I have been thinking about bodies this week:

• black bodies,
• brown bodies,
• white bodies,
• LGBTQ bodies,
• straight bodies,
• young bodies,
• old bodies,
• athletic bodies,
• bodies that struggle to move.

What does it mean to live in a body? The mind and spirit are embodied, no matter the skin tone, gender identity, orientation, ability or age. What does it mean that we value some bodies more than others? It has always been the case, some bodies are seen as more valuable, more precious, more worthy of love. Some bodies take more than they need and leave other bodies with less than is just. Some bodies enslave other bodies, injure, shame and abuse other bodies. In some cases it is intentional and as Becca noted last week in her sharing, sometimes it is just the accident of being born into a family, neighborhood or culture that means one body is automatically valued more than another body.

The story today, from Mark’s gospel, is full of bodies. Jesus gets out of the boat after having been on a body of water and immediately he is surrounded by human bodies, pressing up against him. Jesus says in Mark 1 that he has come “so that I may proclaim Good News. That is what I have come to do.”  All these bodies do not disturb Jesus; he knows that Good News must be proclaimed by his body to other bodies.

Suddenly Jairus arrives on the scene. He is a synagogue official, desperate to find healing for his daughter. He has to come out to the lakeside to ask this ‘rabbi with a reputation’ for help. The body of his beloved daughter is ill and he believes that Jesus’ body can fully restore his daughter to him. Jairus is even willing to lay down his own body, humble himself in front of the crowd, and Jesus, to get help. Jesus and Jairus are swept up in the crowd of bodies and they begin walking toward Jairus’ home.

This is part of how Jesus proclaims Good News, he allows himself to be a body in the crowd, to get close to the bodies that need him, close to the bodies that are hungry for healing, respect, meaning and worth. On the way though, there is an interruption. Another body needs him.

An unnamed woman, who has been hemorrhaging for years, reaches out to touch Jesus. For twelve years this woman has bled, has suffered in ways that are not spoken about in mixed company. She is so desperate for healing that she doesn’t aim to touch his body. She imagines that just touching the edge of his hem is all she needs in order to receive the healing she has heard so much about.

So in the midst of the crowd she stretches out and somehow, improbably, she touches Jesus’ clothes. And with all those bodies pressing in on each other, Jesus feels her touch or perhaps it is a tug. Jesus stops walking, turns around and asks, “Who touched my clothes?” We see with the disciples what a ridiculous question this is. Jesus is in the midst of a crowd; who didn’t touch his clothes? But Jesus persists, looking for the person so desperate that they would grope their way toward him.

The woman steps forward, out of the crowd, falls to the ground in fear and perhaps embarrassment. But it is not the same kind of embarrassment she has experienced the last twelve years because now she is no longer bleeding, she knows that she is healed. Can you see her, on the ground, face in the dirt until Jesus tells her to look up just a bit so he can hear her? And right there, amidst the people, she tells Jesus her story, how she has traveled the countryside visiting doctor after doctor but none have the cure. How she has spent all her money – and then some – for healing that never came. How she heard about the good news and healing that Jesus proclaims and she decided that a touch was all she needed.

Jesus doesn’t further shame her, she has had enough of that for a lifetime. Jesus calls her daughter. Jesus looks at her body and tells her that her faith has saved her, has healed her. He blesses her (with the benediction we use at the end of worship) “Go in peace.” And he adds, “Be free of disease, be free of affliction, be healed.”

Before Jesus can finish speaking to the faithful woman, there is another interruption.  Messengers from Jairus’ house come running on to the scene, bursting with the sad news that Jairus’ daughter is dead. They don’t try to sugar coat it, to break it to him gently. They just blurt it out, “Your daughter is dead; there is no need to bother the great teacher.  No need for him to come to your house.”

Jesus sees Jairus crumble at this message. Jesus reads body language. Perhaps it is the great faith of the healed and faithful woman that inspires Jesus to tell Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.” Again, reading Jairus’ body, Jesus sees that Jairus can’t deal with all these people, all these bodies. Jesus will go to the house but this will be a private visit, the crowd must stay by the lake. Only Peter, James and John will come along.

When they get to the house, more bodies mill about, weeping and wailing, keening in grief. Jesus tells them they can stop now, the little girl is not dead, just sleeping. Suddenly their weeping turns to laughter and ridicule. Who does this man think he is, that he can bring a dead body back to life? But Jesus is not deterred. He closes the door on the crowd as he takes James, John, Peter and the parents into the room where the girl has been laid out.

After all this build up, what happens next is a little anti-climactic. Jesus takes the girl’s hand, tells her to get up and immediately she gets up and starts walking around. The only mysterious thing is that Mark has Jesus speak in Aramaic but then has to translate it for the readers. The parents are astonished that their beloved 12 year old is now up and walking. But before they get too excited, Jesus instructs them not to tell anyone and by the way, she is probably hungry, give her some food.

Not tell anyone? There is a house full of mourners on the other side of the door. They all know she is dead, was dead. They laughed in Jesus’ face when he said she was sleeping. How are they supposed to keep this a secret? Bodies don’t just come back to life. Keep silent?

Reading this story over and over this week, I immediately thought of the ways that we need healing in this country, how racism is a sickness that lays people out on their death beds, like a flesh-eating virus. I was really running with the metaphor. Many of the people affected by this dread disease of racism don’t just appear dead, they are dead. The shootings at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston are just one example. The list of names goes on and on: Trayvon, Michael, Tamir, Shelly, Malissa, Eric, John, Yvette, Aiyana, Kathryn (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/13/black-womens-lives-matter-police-shootings_n_6644276.html)

My narrative was interrupted as the bodies and names of LGBTQ people appeared in the news, with the announcement that the Supreme Court has “so ordered” that marriage between two consenting adults is now a right in every state. Attention shifted from tragedy to a joyous event (for many of us.)

Like in Mark’s gospel, we think we are hearing one story and suddenly our attention is diverted. There is a holy interruption and we encounter a whole other set of bodies. We can’t carry the metaphor too far though or we have people reaching out to touch the robes of supreme court justices. But there may be ways that the great faith of many LGBTQ people has made it possible to hear with new ears: Go in Peace, be wholly yourself in love, with love, to love. How amazing.

And then before I got too overcome with joy, I was interrupted again. The Reverend Clementa Pinkney lying in state at the South Carolina State House and the funerals for the Emanuel Nine. Yes, bodies die from the disease of racism. We mourners rail against the injustice, the insanity of it all. We seriously doubt if any healing can occur when the disease is so toxic. But Jesus tells Jairus: Do not be afraid. Only believe.

There are fearless people who do believe. We woke up yesterday morning to see that Bree Newsome, a 30 year old African American director, artist, activist, used her body to courageously climb the flagpole in front of the state capitol in Columbia, SC to remove the Confederate battle flag. Having removed the flag “she paused in her descent to declare, ‘I come to get you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!’” http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/activist-bree-newsome-arrested-after-daring-south-carolina-confederate-flag-removal  And as she approached the ground she recited part of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear. The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid.” Do not be afraid. Only believe. Thank you Bree Newsome. (She was of course arrested immediately.)

It is dangerous to get too literal (or cheerful) with our analogies and metaphors. Especially as people who sit comfortably in white bodies and watch these events unfold on the screen in front of us. For those of us who live a life of privilege, blissfully unaware of the power we have just because of the body we accidentally inhabit, it is hard to grasp the gravity of these times. (We must remember too that there are people that experience racism and discrimination in the same body. It is complicated, the intersectionality of oppressions in one body.)

We shouldn’t be surprised when people of color are suspicious of white people who say they want to be supportive, when LGBTQ people wonder if straight people truly stand with them. What could I possibly know about what it means to live at the intersection of race, class and gender? How could I possibly understand the pain, or began to grasp the generations of suffering?

Perhaps the most supportive thing we can do as white people, as straight people, is to be silent and listen to the stories from other bodies, to somehow clear the air so that the voices of  people of color, queer people, women, and children, can be heard. As we do this there will be many mistakes, there may be anger, tears and misunderstanding. We will need to  try and try again.

Perhaps, those of us who are straight and white need to believe and not be afraid. Can we believe that there will be grace when we stumble? That our silence speaks support instead of abandonment? That standing with, instead of speaking over, is more empowering for those who seek to be heard?

In fact, this is what Jesus instructs. He heals the young daughter and then tells the parents to tell no one. We don’t know his motivation for silence but perhaps Jesus knows that it is the daughter’s story to tell, that she needs to find her own voice and speak her own truth. The parents know a version of the story but the young girl has her own story and it needs to be heard. If the parents begin telling their story, the daughter’s version may get lost, forgotten before it is even remembered.

The gospel writer gives us these two stories, bodies and pain intertwining with each other. A woman who has bled for twelve years interrupts the story of a twelve year old girl – who may never bleed unless she is healed. A father who will do anything for his daughter is interrupted by a woman who is called “daughter” by the healer. A newly healed woman is interrupted by news of death. How will these two “daughters” tell their own stories? How will they find power and dignity in their renewed bodies? How can we stand with them, side by side in our own bodies – in solidarity, listening and silently cheering them on?