One-Touch Healing
Psalm 130    Mark 5: 21-43
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

From the midst of a large crowd, Jairus came to Jesus for help. Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue, a religious leader who had faith in Jesus.  He came to Jesus and fell at his feet, begging repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”  Immediately Jesus went with Jairus. And the crowds pressed in on him.

There was a woman in the crowd who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  For twelve years she had been bleeding. Scripture tells us that this unnamed woman “had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.”

Jairus, Jewish leader, father, advocate, publicly sought help from Jesus to save his daughter’s life.

This unnamed woman, poor, ritually unclean and untouchable because she was bleeding, risked reaching out to Jesus in secret.  Hidden in the crowd, she came up behind Jesus and touched his cloak.  For she said, “if I but touch his clothes I will be made well.”  
This woman who had suffered for twelve years -- did not give up – she did not give up her faith, her voice, her agency.  She did not give up and she did not give in - to fear, despair, anger. She risked reaching deep and reaching out, engaging, connecting with the liberating power she recognized in Christ.

Immediately, she felt healing in her body and soul.  Jesus felt it, too.  And when Jesus stopped in the midst of the crowd, in the midst of his important mission, to seek out the one who touched him, the woman came in fear and trembling, fell down before Jesus and told him her story.  Jesus, in a public act of open solidarity, praised her faith and called her “daughter.”

Jesus was surrounded by sick people... and he helped and healed them.  His followers also healed in his name. Not always cured, but healed.

Maybe today we who are Christ’s followers need to be interrupted in the midst of crowds, in the midst of crowded lives, crowded agendas, -- maybe today we need to be interrupted by the spiritual, physical, political needs for healing of unnamed daughters and sons.

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, a former Surgeon General, and a professor of pediatric medicine from Arkansas, has put out a call to her church, the United Methodist Church, for “Healing Health Care.”  This moment, now, in the midst of a crowd of challenges and crises, is the time for change.  Dr. Elders said, “The U.S. has the best “sick-care” system in the world, but our “health-care” delivery system is lacking.  We have the best doctors, the best hospitals, best academic health centers, best nurses, the best drugs, and we are leaders in research. We have the most expensive health care in the world ...but our health care is not equitable, coherent, patient-centered, comprehensive and cost-effective...we also do not have the best health... and we are the only industrialized country that does not provide health care for its entire people.”

I believe that this is the moment to risk and reach deep, reach out to heal health care in this nation.  With spiraling and crippling costs, with an 85% majority of citizens favoring fundamental change, and with health care on the agenda in the public arena right now makes this moment an opportunity for prayer and action.  

The issue has been with us for so long we may despair of change, or fear change. In healing is in restoration to community.  

Scripture tells us that the daughter of Jairus was twelve years old – she was born the same year the woman’s hemmoraging began!

Have you suffered a chronic illness for so long, or have you faced a problem for so long, or have you denied a problem for so long, that it drains life right out of you? Have you dealt with a life-draining issue for so many years it begins to define who you are, it effects the patterns of your relationships, it shapes your soul, it dominates the conversations in your head and heart, saying “I am going to be with you for the rest of your life?”

Right now, risk, reach, touch Jesus for healing, for liberation.

This unnamed woman “had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.”

In the June 1st edition of The New Yorker Magazine there is a fascinating article and analysis comparing U.S. communities with most expensive lowest quality health care and poor health, such as McAllen Texas, and those communities with the least expensive and highest quality health care, and good health such as Rochester, Minnesota (home of the Mayo Clinic) or Grand Junction Colorado. Contrary to current public debate, the difference between the best and the worst, the most expensive and the least expensive is not the quality or choice of care, nor the source of funding. (*copies available)

I challenge all of us, in the coming three months to tithe our summertime to heal health care!  To risk reaching out to ask for healing for our daughters and sons that they might be made well and live.  To risk reaching out to touch Jesus for healing for ourselves of the life-draining burdens we have carried for a long time.  To risk reaching out in action to heal health care.

First: Pray.
Secondly:  Engage and Connect.  Read, listen, talk, call. Follow this story and work for gospel values in our health care system.
Our congregation is a member of a national network - PICO – People Improving Communities through Organizing.  If you Google PICO National Network Health Care – you can find out what is going on in the Bay Area, in California, and across the country.  You can connect with people of all faiths, all races, all classes in making a difference at this critical moment in our history.

Congressman George Miller, June 13, 2009,  speaking to PICO leaders in Contra Costa County said,  "This is what it's about--it's about you organizing--it's about you putting pressure on me and other members of Congress and writing your Senators and telling them that we must have a universal system of care and that it must be accessible, it must be affordable..."

Jesus stopped in the midst of his urgent mission to save the life of the daughter of a community leader, to heal another daughter, a poor, nameless, unclean woman.

When people came and told Jairus that his daughter had already died, Jesus said to him, “do not fear, only believe.”