A Gospel of Last Resort (Sixth Sunday after Pentecost)

Willie James Jennings and Adrián Hernández-Acosta discuss leakage, control, chaos, and healing in Mark 5:21-43. The text is appointed for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary.

More Yale Bible Study resources, including a transcript of this episode, at: https://YaleBibleStudy.org/podcast

Willie James Jennings is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School, and Adrián Hernández-Acosta, Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School. 

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Transcript

Voiceover Voice:

The way that the narrative is structured is itself leaking. It can’t help but to go over it’s own bounds.

Helena Martin:

This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. Join us each week as two Yale Divinity School professors look at an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary.

Well, I made a mistake. Somehow I assigned the wrong text to the professors this week, and we didn’t notice until we were putting the episode together. So they’re discussing a text from a few weeks ago instead of one from this coming Sunday. I’m really sorry about that! It’s still a great conversation worth hearing, so we’re putting it out today.

So, this episode, we have Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, and Adrián Hernández-Acosta, Assistant Professor of Religion and Literature. They’re discussing Mark 5:21-43, which was appointed for a few weeks ago: the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8, in Year B. Here’s the text.

[Mark 5:21-43]

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue, named Jairus, came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and pleaded with him 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.” So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my cloak?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the synagogue leader, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the synagogue leader’s house, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

Willie Jennings:

You know, this passage, Adrián, in Mark 5, I think I heard this most often in my context, my church context, on those women’s days when women were allowed to preach. And they would often come to this text. It’s kind of the anti-virtuous woman text [laughs] to come to this text because this text has this woman at the center of it. I mean, there’s two stories that are woven together and it’s always so beautiful how these two stories weave together, but there’s something about this woman with the issue of blood who is in this crowd where she knows she should not be and the touching of Jesus and this touch, this touch is so important. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Mm-hmm.

Willie Jennings:

You know, in recent years, what I’ve loved is the number of scholars, especially women scholars and feminist scholars, who’ve drawn the beautiful connection between the leaking of Jesus and the leaking of this woman and there’s something beautiful about that. Something happens to Jesus that he has no control over…

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Mm-hmm.

Willie Jennings:

…and he wants to find out who drew out of him the very thing that he had no control over. And here is this woman who, in the midst of what is astounding courage, takes from Jesus what she needs. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Willie Jennings:

I love this story for that. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

That’s so helpful because I’ve always been, I’ve always wondered about how that story interrupts the story that the chapter begins.

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Which is about this dead child. And I was like, okay, but why are we like splitting the scene here? [Jennings laughs] And it’s almost like the way that the narrative is structured is itself leaking. It kind of, it can’t help but to go over its own bounds…

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

…and lead to other stories of healing, which is such a central theme for this particular Gospel. 

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

The way he’s always healing, healing, healing to the point where he doesn’t even know who benefiting from it, right? [Jennings laughs] But that’s such a helpful, thing to highlight about the kind of flowing and the directions of flowing and who’s flowing and from where, as it relates to the even construction of the narrative itself. 

Willie Jennings:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The two events that are laid out there so powerfully. You put it so nicely, I mean, there’s almost nobody in control of anything going on. It’s like everything is happening and no one is on top of it. So, Jesus, this woman is healed. Jesus didn’t realize this was going on. [laughter] The woman shouldn’t be there because if people knew that she was there, it would have been a horrible situation. And then, once that happens, once she steps forward, and that at the moment when it’s just her and Jesus eye-to-eye, as it were, with this crowd pressing in and the disciples completely out of control. They couldn’t control anything. Then the word comes about the daughter dying. And at that point they said, let’s just leave Jesus alone, the daughter’s gone. And then he turns and says, let’s go. And so it’s still utterly out of control. It’s out of control even when he shows up, right? And so, what I always loved about this story, both these stories as they weave together, what I’ve always loved about it is the way in which it has always said to me, you don’t have to imagine faith as a site of control. You can have faith in the midst of absolute of absolute chaos. You know, some of the best preaching I’ve ever heard kind of captures, and teaching I’ve ever heard, kind of captures that reality. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

I mean, isn’t that the lesson of the Gospel of Mark? You know, it’s the one that in the history of criticism has gotten the short end of the stick, right? As the kind of early one, the one that has different endings, the one that folks really don’t know what to do. He’s constantly telling his folks to not say anything. They themselves don’t seem to understand at some point. It’s just a chaotic scene all around for like 16 chapters straight, and this particular passage kind of highlighting in a very condensed form…

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

…how chaotic the entire Gospel is. 

Willie Jennings:

Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

And yet, something is happening in the midst of that.

Willie Jennings:

You know, the part of the passage, the part of this passage that’s always fascinated me in that regard is that critical moment when Jesus shows up at Jairus’ house and makes that crazy statement. Everybody rightly laughs at him. What you mean she sleeps? She’s dead. Man, what’s wrong with you? But then he puts everybody out except a few of the disciples and this dad. And they are there with this dead body. I mean, I once talked about this passage to a group of nurses. About what it’s like to be in the room with someone who’s dead or dying and the fear and the intimacy that’s present in that space. And this is the space Jesus brings his disciples into. He could have told his disciples, okay, I’m just going to go in with Jairus. But he brings his disciples in this space and the mourners are right there at the door, but they have been put out. And that dynamic is so incredible when you think about it. In this intimate space, he then says the words, “get up.” There’s something very, I think we’ve run too quickly past just the space, just the space that’s there and the loss and the mourning and the sadness that’s there. I can’t imagine what is going through Jairus’ head when he’s there with Jesus and his daughter’s body. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

You highlight something else for me about the text as a combination of two stories, which is, as you already mentioned, the kind of clearing out of the room. A kind of a de-crowding of the space. 

Willie Jennings: 

Mm-hmm. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

And how that stands in real interesting contrast with the crowded scene the woman with the issue of blood.

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

And yet at the same time, imagining oneself as this woman who’s crawling her way to the edge of his garment. As in some sort of kind of internal space to herself, having intimacy. Almost as if the crowd, that I’m sure she’s feeling every step of the way, kind of almost falls by the wayside because of her determination, right? And Jesus saying like, your faith has saved you. 

Willie Jennings:

Yeah, yeah.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

So, interesting how space and crowding are also a theme that’s kind of working in these two stories. Set one within the other.

Willie Jennings:

And the intimacy that’s present in both even though she’s in the crowd. There is the recognition that at that crucial moment, it really is just her and Jesus. And his words to her, “Daughter what faith,” what faith. And then but at the end, there is no faith spoken by Jairus. In a sense, Jesus is carrying his faith for him at the end. Because how can he? The daughter is dead.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Right. 

Willie Jennings:

So, to me this has always been that moment in which what she had, what the woman with the issue of blood had, Jairus did not have. He might have had it earlier, but by the time he is there with his dear child, it is not there. But it is with Jesus. And so, that word to her, when she wakes up, “give her to eat”, has always been interesting to me. [laughter] 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Both texts within this chapter have, now strike me as yet another insight into the whole Gospel, which is a gospel of last resort, so to speak. What do you do when you think nothing else can be done? And for the woman and the issue of blood, it’s, she’s gone through the physicians. She has no more money. This is the last option that’s available to her. And Jairus thinking, I’ve exhausted all my options. This is it. This is the end. And somehow that also being a parallel with these disciples trying to figure out what to do when the women go to the tomb and say, okay, we were told to go up to Galilee. It’s like, what next? Right? [laughter] Right? Because we seem like we’re at the end of our line.

Willie Jennings:

Right, right, right.

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

And it may not be my faith, but whether it’s the faith of these women who are told to give this message at the end of the Gospel to go up to Galilee, or whether it’s the woman with the issue of blood, or whether it’s Jesus himself, someone is holding your faith.

Willie Jennings:

I love that. Someone is holding your faith. I always say to my students, you know, one of the most important things to always remember about faith is that there are times when you will need to believe for someone else. [laughs] Because they’ve kind of given up, but that doesn’t mean you should. And that’s all right. 

Adrián Hernández-Acosta:

Mm-hmm.

Willie Jennings: 

Other people can hold your faith for you.

Helena Martin:

Thanks for listening. Please check out YaleBibleStudy.org for events, study guides, videos, and plenty of other resources, including a transcript for this episode.

Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and I’m your Host and Executive Producer, Helena Martin. And our theme music is by Calvin Linderman.

We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.