We Are Being Defined 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of Immaculate Conception, Lonsdale, MN

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Today’s Gospel (Mark 5:21-43) is a masterpiece both in literary and spiritual sense. It is about two closely related narratives: the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the hemorrhaging woman. St. Mark’s story begins with the daughter of Jairus, but before its conclusion, he inserts the story of the hemorrhaging woman and then concludes with the second part of the first story. In a number of ways, St. Mark shows how we are meant to read these two stories together. For example, the first story is about the daughter of Jairus, but the hemorrhaging woman is referred to by Jesus as the daughter of Israel. The little girl is 12 years old, and the hemorrhaging woman has had her problems for 12 years. The point is that we are meant to see the two stories as tightly related to each other. 

But what is it that we are meant to see? Let’s look at the Book of Leviticus. When you look at the Book of Leviticus, what do you find? You find a whole series of laws, requirements, prescriptions, prohibitions, rituals, various behaviors and activities that define Israelite people. A large portion of Leviticus is about the clean and the unclean, animals that can be eaten and animals that can’t, situations that must be avoided, things that make a person unclean, and what a person can do to be rendered clean thereafter. All of these questions are explored in the Book of Leviticus. Now, for those who find Leviticus strange and consider it an odd historical artifacts, don’t forget that every nation has some version of the Book of Leviticus. Every group of people would have some set of laws, rituals and behaviors and prescriptions by which they are defined as a people. Furthermore, even those parts of Leviticus we find puzzling and amusing like the lists of clean and unclean foods, we have our own Book of Leviticus too. When you open most health magazines, what do you see? What about television shows and commercials? We have all kinds of prescribed and proscribed food. We have our list of food we think are unclean and unhealthy. Moreover, when you look at the Book of Leviticus, a lot of things classified as “not to eat” are actually not good too eat. A lot of activities forbidden in the Leviticus are actually not good to be engaged in. So, every culture has its own version of the Book of Leviticus. 

Having said that, I want to draw your attention to two passages in Leviticus that are related to today’s Gospel. Here is the first one: “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, all the days of the discharge, she shall continue in uncleanness. Every bed on which she lies during the days of her discharge, shall be treated as the bed of her impurity. Everything on which she sits, shall be unclean. Whoever touches these things, shall be unclean” (Lev. 15:25-27). Going by the stipulation of Leviticus, the hemorrhaging woman who has suffered for twelve years has much more than a medical problem. She is a persona non grata, an outcast, a pariah. For twelve years, she is unclean. Everything she touches is unclean. Anyone who comes in contact with her is rendered unclean. Whatever she sits on, lies on is unclean. She is excluded from every aspect of Israelite life— community, worship, social gathering centers, marketplaces, everything. She is a woman in a very dire situation. In her desperation she hears of Jesus coming by, and so she reaches out just to touch his cloak in hope that he might cure her. Again, going by the prescription of Leviticus and she knows it, this move would render Jesus unclean. But what happens instead? She in fact, by this touch is healed and rendered clean and able to reinstate herself into the community and society and religion of her time. She is restored to life physically, morally, spiritually and psychologically. Rather than make Jesus unclean, she is made clean.

In the second story, Jairus, a synagogue official comes to Jesus and falls to his kneels. This gesture by itself is an extraordinary act of humility. A synagogue official is a very high figure in the society of Jesus’ time. For him to get down to his knees and beg this local rabbi is remarkable. He begs Jesus that he might come and lays his hand on his daughter who is at the point of death. Jesus begins to go with him. As he gets close to his house, some people came out and say, “Why trouble the teacher any longer? Your daughter is dead.” The Book of Leviticus has something to say about dead bodies: “No one shall defy himself with a dead person except his nearest kin” (21:1-2). To touch a dead person will render you dramatically unclean unless the dead person were to be someone’s immediate family preparing him or her for burial. Because the little girl has died, people asked Jairus not to trouble the teacher. Don’t let him come in here; she is already dead and would be rendered unclean. But what did Jesus do? He turns to Jairus and says, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” When he finally arrives at the home of Jairus and sees people weeping and wailing loudly, he says, “The child is not dead but asleep.” People who heard him say what he said ridiculed and laughed at him. As a result of their unruly behavior, he puts them all out. Then he takes the parents of the dead girl and three of his disciples to the room where the body of the little girl lies. He bends down and touches the girl. This very act makes Jesus unclean. What he just did is proscribed in the Book of Leviticus. A pious Jew does not do what Jesus has done. He touches her, takes her by hand and says, “Talitha Koum.” Amazing! This is one of the three times in the Gospels we hear the authentic words of Jesus. The Gospels were written in Greek. But three times the writers preserved for us the Aramaic that Jesus himself must have spoken. One is when he heals the deaf and dumb man, and he said to him, “Ephphatha” which means “Be opened.” The second time was on the cross when he cried, “Eli Eli, lama Sabachtani” “My God, my God why have you abandoned me.” And the third time is right here in this story, “Talitha Koum” (Little girl, get up). And she rises and comes back to life. In the first story, the hemorrhaging woman reaches out and touches Jesus, and normally that would make Jesus unclean. But instead, she becomes cleansed and was brought back to life. In the second story, Jesus reaches out and touches a dead person. Normally that too would make him unclean. But in fact, it brings her back to life and renders her clean.   

So, what’s Mark trying to tell us? He is telling us that Israel is being redefined as a people. Up to this point, the Book of Leviticus defined who the Jewish people were. Following all those series of laws, regulations, prescriptions defined Israelites. But now, all of that is superseded by these gestures of Jesus. In the Gospels, we hear comments like, “Jesus therefore renders all foods clean.” In Jesus’ time, identifying which food is clean and which is unclean was a major preoccupation of the Jews. But Jesus is saying that such has nothing to do with holiness and who you really are spiritually. In the Acts of Apostles, St. Peter had a vision. And in that vision, he saw a sheet of paper lowered before him. And on the sheet were all kinds of animals— clean and unclean. Then he hears a voice say to him, “Take, slaughter and eat.” Peter realizes that his deepest spiritual identity now comes not from the rules in Leviticus, but from relationship with Christ. Today’s Gospel does two things: one, that members of the Church, the New Israel, are being defined in relation to Jesus. What defines us is not so much the regulations of the Book of Leviticus but our relationship to the Lord. Faith in him is how we being defined as a people. Two, we are being called to do what he does. And what did he do? He reaches out to those who are suffering, who feel excluded and marginalized.  That is the law of the New Israel. That is the law of the Church.