Homily: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Friends,
today’s Scriptures are a continuation of the theme from last week. Namely: the question of whether Jesus is with
us in the storms of our lives and whether he cares for us. Last week, we watched as the disciples of
Jesus prepared the boats to cross the Sea of Galilee at night, in spite of the
known danger that a storm might come upon them unexpectedly in the
darkness. We watched as the feared storm
did appear and was so violent that even these experienced sailors feared that
the boats (and their lives) would be lost.
We saw how Jesus remained sleeping, even as the boat was being tossed
violently by the wind and waves, and how the disciples cried out in
desperation, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Finally, we saw how Jesus awoke, rebuked the
storm and the sea to demonstrate his power, and then rebuked the disciples for
their lack of faith.
Having
heard all of this, I reflected back on the beginning of the coronavirus
pandemic—on how we all felt like a violent storm had come upon us suddenly in
the night—and on how Pope Francis (citing that Gospel passage) invited us to
recognize that Jesus was there with us in the boat in the middle of the
storm. I did this to remind us that,
even as we emerge from the pandemic here in the United States, the storms of
our lives will not end and that we are not any less in need of Jesus (that is,
of greater faith in him) now than at the beginning of the pandemic. Thus, I urged those who heard my homily to
resolve to seek a “new normal” in which we give witness to God’s abiding and
saving presence with us through the storms that will continue to afflict us.
This
week, we have these two wonderful stories of healing that further the theme of
God’s abiding and saving presence with us through the storms of our lives. These stories also highlight a number of
other revelations of God and of how he cares for us.
In
the first story, Jairus, an official of the synagogue, comes in great humility
to ask Jesus’ help to heal his daughter who is sick and appears to be in danger
of dying. A storm has entered Jairus’
life and he turns to Jesus, whom he does not yet acknowledge as the Son of God,
but rather as a renowned healer, and begs him to “rebuke this storm” and
restore calm and peace into his life. We
don’t know what Jesus’ plans were that day, but he nonetheless interrupts them
to go with Jairus. This, you might
think, would be expected. Officials in
the synagogue were important members of the Jewish community and so Jesus, an
observant Jew and a respecter of Jewish tradition, would certainly respond with
urgency to help this person of prominence in the community; and so he does.
As
they go (followed by the crowd of disciples and curious observers that had
gathered to see Jesus and hear him teach), a woman who has been afflicted with
a hemorrhage for twelve years—someone who, therefore, has been ritually “impure”
and thus unable to participate fully in the life of the community, especially
worship—presses through the crowd in the hope of simply touching Jesus’
clothes: believing that, in doing so, the power that was in him would heal her. She was too embarrassed to approach him
directly and ask for healing, but she nonetheless approached him because she
believed in his power to save. She had
been in this storm for twelve years.
Having sought all human means for calming/weathering the storm, she now
turns to one renowned for possessing divine power with faith that he can “rebuke
this storm” and restore her life.
As
we know, her faith was rewarded: once she touched Jesus’ clothes, her
hemorrhage stopped and she was healed.
Jesus, having felt this power go out from him, stops and seeks to know
to whom this power of healing was given. He refuses to go any further until he knows
and addresses the person who he has healed.
Once she presents herself and he discovers that she was a woman of lowly
estate—a woman living on the margins of society for the last twelve years
because of her infirmity—he does not dismiss her and return in haste on his
path to the house of the important synagogue official, but rather he spends
time to listen to her story. He commends
her faith and confirms her healing so as to reunite her to the life of the
worshiping community. It is a
beautifully tender moment made all the more powerful by the fact that, as a
woman (and as a woman of lowly estate), Jesus nonetheless chose to address her:
something that a man in Jewish society would not have done in public.
This
is where the masterful interweaving of these stories becomes important. We remember now that Jairus knows that his
daughter’s minutes are numbered and that there was no time to waste. Having Jesus agree to come immediately, he
felt great hope that his daughter might still be saved from death. But then Jesus stops to investigate this “surprise”
healing. Suddenly, Jairus’ anxiety
returns ten-fold. I imagine that he
begins to look at Jesus with impatience, so as to say “Teacher, do you not care
that my daughter is perishing? Why are you spending time talking to this woman?”
The anxiety, I’m sure, would have been palpable among those in the
crowd. Nonetheless, Jesus gives the
newly healed woman the time to tell her story so that she might be fully
restored.
The
delay, as we know from the story, means that Jairus’ daughter dies before Jesus
arrives. Now all those who were in the
house—many of whom, I’m sure, encouraged Jairus to have faith and to go to
Jesus—now tell Jesus to “go away”: the girl has died, so there’s nothing more
that can be done. Their faith was only
in Jesus’ power to heal. Jesus rebuked
their small faith, however, and stepped into the home to show that he is more
than a healer: but rather that he is, in
fact, “the resurrection and the life”.
Friends,
in these two stories we encounter once again the call to trust in God’s abiding
and saving presence in our lives. We
also see that it does not matter whether we are someone of social status: God
addresses each of us personally and intentionally because we are all equal in
his eyes. Finally, we see that God’s
power truly has no limits: that even death—the separation of soul from body—is not
something beyond God’s power to control.
Having seen these things—and having experienced these things in our own
lives as Christians—we are called once again to give witness to them in our
lives. We are called to create a “new
normal” of radical openness to others in which our brothers and sisters around us
are welcomed and led to an encounter with Jesus who will rebuke the storms in
their lives and restore peace: the peace of knowing that his abiding and saving
presence is always with them. On this
Lord’s day, let us ask the Holy Spirit to show us one way that we can make this
“new normal” a reality during the next week.
As
we approach this altar of thanksgiving today, let us call to mind the healings
that God has worked in our lives so as to unite them to the offering that we
will present to God. And as we receive
life himself from this altar, may it strengthen us to be witnesses of his power
and love to those around us.
Given at Saint Louis de Montfort Parish: Fishers, IN – June
27th, 2021
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