A WORD FOR TODAY, June 28, 2024
Peggy Hoppes
We pray you have been blessed by this daily devotion. If you received it from a friend, you can see other devotions and studies by visiting our website at www.awordfortoday.org.
Blessings. Peg
I am on vacation this week, so instead of my usual pattern of regular devotions on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Midweek Oasis lectionary devotion on Wednesday, I’m going to post devotions on the lectionary scriptures, one each day of the week.
Scriptures for Sunday, June 30, 2024: Lamentations 3:22-33 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-23; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43
A WORD FOR TODAY, June 28, 2024
“And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.’ And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, ‘If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.’ And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my garments?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, “Who touched me?”’ And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, ‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’ And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.” Mark 5:21-43, WEB
The reality of the Church in the world is that each individual location is likely to match a certain demographic. A church located in a middle-class neighborhood will be attended by a majority of middle class people. A center city church will be home to those who live in the city. A country church will host people who farm. The pews in a church in the high retirement areas will probably be filled with elderly. This is not how we want it to be, and we make a strong effort to try to find ways to make our churches a more diverse community. Unfortunately, the people who attend usually want to go to a place where they feel comfortable and we feel most comfortable in places with people who have things in common with us.
Despite the fact that our congregations do not appear to have much diversity, we don’t see ourselves as being places for certain types of people. Many churches purposely try to find ways to create diversity. They change the music or liturgy. They offer programs to meet the needs of other demographic groups. They create mission statements that are inclusive and far reaching. And yet, do we really reach out to different people with open arms?
Take, for example, the congregation whose minister preaches the prosperity gospel. This is the message that God will make his faithful people prosper. There is an underlying message in these churches that if you are prospering, then you must not have enough faith. The message can go the other way, too. Some congregations focus on the idea that Jesus came only for the poor. It is true that much of His teaching revolves around wealth and He lifts up the poor, but some churches preach a message that the rich cannot enter into heaven. In one church, the poor are excluded because they do not have enough faith that God would make them rich. In the other church, the rich are excluded because they do not have enough faith to give away all their wealth for the sake of others.
Jesus didn’t notice. It didn’t matter to Jesus whether a person was rich or poor, old or young, male or female. He didn’t notice race, creed, nationality. He didn’t pay attention to hair color, skin color, body mass index, clothing styles. He did speak about the rich that were greedy and the poor that were lazy. He did tell people to stop sinning. He taught us all the lessons we have to learn to live as He has called us to live. But He was blind when it came to the things we tend to use to divide ourselves from our neighbors. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we are blind to those differences, too.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus didn’t send Jairus away, despite the fact that he was a prosperous leader of the synagogue. Instead, He went with the man who had the faith to ask for help. As He walked, He was pressed in by the crowd, a crowd that was also blind to the people around them. They didn’t see the ill woman push her way through to Jesus. I’m sure many of the people in that crowd must have known her. Perhaps even Jairus, as a leader in the synagogue, was aware of her dis-ease. She’d been sick for 12 years. and was required by religious laws to stay away from others while she bled. The community would have known she was unclean. Yet no one noticed, because they were too busy focusing on Jesus.
I wonder if our churches would become more diverse if we stopped paying so much attention to our differences, trying to draw people in by offering them programs to meet specific needs or teaching things that are really exclusive even though they are trying to sound biblical. We are reminded by this text that Jesus breaks down all barriers, that Jesus is blind to everything but our needs. We are reminded that this is the life we are called to live: gathered around the Savior, with our eyes on Him, in a community that sees everything through Him.