Homily
for July 2, 2006
Liturgical Year B - Cycle II
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Dcn. Ray Alcouffe Topic:
Little girl, I say to you, arise!
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Gospel
Mark 5:21-43
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a large
crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. One of the
synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at
his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the
point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get
well and live.” He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him
and pressed upon him.
There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had
suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that
she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard
about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.
She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately
her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of
her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him,
turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But
his disciples said to Jesus, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon
you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see
who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her,
approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told
him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved
you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”
While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house
arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any
longer?” Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the
synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” He did not
allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the
brother of James. When they arrived at the house of the synagogue
official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing
loudly. So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and
weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” And they ridiculed him.
Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother
and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which
means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve,
arose immediately and walked around. At that they were utterly
astounded. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said
that she should be given something to eat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The gospel passage for today focuses on the poignant moment where Jesus
confronts the death of a little girl and raises her from death’s grasp.
This is set in the context that comments on the nature of death itself
and God’s role in it. To add to that, this weekend we are getting ready
to celebrate the beginning of our independence as a nation to be the
land of the free. Is there a connection here? I think there is. Through
this homily, I would like us to keep in our minds and hearts that
little girl. She is our connection to the reality of our relationship
to the living God.
One passage from the Book of Wisdom tells us that, “God did not make
death... for God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own
nature he made him.” In contrast to the scene of the gospel
where the
little girl died, the death spoken about in Wisdom is what is called
the second death or spiritual death. As we say - like taxes, physical
death is unavoidable, but spiritual death certainly can be avoided and
that is our mission in this life--for each one of us.
The final verse in our Wisdom passage says that, “by the envy of the
devil, death entered the world” - what is referred to here is
that of
spiritual death. Between this last verse and the beginning verses of
our Wisdom selection, are verses that compare and contrast what life
and death means to the Godless as opposed to the upright (or Godly)
person.
They are as follows: “The Godless
call for death with deed and word,
counting him friend... and this is the false argument they use, ‘Our
life is short and dreary, there is no remedy when our end comes, no one
is known to have come back from Hades. We came into being by chance and
afterwards shall be as though we had never been ... In time our name
will be forgotten nobody will remember what we have done ... for our
days are the passing of a shadow, our end is without return, the seal
is affixed and nobody comes back..’”
This is a surprisingly modern and depressing view of our existence
coming from 2200 years ago. and the continuation from the book says,
“Come then, let us enjoy the good
things of today, let us use created
things with the zest of youth, take our fill of the most expensive
wines and perfumes ... let us leave the signs of our revelry
everywhere, since this is our portion, this is our lot! (Sounds like
some people’s idea of spring break). As for the upright man who is
poor, let us oppress him; let us not spare the widow, nor respect old
age, white haired with many years, let our might be the yardstick of
right, since weakness argues its own futility. Let us lay traps for the
upright person, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life,
reproaches us for our sins against the law, and accuses us of sins
against our upbringing. He claims to have knowledge of God and calls
himself a child of the Lord. We see him as a reproof to our way of
thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; for his kind
of life is not like other people’s, and his ways are quite different.
In his opinion we are counterfeit ... he proclaims the final end of the
upright as blessed and boasts of having God as his father.”
Wow. This sounds all too familiar. These are the words and attitudes of
people who have lost their faith and their belief in the promises of
God. This is the beginning and symptoms of spiritual death. So how do
we avoid it? Jesus tells us, “Do not
be afraid, just have faith.”
Wisdom tells us we need to be that upright person, one who acknowledges
God as father who did not make death.
There is a strong parallel in the upright person and the person who
pursues freedom in the right way. Again, we meet a split between two
kinds of persons - those who in the spirit of freedom place themselves
under God and those who define freedom as being independent of God and
others, autonomous. The second type sees freedom as freedom from the
law where law, all law, is viewed as coercion - that divine law is
God’s
coercion of us and human law is our coercion of one another. Thus,
freedom is simply the assertion of my ‘self’ as long as it doesn’t hurt
anyone. The basis of our relationship among one another is one of power
- he who has the most power has the most freedom, and that is something
we should strive to achieve. Sound familiar? Was - “let our might be
the yardstick of right, since weakness argues its own futility”.
However, there is another view of freedom where freedom is for
something and not freedom from
something. In this case, freedom, which
I will call freedom under God, is not a state but a process. It is a
matter of gradually acquiring the capacity to choose the good and to do
what we choose with perfection, with excellence. In this view, freedom
means to organize our life according to God’s will - not my will but
thy will be done - in contrast to the other view. Thus, freedom is the
great organizing principle of the moral life - that is the great
organizing principle of a life lived in a truly human way. To live a
life that is fully human and fully alive (the delight of God), we must
cultivate the discipline of personal freedom - a freedom that comes
from within and not imposed from without. It may seem strange to cast
freedom as a discipline, but we must if we are to live in harmony with
God and within the community of our fellow human beings. It is like
making music from an instrument; in order for that to happen, you have
to learn and practice until you have mastered it and can make music
that blends and harmonizes with all the others. Similarly, our
spiritual life is enhanced to be a real image of that of God. In this
way, our physical death is really a transition to the next level of
life. (Nouwen). “the passage from time into eternity, from the
transient beauty of this world to the lasting beauty of the next, from
darkness into light.”
We return finally to that little girl to whom Jesus reached out and
gave new life. As I think about this, I really see this incident as a
model for us all. Jesus has told us that we must become as little
children in order to enter into eternal life. as we accomplish that by
striving to live the moral and upright life, the life of God’s freedom,
we too at the hour of our own death will have Jesus take us by the hand
and say, “Little one, I say to you arise!”