Reading Luke Together #27 – Interruptible
Luke 8. What a chapter! Women disciples. A sower. Disciples called. Healings. A crowd is waiting when Jesus gets back home from that macabre cemetery scene where he liberated the man possessed by “Legion.” He’s met immediately by Jairus, a towering figure in the religious life of the synagogue, probably as a donor, perhaps also as a wise teacher. Not eye to eye, but falling at Jesus’ feet, he pleads for his 12 year old daughter, who is near death. So much emotion in this man. Whatever else might be true of him, he cherishes this little girl, on the cusp of womanhood; he’s teetering on the precipice of losing her. Ponder that. Jesus felt his agony, and understood he was Jairus’s last shred of hope.
The crowd presses all around him as he makes his way to Jairus’s home. A woman, who’s been critically ill for 12 years (so beginning about the time Jairus’s daughter was born!) snakes her way through the people, gets close enough, reaches out and brushes the hem of his garment. She’s low to the ground. Was she bent over from years of illness? Was that her only opening? Was it humility, or shame, sneaking up from behind?
Jesus stops, somehow noticing her touch. Amazing: just the hem of his garment, and in such a crowd where everybody was bumping up against everybody, Jesus included! Jesus is always the one who notices what no one else notices. Jesus is always the one who has something like a Geiger counter in his heart that noses out the unnoticed, those who suffer. Her suffering wasn’t just the illness, but loneliness and isolation, as her condition would have caused her neighbors to avert their gaze and avoid her as unclean.
The hem of the garment was a sacred aspect of clothing for Jewish men, with tassels indicating prayerfulness. Her prayer of desperation touched his prayerfulness. He stopped. He’d already been interrupted from whatever he was doing to go to visit Jairus’s home. And now he’s interrupted again. Jesus, the interruptible one. Perhaps he invites us to be interruptible, ready to be diverted to help somebody who’s hurting.
Jesus, the most perceptive person ever, sensed her presence, and turns, speaking words of love and peace to her, treating her with far more dignity than she could have fathomed she had, and with far more dignity than anybody in that crowd attributed to such a one they might only pity. He calls her – a total stranger! – “Daughter.” Jesus isn’t just healing. Jesus is cobbling together a new family.
Now Jesus moves on to another “daughter,” Jairus’s, yes, but soon to be another in Jesus’ family. But in the time Jesus stopped to interact with the sick woman, the little girl has died. Too late. They tell Jesus not to bother now. But Jesus never refuses to be bothered. He continues on – to console the parents? That would itself be a powerful gesture. But with Jesus, there’s always more.
Luke tells us “All were weeping and bewailing her.” Pause. Listen. Let their pain rifle through you. Maybe you recall a time you wept and bewailed. Jesus understood, full of empathy, but always the non-anxious presence. He tries to calm them – but “they laughed at him.” I wonder if Luke intended for us to think of old, rickety Abraham and Sarah being told they’d have a child, prompting them to laugh.
Jesus “took her by the hand.” So tender. Not commanding her to rise at a distance or in a booming, impressive voice. Probably he knelt, or sat on her bed, and took her by the hand. She sat up. Imagine the gasps, and then new, unintelligible sounds coming from within her room, overheard by those outside. More wailing? But wait. Sounds more like an eruption of joy, relief, intense gratitude.
And then Jesus – was he still holding her hand? – “directed that something be given her to eat.” Just lovely. Of course, she’s hungry. The one thing Jesus and his family do is we eat, being nourished with food but also that new family, and the holy presence of God in every meal, especially our sacred meal of Communion.
Had the formerly-sick woman followed? Had she known the girl, or had the girl and Jairus known her over those 12 years? Knowing Jesus, I’m sure they knew one another now. Both had second homes now with one another. Both knew their ultimate home would always be with Jesus and the fishermen and tax collectors and others in that quirky band of followers. Jesus’ new family