Lectionary: Genesis 24:1-27 and Mark
5:21-43
First person, Rebekah.
Mine is a story of human migration, of family
connection across vast distances. You might say I am a vulnerable young woman,
taken from my father’s house by a stranger, bought with trinkets. I say to you
that I possess a genuine agency of my own—and initiative—not only to shape my future
and move my story on, but also to help other people move our story forward
together. In truth, the big story of God’s covenant with Abraham had stalled: stalled
but had not been derailed. As every migrant and every diaspora community knows,
God’s steadfast love is proved afresh when we embody continuity with the past, married
to a radically new, uncertain, future. Heritage is the union of history and
hope, of the known and unknown. This is our faith, our story. Our society can
charter as many convoys as it likes, but for the people of God, championing forced
transportation is self-hatred as much as hatred of the Other.
Second person, Jesus.
With several other young men, you have crossed a
dangerous body of water in a small boat. (A second crossing, despite almost
capsizing and drowning the first time. Who profits from this reckless action?) The
public face of our national religion believes that you bring with you a fuller
manifestation of the kingdom of heaven, here on earth: something true and good
that was hitherto lacking; that, he claims, we were unable to do for ourselves.
He claims you are a gift to be received, and not a threat. But you should know,
this public face does not speak for public opinion: you, and those other men
with you, have made a wasted journey and should be turned back. It is beneath dignity
even to entertain you. Go on your way, elsewhere.
Third person, the unnamed woman whose story threatens
to derail the story of Jairus’ family.
For twelve years, her life had been lived behind
closed doors. At first, the door was on a respectable street, but over time the
money ran dry, until the door opened onto a smaller room further away from the
heart of the town. The psychological room she took up shrank, too, withdrawing
into herself, receding from her neighbours’ minds, though some, of course,
would still bring food to her door. Every so often, her plight resurfaced, a
character in someone else’s story—the claim (always later disproved) of some
doctor to have found a cure; the crazy old woman no one ever saw, conjured up
to scare children into obeying their mother. There, but for the grace of God,
etc. Until, one day, she heard a whisper on the wind that had carried a man
called Jesus to the shore and carried on inland, through the streets, the
windows. She’d heard his name carried on the wind before, tales of people
healed—actual, lasting wholeness restored. And that is when she made up her
mind, wrapped herself in a cloak by which she hoped to pass through the streets
unnoticed. If she could only touch the hem of his robe, surely that would be
enough? Surely then she would be healed. And that is what she did.
He felt the power go out from him straight away. ‘Who
touched me?’ he asked, turning round, scanning the crowd pressing around him. ‘What
do you mean?’ his friends asked. ‘Can’t you see the crowd for the people? Any
one of them might have pushed you, shoved you.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Someone touched
me. That is, I was touched by their plight. Without knowing one another, we
were brought together, and in that meeting both of us were changed.’ Summoning
up all her courage, hardly daring to believe it possible, the woman stood up,
taller than she’d done in years; was seen, was heard. The crowd were shocked,
drew breath to shout her down. But this man, Jesus, stood with her, affirmed
her, reintroduced her to the community. And in that moment a community that had
been drained of compassion for years, until it was barren, discovered a healing
of its own. Or, at least, the possibility, for those who were prepared to stop,
when touched by the plight of another, and not move on until they knew that God
was with us in this moment, and what that meant.
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