The Neighborhood Podcast

"Sacred the Body: Holy the Difference" (January 26, 2025 Sermon)

• Rev. Stephen M. Fearing

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This episode highlights the transformative power of inclusion by recounting the story of a woman's profound encounter with Jesus, focusing on her struggles with chronic illness and the importance of community support. We discuss themes of faith, belonging, and the ripple effect of compassionate change within our neighborhoods. 
• Exploring the importance of inclusivity for those with chronic illnesses 
• The contrasting stories of Jairus' daughter and the marginalized woman 
• Capturing the depths of loneliness caused by illness 
• The empowering moment of healing when Jesus calls her “daughter” 
• Dissecting the relationship between faith and healing 
• The shifting dynamics in the community due to newfound relationships 
• Encouragement to foster inclusive practices in everyday life

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Speaker 1:

Friends, I forgot to mention that I do have some copies of the statement that I read for us. They are located in the Northex, if you would like to take a copy home with you, and I will also email them out this afternoon. So, friends, the topic of this Sunday was going to be or is in fact going to be, on the importance of the inclusion of our neighbors who have chronic illnesses or disabilities or those who are neurodivergent. So I thought about getting up and giving a typical sermon on the importance of that. But I had a great conversation with Guilford Park member Donna Schumacher a couple days ago for the newest edition of our Neighborhood Podcast and she said this is kind of preaching to the choir. This is a congregation that I think already we think already values inclusivity and is always striving to live more fully into that.

Speaker 1:

So instead of giving y'all a typical sermon this day, I am going to offer up a story, a midrash if you will, on this passage. This passage comes from the fifth chapter of Mark's gospel, which is chocked full of action. It begins with Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac, and then a leader in the synagogue named Jairus comes to him after that and says that his 12-year-old daughter is on the verge of death and he begs Jesus to come with him to his house so that the 12-year-old girl might be healed. And then, on the way to Jairus' house, is when the story today that we talked about, that Tara read for us and Miss Kim talked about, that's where that happens is, as they are en route to Jairus' house, where, spoiler alert the 12-year-old girl is fine and heals her. So a few months ago I can't remember when it was last year I preached a midrash sermon, which is a fancy word for saying kind of playing with the scripture and imagining it from the perspective of one of the characters. And last year I preached a sermon from the perspective of Jairus' daughter, that 12-year-old girl. So today I'd like to offer up a midrash, if you will, from the perspective of the woman who had the hemorrhage for 12 years, because so often we relegate the stories of our neighbors with chronic illnesses and disabilities and who are neurodivergent to the margins. We don't give them a sense of agency. So I really wanted to center this woman in the proclamation of today. So, if you all will, a little bit of a different sermon Daughter, go in peace and be healed.

Speaker 1:

No one had called her daughter. For 12 long years, the last people to call her that had been her parents. Her mother had since died and her father had abandoned her for fear that the perpetual stigma of her chronic illness would reflect poorly upon their family's honor. For 12 long years, no one had called her daughter. No one had called her anything really other than unclean, worthless or sinful. She was left to a life of destitution. Unlike her neighbor Jairus, a man of means and a leader in the synagogue, she had no social status or legal protection. She had seen doctors or so at least they called themselves who promised her, for a fee, to restore her physical health, but to no avail. She gave them what little money she had. They in turn gave her their snake oil, remedies and empty promises, but she didn't improve. Instead, her condition worsened and now she was broke. Everything had been taken from her her health, her dignity and, most painfully, any agency. She had to claim her own path in life, but she decided that that would end.

Speaker 1:

Today, her only friend in the world, the only person who showed her even a modicum of compassion, was a 12-year-old girl, the daughter of her neighbor Jairus, when everyone else had passed her by in disgust. Day after day, month after month, year after year. The girl had always made an effort to say hi, to give her a friendly wave and occasionally chat for a few moments over a pomegranate. The woman forbade the girl from telling her father about their friendship, not for her protection so much as for the girl's. She had grown fond of her, which was why she was devastated to learn that she was gravely ill, deathly ill, so ill, in fact, that she had heard her father had begged that teacher everyone was talking about to come to his house.

Speaker 1:

She had heard stories. You'd be surprised what sort of gossip you pick up when you're relegated to a life begging by the side of the road. Over the months she had heard plenty of talk about the young man from Galilee, the young rabbi, how he had healed a man with an unclean spirit and another with leprosy and yet another who had been paralyzed. How he had called disciples and preached sermons and told parables. She had heard murmurings of a lamp under a bushel basket and seeds being scattered all over the place. Didn't really understand what all that meant. She had heard a story of the man having the very authority of God, even to the point of calming a raging storm over the sea, and so when she heard that he was about to pass by her usual spot, she had come up with a plan. She wouldn't take up any of his time. She was too worried about the girl and dared not delay for even a minute. The man who might very well be her only hope for survival, all she needed, all she needed, she thought to herself, was to touch the hem of his garment. If the stories were true, that's all she needed, and then he could go about his work and hopefully, heal her friend too.

Speaker 1:

A few minutes later, she could hear the noise of an approaching crowd. She raised her cloak over her head, hoping to shield her identity lest she get caught. Raised her cloak over her head hoping to shield her identity lest she get caught, for any woman to approach a man in such a manner was forbidden, much less a woman considered unclean for 12 years, and so she shuffled into the crowd and began to finagle her way towards the man from Galilee. Jairus was beside him, so she maneuvered herself over to the opposite side to avoid his gaze. She was close enough to him now and she took her shot. She reached out and her hand grazed the fringe of his garment the tassels that represent the 613 laws of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in a moment she knew that something had changed.

Speaker 1:

She froze. The crowd moved around her, but the man stopped abruptly. Who touched my cloak? He asked. He turned around and looked her straight in the eye. All the attention was suddenly directed at her. Everyone recognized her, gasped and took several steps back.

Speaker 1:

The man whom she had touched, however, did the opposite. He moved toward her as a stunned gyrus stood slack-jawed, she fell to her knees trembling and confessed it was her. She said she just needed to touch his garment. She begged him to hurry up and go get the girl to help her, but he told her not to worry about that right now, unlike the other people who would never give her the time of day. He listened to her and she told him the whole truth.

Speaker 1:

She told him about the pain of always being on the outside looking in the moments of agonizing loneliness, without being able to eat with anyone else. Oh, how she longed to sit at a table with others, laughing and smiling and joking and hugging. She couldn't remember the last time she had been hugged by someone. She was a whole person, just the way she was illness and all, but no one ever saw her that way. The way she was illness and all, but no one ever saw her that way. All they saw was something, not someone, something to be pitied, avoided and shamed. Her illness itself, she confessed to him, wasn't half the burden of being treated like some pariah. In fact, she had gotten used to her illness. It caused her pain, to be sure, but being alone that was suffering.

Speaker 1:

The rabbi listened to her as everyone else watched and stunned, silenced. He listened and he looked at her, not with pity but with love and empathy. And after she told him the whole truth, he paused and spoke, saying Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. And then he hugged her, turned around to continue on his way and now it was her turn to sit in stunned silence.

Speaker 1:

Daughter, she hadn't belonged to anyone in such a long time. She had been alone, outcast, forgotten. But now she was someone's daughter, she was seen and she was valued, she was loved, both holy and whole. But what did he mean when he said that her faith had made her well? What did her faith have anything to do with it? After all, she had known other people with chronic illnesses who had just as much faith, if not more, than she had, and they had yet to be healed, surely she thought it couldn't be some transaction like that. Her friend, the 12-year-old girl, had faith, but she got sick. Faithful people she knew suffered and died. So that couldn't be it and he told her to go in peace. Peace was what she had been longing for. She hadn't had it in some time, for her peace had finally arrived because she was finally seen as the whole person that she was all along healed.

Speaker 1:

And they swapped stories over their favorite snack, a pomegranate. The girl laughed at the two of them, for they were quite the odd pair One the 12-year-old girl who was lost and found, and her friend who for 12 years had been lost in a different way, through no fault of her own. The woman turned to her friend and confessed her struggle with the man, suggesting that it was her faith that did all this. The girl paused for a moment, pondering her friend's words. She took a bite of the pomegranate and savored the taste, and after a minute or so she said to the woman you know, ever since that man healed you and me, something's been different in our neighborhood.

Speaker 1:

My father has used his position to try to make some changes around here. He's doing his best to change the practices that kept you in isolation for so long. In fact, he wanted me to ask you if you'd come over for dinner tonight and break bread with us, with that man across the street who's having those seizures. Something's changing. The neighborhood is changing thanks to your courage and perhaps even your faith. The girl smiled at the woman and said simply maybe your faith healed the rest of us too. Friends, I now invite you to rise in body or in spirit that we may sing together our new homegrown hymn that I trust is sung to a tune very familiar to us © BF-WATCH TV 2021.

Speaker 2:

O'er, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we were gathered in Christ's holy name and there we once lived, and there's still the same. Each body in this world has a place to be found, a portion of grace, the one of our soul, with intent and confidence, and with time and time. The Lord is with you different ways. Create here my love, put on your starways the glorious and the strange, the divine. Each difference is sacred by God's great design. I, the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1:

In the name of God, the creator, redeemer and sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved neighbors, say Amen.