Rev. Gus Pendleton
c. 2000, Brunswick Street United Church
We each operate with a set of beliefs which form our personal foundations. Among the supports for my life and faith, the following is a select, partial list:
- I believe that each of us are on individual life journeys, and that we are invited to add to the journey of the whole human family (indeed, of all creation).
- Therefore, I believe that we can share the journey even with people who believe very differently.
- I believe in the Bible seriously, but I do not take it literally.
- Therefore, I believe that we "wrestle with", "play with", "dance with" or think about how biblical stories effect our lives and thinking.
- I believe that Jesus thought that it was very important to let people "get it" for themselves, and that he taught in parables in order to encourage people to get it.
- AND I believe that Jesus was the parable. He beckoned to us to dance, wrestle and play with him.
- Therefore, I believe that we ought to think about how and what he did, not just the things which he said.
Now, we might bring these foundational beliefs to anything we do, but especially to Bible study, preparation for worship or to our own personal devotional life. Let us walk through a section of the Gospel according to Mark in order to see how we might apply them. In particular, since the author has just finished telling his readers that Jesus was teaching constantly by telling parable-stories, we will now turn our attention to Jesus as the parable itself, in the story that the author tells us.
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, we are told that Jesus kept teaching by the use of parables. He was always telling stories which started out quite normally, but which left question marks in the eyes of his students, even his closest friends. The author then immediately tells us about Jesus calming the sea. In chapter five, the author continues, Jesus healed a man with many evil spirits. There follows a remarkable story of two healings which, because they are told with nuance, contrast and coincidence, strike me as being an acted out parable at its best.
The story goes that one of the pillars of the synagogue has come to Jesus in distress. His daughter, twelve years old, appears to be at the point of death. Jesus immediately starts off to the man's home, but a nameless woman in the crowd touches the edge of his garment, believing that this will heal her. She has been haemorrhaging for twelve years, and has been frustrated and impoverished by seeking medical help (do any of us know what that feels like?) When she touches Jesus, she feels herself to be healed, but Jesus also feels something happen. He whirls around, trying to discover who touched him, and he will not go on until he finds out who it was. When she publicly admits her story, he congratulates her on her faith and sends her away cured. Finally, he goes on, but reports arrive that the child is dead. Undeterred, Jesus finishes his walk to her home and accomplishes her cure as well.
In this remarkable story, we see contrasts between the child of a religious leader (at the centre of society) and the "unclean" woman at the margins. The child is becoming a woman as she enters puberty, while the woman's body is stubbornly refusing to move beyond menopause. Moreover, because the woman cannot stop bleeding (and then undergo the regular ritual purification), she remains an outcast, unfit for human society and especially unfit to approach a renowned religious leader.
We might expect Jesus (whom we think of as knowing and seeing all) to recognise that the woman needed anonymity. But he requires her to tell her story, despite strictly telling the family of the little girl to tell no one of her healing. There are a number of questions raised by such a story, which is the mark of a good parable, and the parabolic teacher does not give us the answers. Rather, we are invited to think about, puzzle over and wrestle with such stories, in order to draw closer under Jesus' teaching.
It is, then, just one way of playing with this story to ask how we understand the "centre" and the "margins" in the ministry of Jesus. Other questions and ways of wrestling with this story abound. But this question is important for our particular ministry at Brunswick Street United Church, where so many people on the margins come to us for help.
In his inaugural sermon back home in Nazareth, Luke tells us that Jesus focused on people at the margins: Good news for the poor! Release for prisoners! Recovery of sight for those who are blind! Freedom for the oppressed! Still, Jesus responded quickly to a cry for help from the very centre of society, a religious leader's child. But we find that he interrupts his journey to the centre and ministers to a woman on the extreme margins of society simply because she is there and in need. Indeed, he responds as quickly as possible in each emergency, as if each person were of equal worth!
Well, perhaps that is as deep and radical a theological thought as we need pursue, for now. But it is interesting that two thousand years ago, and still today, it is the business of ministry to focus the love of God on any person - powerful insider or lonely outcast - who comes to us. It is more interesting to note that it is still harder for the outcast to experience even mere equality, let alone the love of church and society.
©Reverend Gus Pendleton. Used with permission from the author.
