Preaching Joyfully on a Sunday...

ANOTHER KIND OF DYING

13TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; Ps. 30; 2 Cor. 8: 7, 9, 13-15, Mk. 5: 21-24; 35b-43

To die is to fall down. No matter how high an eagle soars in the sky, it always falls to the
ground in death. No matter how green the leaves are, they too fall to the ground. No matter
how powerful and mighty a person is, he/she at the moment of death falls to the ground.
One can never see a dead person or animal standing mightily at the moment of death.

Our narrative today taken from the Gospel of Mark tells us about Jairus who pleads Jesus to
visit his house for his daughter is at the point of death. Despite the large crowd following
Jesus, he agreed to the request of Jairus. However, when they arrived, people from the
synagogue official’s house arrived and said to him, “Your daughter has died!” Such news
must have troubled Jairus’ so much. However, Jesus assured him saying, “Do not be afraid;
just have faith.” And true enough, when Jesus arrived, he asked the fallen girl, “Talitha
koum!” (Little girl, I say to you, arise!) Indeed, death makes us fall down to the ground. But,
the words of Jesus can make us rise up and live!

Thus, we are reminded in our Gospel story today that even death which causes us trouble
has no power over the mighty power of God. Yes, death is inevitable. We all experience
death because it is the result of evil. Our first reading today reminds us that death does not
come from God. It cannot come from God because he does not rejoice “in the destruction of
the living” and that “he fashioned all things that they might have being.” However, “but by
the envy of the devil, death entered into the world.” Despite the inevitability of death in our
lives, we must never forget too the intervention of God’s grace like the woman who was
afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years yet a mere touch of Jesus’ clothes gave her
complete healing.

However, St. Paul in our second reading today invites us to experience another kind of
dying, of falling down. He calls this dying as a gracious act. “For you know the gracious act
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by
his poverty you might become rich.” This gracious act is our own dying from self and sin.
This gracious act is our emptying of ourselves. It is gracious because through such act
others will become rich, other will live. Just as physical death is inescapable, we, too
Christians, are not to escape from this kind of dying – the falling down of our sinful lives;
the decentering from ourselves to others. While on earth, we are called to practice this
form of dying so that when physical death comes to our lives, we shall no longer fear, for
we have already learned and practiced how “to die” through a life of generosity not
selfishness, humility not pride, and others not the self.

And so, as we mark today the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, let us be aware that death is
inevitable yet God’s grace is inescapable. However, while on earth, we are challenged to
experience another kind of dying – death from our sinfulness so that we and others will
experience God’s life in abundance.
Let us then beg the Lord to grant us the grace of learning how to die from our sinful selves
so that at the moment of physical death, God will rescue us. Thereby, making our
responsorial psalm today our own worship to the Father, “ I will praise you, Lord, for you
have rescued me!”

In this time of pandemic, if there’s one thing many people have been deprived of, it’s the experience
of TOUCHING AND BEING TOUCHED. We have consciously restrained ourselves from shaking
hands, embracing, making “mano po”, doing “beso-beso” (kissing), or sitting close to each other.
Even priests are now instructed to pray over or lay hands from a distance, and use cotton for
anointing. We do this to protect each other, but we might forget that touching is also one of the most
powerfully therapeutic things in our human reality.

Our Gospel is about two people who desire, either to touch, or to be touched by Jesus, believing that
they could obtain healing from him. There’s Jairus, who is desperate to have Jesus lay his hands on
his 12-year old daughter who is mortally ill. And then there is the woman who has suffered
hemorrhages for 12 years.

Unlike Jairus, the woman is not even asking for any attention. She helps herself by sneaking in in the
midst of a crowd. She seems to have gotten used to suffering alone and unnoticed, because she knew
that, according to Jewish tradition, she was unclean, and anyone who touched her would also become
unclean.

This woman reminds me of the Roman centurion who was so considerate, he did not even require
Jesus’ physical presence. Remember how he said, “Just say the word…” But this woman did not
even ask for a word! She just wanted to touch his clothes. It did not even have to be a skin-to-skin
touch because she did not want to defile Jesus. Touching even just the hem of Jesus’ garment was
enough for her.

As far as she was concerned, Jesus did not even have to be aware of it. But then of course, Mark tells
us, Jesus became aware of it. There were no such things as magical or automatic healings for Jesus.
Neither did he do mass healings; it was always one person at a time. The disciples were right when
they reacted and said, “But why are you asking who touched you? So many people are touching
you!”

There were indeed many people who were touching him, but the effect was not the same for each
one. Like I said, it was not automatic; It was not magic. Only the touch accompanied by faith could
gain access to God’s healing power. That is why Mark tells us Jesus felt it and needed to know who
had touched him. And when he found out, he said, “Woman, YOUR FAITH has saved you!”
Meaning, you have discovered the secret of gaining access to God’s power. I think Mark is
insinuating that Jesus had said this, not just for the woman, but for Jairus.

I like the way Mark tells his story. He sandwiches this woman’s story within the story of Jairus’
daughter, on purpose. He is doing it precisely to demonstrate the contrast between this woman’s faith
and that of Jairus. Look, Jairus was already holding on to Jesus but was still tempted to lose hope
when the news of his daughter’s death reached him. And so, Jesus tells him, “Just have faith.” Short
of saying—like this woman over here.

This woman also reminds me of the Canaanite woman who did not mind getting even just the
“crumbs from the master’s table.” But quite unlike her, the bleeding woman is not even asking for
attention. In fact she reacts with fear when she is noticed. Why? Like I said, she was ritually unclean
according to Jewish law. She could be accused of contaminating people by touching them, and this
was unlawful for the Pharisees. And so she came out to apologize for what she had done.
Jesus insisted on wanting to know “who touched him”, not because he believed as the Pharisees did
that he might get defiled. So why did he want to know? I am sure Jesus also had to deal with a lot of
people who tended to be unruly. People who grabbed or pulled him or clung desperately to him?
Remember that woman who pulled the Pope’s hand and hurt him? Remember how annoyed the Pope
was and how he instinctively slapped her hand, and later apologized for it? We also have stories of
Jesus getting annoyed, like by the Canaanite woman. He may have also have been annoyed by Jairus
who was almost literally dragging him to his home. (Halos kaladkarin na nga siya.) I wonder if that
was not the reason he deliberately tarried. In some instances, Jesus even asked his disciples to
prepare an escape boat, otherwise people might crush him.
Jairus actually believed that Jesus’ touch could have its effect on the sick girl. But I feel that he was
still treating it like magic. And so when the daughter died and people told Jairus, “Your daughter has
died; why trouble the teacher any longer,” as far as Jairus was concerned, it was too late. He was
presupposing that Jesus’ touch could not possibly have an effect anymore on someone who was dead
already. It was the same case with Martha’s lament about Jesus’ late arrival, remember? Too late the
hero.
There is a twist after the daughter dies. This time, it is Jesus, no longer Jairus, who will insist on
proceeding to his home. But when he enters the house, he seeks the company only of those who
believed and asks the others to leave. Mark tells us the house was full and some of the people inside
ridiculed Jesus when he said the girl was just sleeping. Meaning, their faithless presence would not
be of any help.
And so he asked only Peter, James, and John and the child’s parents to accompany him. Later when
the child is raised, he would ask them to feed her and not talk about it. This reminds me again of the
raising of Lazarus, how Jesus also involved the people who accompanied him to assist in unbinding
the dead man, after he was raised back to life.
The point is: not every touch has the same effect. Some touches can defile; others can purify. Some
touches can kill; others can give life. Some touches can help; others can only aggravate the problem.
Some touches can cause people to be sick; others can effect healing. It is faith that enables us to
distinguish between the two. It is faith that gives us access to God’s healing power. And it is
compassion that enables us to share this faith and touch others with God’s healing power.