Mark 5:21-43

This week's Gospel tells two stories of healing: the young daughter of Jairus, a leader in the synagogue and obviously an important man in the community, and a desperate, nameless woman who is so worn down with years of suffering that she doesn't dare ask Jesus to heal her but just reaches out in the crowd to touch his clothing. The structure of the passage, with one healing story sandwiched inside the other, makes us read them together. So we notice that Jesus lets himself be interrupted by the less important petitioner; indeed, he stops in his tracks, insists on hearing her story, and reassures her about the reason for her healing before he resumes his urgent errand on behalf of the important man and his daughter.

If we are in the habit of looking for political or economic messages in the Gospels, we might want to read this lesson as another expression of God's special care for the poor and downtrodden. But in fact Mark doesn't suggest that Jesus cares more for the destitute woman than for Jairus and his daughter. Jesus speaks tenderly to the daughter and performs an even greater healing in her case. So there are no losers in this pair of stories—only winners, all beneficiaries of God's enormous, overflowing mercy and love.

How can Christians in today's society bear witness to the endlessly loving, merciful nature of our God?  Last week's media provided some powerful examples from the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where the congregation reopened its doors to strangers after the shootings and grieving family members of the victims offered forgiveness to the killer. On Sunday at least one African-American church here in Madison followed suit. At Christ the Solid Rock, candles were lighted and prayers were offered by name for each of the nine shooting victims and also for the shooter and his family. Pastor Everett Mitchell reminded the congregation that God sends down the blessing of rain on both the just and the unjust, and that we are called not to judge one another, but to love every person as God does.