic teams.
Of course, for both people in these stories, the reward was even greater than winning a medal. Jairus “leaps forward” in faith, falling at Jesus’ feet to worship him. Jairus believes that God can heal his daughter. Likewise, the woman who has been in pain for so many years, “leaps forward” by pushing against the great crowd so she can touch Jesus’ cloak. She also seeks something more than a medal — she seeks to find the healing only God can provide.
Olympic athletes know that it takes a lot of faith in themselves and in their abilities to pursue their goals. Faith can push us toward the finish line of a race, or toward a life that is filled with blessings and hope. It takes effort, but even the woman who has spent all of her money and suffered greatly knows that “reaching forward” will lead her closer to the promises of God’s love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 30, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Making Jairus’ Daughter Visible by Mary Austin based on Mark 5:21-43.
- Second Thoughts: The Doctor's Touch by Dean Feldmeyer. Doctors may cure diseases, but God cures patients.
- Sermon illustrations by Tom Willadsen.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: How Far Can You Jump by Chris Keating based on Mark 5:21-43.
Making Jairus’ Daughter Visibleby Mary Austin
Mark 5:21-43
Jairus’ daughter is sitting next to us at the movies, babysitting for our kids, working at the mall, and going to church with us. We pass her on the sidewalk, walking her dog, and see her at the grocery store. We get glimpses of her life when we ride the bus together or sit near each other at a restaurant.
Our version of Jairus’ daughter could be named Emma, Sophie, or even James or Liam, or perhaps the modern incarnation of Jairus’ daughter is non-binary, and likes to be called Jay or El.
The illness of Jairus’ daughter is puzzling and mysterious, and so is the mental health crisis affecting teenagers in Western countries. In 2021, “the American Academy of Pediatrics along with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children's Hospital Association declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.” The return to more typical life after the pandemic has eased some of the strain, and yet teenagers are still suffering. In 2022, the National Institutes of Health reported that “almost half (44%) of high schoolers reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in the last year. Some of these feelings were also linked to experiences of racism, social stigma around gender and sexual identity, and sexual violence.”
Jairus’ daughter goes unnamed — let’s call her Miriam. Miriam’s illness is hidden away, invisible to everyone until her father intervenes. In the same way, our teenagers’ struggles happen largely out of sight, unless we really look. Or, until we have to pay attention, forced into action by a crisis.
Jairus and Miriam are inviting us to see the illness all around us.
In the Scriptures
In the original story, Jairus is determined to get help for his daughter. He is important enough to push and shove his way through the huge crowd around Jesus to get Jesus’ attention. Perhaps his household servants helped him squeeze his way through the crowd, making a path for him, so he could beg Jesus to come to his home and heal his daughter. Jairus clearly loves his daughter enough to fall at the grubby feet of a traveling preacher, abandoning all dignity to beg over and over for help.
(To maintain the flow of the original story, we invite you to switch over to Dean Feldmeyer’s reflection on the woman who touches Jesus’ garment and is healed. Then, come back.)
Jesus is not a quitter.
Even though people report that Jairus’ daughter is dead, Jesus continues on to the family’s home. People laugh at him there, and he still doesn’t give up. His comment, “Do not fear and only believe” echoes his conversation with the disciples when he quiets the storm. Jesus wades into a different kind of storm here and offers the same counsel. This healing, like the woman who touches Jesus’ hem, happens with an audience, this time a smaller one.
No matter how many times Jesus tells people not to say anything, that must have been impossible. On the other side of the healing, people must be bursting with awe, thanksgiving, surprise, and confusion. They have to say something!
In the News
In our version of Jairus’ daughter, teenagers are struggling with mental health issues, and “it remains the case that a wide variety of alarming indicators — from mental health hospitalizations to anxiety and depression diagnoses — did abruptly increase starting in the early 2010s in a wide range of Western countries. And in virtually every case, the increase was significantly larger among girls than among boys. If we were looking at random noise, we would not expect to see this largely uniform gendered pattern.”
Like Jairus, parents of teenagers are desperate for help, begging for support with a problem that’s hard to understand. Jairus stands in for all concerned parents and their anxiety, begging for any kind of help.
Research notes that the risks of social media use are linked with various factors. One may be how much time teens spend on these platforms. In a study focusing on 12- to 15-year-olds in the United States, spending three hours a day using social media was linked to a higher risk of mental health concerns. That study was based on data collected in 2013 and 2014 from more than 6,500 participants. Another study looked at data on more than 12,000 teens in England between the ages of 13 to 16. The researchers found that using social media more than three times a day predicted poor mental health and well-being in teens.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been in the news recently contending that “smartphones and the addicting social media apps we download onto them have lured the world’s youths away from those activities that are indispensable to healthy child development — such as outdoor play, face-to-face conversation with friends, and sleep — and trapped them in a digital realm that saps their self-esteem, drains their attention spans, and forces them to put on a perpetual, high-stakes performance of their own personalities. Smartphones have even hurt kids who don’t use them much, according to Haidt, because they’ve restructured communal life in harmful ways. Teenagers’ rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed as a result.”
Haidt’s critics fault him for having very little evidence to support his claims. “Yes, there is a correlation between self-reported social media use and poor mental health in some surveys of adolescents, Haidt’s critics acknowledge. But taken together, they argue, the empirical literature shows a weak to nonexistent association between screen time and mental health.” Whatever the cause is, our teenage friends are suffering, and could use a healing touch.
In the Sermon
The sermon might focus on the mental health challenges teenagers — and all of us — are facing. We think about healing for physical illnesses, and readily ask for prayers and help when we contend with surgery, cancer, and broken legs. Mental health stays hidden away, as if we can “cure” it with willpower. The sermon could explore the hidden side of mental illness, and the ways we find God’s grace in that part of our health, too.
Or, the sermon might look at the attention Jesus gives to this teenage girl and explore how we can be more focused in our attention to the teenagers we know in our neighborhoods, our churches, and our communities. Jesus doesn’t limit the attention he gives to this young girl, as we often do, thinking teenagers are hard to understand, difficult to talk to, and not interested in us, anyway.
Or, shifting the focus to the woman in the middle of the story, the sermon might explore how many adult women are being diagnosed with ADHD. “Boys aren’t the only people who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It also affects girls and young women and adults of both genders. Yet girls and women with ADHD are chronically underdiagnosed and undertreated. Individuals with this condition die about ten years earlier than those without it. They are also up to three times more likely to experience a variety of nonfatal negative life events, such as serious car accidents, unintended teen pregnancy, episodes of anxiety and depression, and suicide attempts. The use of medication can reduce the risks of many of these non-fatal events. Two recent studies demonstrated that treating ADHD with medications improves outcomes and can also save lives.” Mark links these two stories of the girl and the woman, and our health challenges are often linked, too. “Since girls are less likely to be disruptive in class and at home, they are less likely to be identified as a problem by teachers and parents, and so less likely to be referred to a clinician for diagnosis or treatment. But the fact that girls and women with ADHD may not be a problem for others doesn’t mean that they are not suffering in silence.”
Jesus is attentive to the people we might overlook in their hope for healing. A desperate woman and a teenage girl both get a gift from Jesus. What does that healing gift look like in our world?
SECOND THOUGHTSThe Doctor’s Touch
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 5:21-43
She had a been suffering from a slow hemorrhage of blood for 12 years and “she had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse.” (v. 26)
Today, chronic menstrual bleeding is called Menorrhagia and, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website, it is treated with any number of protocols that range from oral medicines to various types of surgery, none of which was available to the woman in the story.
So, she suffered. For 12 years, she suffered. She exhausted all of her resources going to doctors and only got worse. Then, just as she was thinking that her situation might just be hopeless, she decided to take a gamble and go see that itinerant preacher/teacher/healer — that Jesus guy.
In the Scriptures
Today, Mark gives us two stories about hopeless situations and wraps them around each other in a kind of theological pretzel.
In one, the temple official, Jairus, has a little daughter who is near death and will shortly appear to cross that threshold and Jesus will be told not to bother going. She’s dead. My colleague, Mary, is covering this story in her article for this week. Our focus is on the woman.
According to first century Jewish law, the flow of blood made her ritually unclean and, since she couldn’t get the blood to stop flowing, she was always, constantly unclean. For twelve years she couldn’t be touched, and she could not touch anyone in her community or even her own family for fear of contaminating them.
Twelve years without a single human touch. Ponder that for a moment.
The Menorrhagia is sapping her of her strength and her will to live. She is chronically anemic, listless, and weak. The one thing that might give her a sense of hope and even a little energy, the touch of another human being, has been denied her for these twelve long years.
Then she hears that this Jesus guy, the itinerant preacher/teacher/healer is going to be nearby and she decides to try, one more time, to drag herself out of her sickbed and onto the street where maybe they will make a space for her so she can go to him and ask…
But the crowd is too thick, too self-concerned, too rowdy, too loud and she finds herself being closed out, just as she has been for years. Desperate, she decides she’s got nothing to lose. She will break the taboo. She will touch him without his permission, maybe just his robe. So, she lunges at him and, as she falls, she drags her hand across the hem of his tunic.
Instantly, she is healed.
Jesus realizes that the gift of healing has been taken from him without his consent and turns to face the crowd. He asks, “Who touched me?”
The disciples are understandably confused. There are hundreds of people crowding in here, jostling for a place close to you. What do you mean, “Who touched me?” Everyone touched you, for crying out loud.
But Jesus searches the crowd with a gaze and as he does the woman comes forward and falls down before him and spills the whole story. Her suffering, her futile and frustrating visits to doctors, her despair, her decision to take a chance and break the taboo in the desperate hope that there might be a one in a thousand chance that she might be cured.
Jesus’ response: Daughter, it was your faith that cured you.
In the News
Seven percent of the American population, 23 million Americans, have significant medical debt, with most owing over $1,000. The estimated total medical debt across the US is $195 billion.
About 30 million American families file for bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. In France there are none.
These and many more medical bankruptcy statistics reveal the shocking effect of the soaring US healthcare costs.
While there are medical bankruptcies in Europe, Canada, and Australia as well, Americans still have the most. Over 50% of Americans believe that they wouldn’t be able to deal with the costs of a major health issue. After all, the average medical bill for a hospital stay in the US costs $5,220 per day.
The weight of medical debt has become so profound in the USA and has destroyed so many people’s credit histories that there is a proposed rule change, announced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on June 11, that would prevent almost any medical debt from appearing on credit reports.
A new survey that shows that up to 70% of Americans favor forgiving medical debt and, while politicians dilly dally and slap at the problem, some faith based organizations are actually delivering body blows.
At the same time, unclear yet Draconian anti-abortion laws are causing doctors and hospitals to turn away desperate women in need of medical assistance. So great is their fear of being arrested, fined, and even sent to prison for helping a woman who is miscarrying, that they send those patients across the state line for help.
According to Dr. Abraham Verghese, when doctors operate in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, the medical arts become little more than scientific lab experiments and patients become data points. The value of physicans’ touch, the old-fashioned physical exam, the bedside chat, and the power of informed observation are forgotten.
In the Sermon
Dr. Verghese’s TED Talk reminds us of the power of human touch.
The woman with Menorrhagia is starved for human touch and is, in the end, cured by it.
As the rate of mental illness among our children increases every year, is it possible that they have something in common with the woman in this story? Are they, too, suffering from the need for human touch?
While her chronic listlessness, fatigue, and lack of energy was caused by physical anemia, is it possible that a sort of emotional anemia lies somewhere at the foundation of the depression, anxiety, and ADHD that is plaguing our kids?
Is it possible that one treatment for this kind of anemia may lie in something so simple, so elemental, so basic as a simple touch?
Could the miracle cure we seek be found, at least in part, in a coach’s pat on the back, a teacher’s hand squeeze, a grandmother’s hands cupping your face, a grandpa’s hand guiding yours as you attempt to hammer a nail, a father’s hug, or a mother’s kiss?
Maybe we could teach our children to have faith in the possible efficacy of that treatment so that, when they experience it, they feel not just our hands calming them, curing them, lifting them, and guiding them, but God’s hands as well.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:Mark 5:21-43
Laughter
There is no place in the gospels that record Jesus as laughing. There is no question that he frequently used humor and exaggeration, laughter never appears as a response. It is telling then that Jesus was laughed at. In today’s passage, and its parallels in Matthew and Luke, the people gathered at Jairus’ house laugh at Jesus, because they knew the girl was dead. Jesus, however, gets the last laugh.
* * *
Mark 5:21-43
Laughter in Greek
The Greek verb rendered “they laughed at him” in Greek, κατεγελων, has as its root, the Greek, γελαω, to laugh. The prefix “κατα” can be “at,” “down,” or “against,” among other things. It’s clear that this is a laughter of derision. The verb itself, transliterated into English, is “gelao,” which may be onomatopoeiaic, that is, mimicking the sound of laughter.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians are Paul’s most extensive discussion of stewardship. These verses are very familiar to every preacher who has ever preached in fundraising season. The focus of Paul’s plea, however, is not to retire the mortgage, or balance the budget (Jesus didn’t say, “Go out into the world and balance the church budget!”) but to provide for the needy Christians in Jerusalem. It appears that they had pledged to support the Jerusalem Christians but had not delivered on their commitment. Immediately prior to today’s lection, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they excel in faith, speech, knowledge, and eagerness; they are richly blessed. Paul is nudging them — hint, hint — to recognize that they are also materially well off, and thus able to send their collection to their sister and brothers in Christ in Jerusalem.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Cruciform
Paul uses a literary technique called chiasmus as he makes an analogy between Christ’s chosen poverty and the wealth that he imparts to his followers. “Chiasmus” takes its name from the Greek word χιαζω, which means “shaped like the letter x.”
In chiasmus elements are reversed for contrast and emphasis.
Christ was rich, but became poor, so that we, who are poor, might become rich.
* * *
Lamentations 3:22-33
There is no accepted title for the book that appears in the Christian Bible as Lamentations. Some Jewish traditions call the book איכה , an exclamation meaning “How?!” Other traditions call it “Dirges” or “Lamentations.” Later Greek and Latin versions of the book call it “The Lamentations of Jeremiah.”
In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the third division, Writings, along with the Psalms and Proverbs. Modern Jews read it liturgically on the ninth of Ab, the fast day commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem.
* * *
Lamentations 3:22-33
Bullseye
The book of Lamentations is a very carefully-constructed poem. Today’s reading is the only upbeat, happy portion of a work that may have been written as a series of dirges mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. These soaring verses are the basis for the beloved hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Out of the depths we cry to you, O God.
All: Hear our voice and be attentive to our supplications!
One: If you, O God, should mark iniquities then who could stand?
All: But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
One: We wait for our God, our souls wait, and in God’s word we hope;
All: For with God there is steadfast love and great power to redeem.
OR
One: The steadfast love of God never ceases.
All: God’s mercies never come to an end.
One: God’s mercies are new every morning.
All: Great is the faithfulness of our God.
One: God’s steadfast love brings us an abundance of compassion.
All: God does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
OR
One: God comes to bring wholeness to our lives.
All: We offer to God the brokenness and pain.
One: God comes to heal us so that we may help others mend.
All: We offer our wounded selves to bring healing.
One: God comes so that in communion we will know wholeness.
All: We open our arms to all so they know God’s healing.
Hymns and Songs
For the Beauty of the Earth
UMH: 92
H82: 116
PH: 473
GTG: 14
NNBH: 8
NCH: 28
CH: 56
LBW: 561
ELW: 879
W&P: 40
AMEC: 578
STLT: 21
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
GTG: 643
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELW: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
O Christ, the Healer
UMH: 265
GTG: 793
NCH: 175
CH: 503
LBW: 360
ELW: 610
W&P: 638
Renew: 191
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
CCB: 51
Renew: 248
There Is a Balm in Gilead
UMH: 375
H82: 676
PH: 394
GTG: 792
AAHH: 524
NNBH: 489
NCH: 553
CH: 501
ELW: 614
W&P: 631
AMEC: 425
I Need Thee Every Hour
UMH: 397
GTG: 735
AAHH: 451
NNBH: 303
NCH: 517
CH: 578
W&P: 476
AMEC: 327
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
GTG: 649
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 547/548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELW: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
He Touched Me
UMH: 367
AAHH: 273
NNBH: 147
CH: 564
AMEC: 402
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Kum Ba Yah
CCB: 69
Saranam, Saranam (Refuge)
CCB: 73
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who brings wholeness and healing to creation:
Grant us the grace to seek wholeness for all people
that we might reflect your love for everyone;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you bring wholeness and healing to all of your creation. You seek the welfare of all your children. Help us to join in your work in seeking wellness for all our siblings. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially seeking wholeness for ourselves while denying it for others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We profess you to be a God who seeks good for all but we live focused on our own wellbeing. We are willing to fund programs that benefit us but not programs which help others. Forgive us our selfish ways and help us to reach out, like Jesus, with healing hands. Amen.
One: God does seek our healing, even our selfishness. Receive God’s blessing and share God’s grace with others.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory be to you, O Healing God. Your love shines as a healing beacon for all your children. You call us to wholeness in the midst of our brokenness.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We profess you to be a God who seeks good for all, but we live focused on our own wellbeing. We are willing to fund programs that benefit us but not programs which help others. Forgive us our selfish ways and help us to reach out, like Jesus, with healing hands.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your creation is a healing place. We thank you for the ways in which our bodies seek their own healing. We thank you for those who practice the science and arts of assisting in that healing process. We thank you for those who work to help mend the broken places in people’s lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those who need healing in body, mind, spirit, or relationships. We pray for those who put themselves in harm’s way to help those in distress.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONHow Far Can You Jump?
by Chris Keating
Mark 5:21-43
At first blush, these two stories of healing in Mark 5:21-43 may seem to be difficult material for a children’s sermon. After all, healings and miracles may feel weird to children more accustomed to hearing about doctors and medicine. They may even struggle to comprehend the utter desperation expressed by the two people who seek Jesus’ attention.
But they will understand the ways faith encourages us to take risks. A timely way of introducing these stories may be to relate them to the preparations underway for the summer Olympics. We’ve been seeing the ways athletes are competing for a chance to represent their country in the Olympics. The athletes, much like Jairus and the unnamed woman in the crowd, are reaching forward, faithfully pursuing a goal. For Jairus and the woman, the goal was health, and the “reaching forward” was the risk they were willing to take in faith. Both of them demonstrated amazing faith!
Help the children imagine the difficulties involved in training for an Olympic sport. (You could share stories of athletes and their struggles to “reach for the gold.”) Imagine how hard it is to jump the long jump, or swim in a race, or dive from a high dive platform. The many stories of the Olympic hopefuls remind us that they are pushing themselves by training, practice, and dedication. Many of them keep believing in what they think could be possible.
You might have some fun with some mini-sanctuary safe Olympic style games like tossing a Nerf ball across a line, or (if space allows) trying to jump across a line. Or you might use a video of a recent event, or images of some of the athletes who have earned a place on the Olympic teams.
Of course, for both people in these stories, the reward was even greater than winning a medal. Jairus “leaps forward” in faith, falling at Jesus’ feet to worship him. Jairus believes that God can heal his daughter. Likewise, the woman who has been in pain for so many years, “leaps forward” by pushing against the great crowd so she can touch Jesus’ cloak. She also seeks something more than a medal — she seeks to find the healing only God can provide.
Olympic athletes know that it takes a lot of faith in themselves and in their abilities to pursue their goals. Faith can push us toward the finish line of a race, or toward a life that is filled with blessings and hope. It takes effort, but even the woman who has spent all of her money and suffered greatly knows that “reaching forward” will lead her closer to the promises of God’s love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 30, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
