I read an article last week about the Bradley Free Clinic, here in Roanoke. The Clinic is celebrating its 50th anniversary, which is something of a feat in the world of free medical care. It was only the 2nd free clinic in the state when it was founded, and as healthcare has shifted, the clinic has adapted its offerings and its infrastructure. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
But the line that really caught my attention was from one of the first volunteer physicians, who is not exactly pleased that the clinic still needs to exist:
“I never thought it would go this far. I thought the government would come around, that there would be other programs that would eventually lead to affordable health care. I never dreamed it would be 50 years later,” he said.
You already know the state of healthcare in this country, probably very intimately. My friends and family are struggling to even get initial appointments for very serious diagnoses, and let me not launch into my feral rant about the absolute RACKET that we flatter with the name “health insurance.”
In the United States, today, you can have access to timely, competent and affordable medical care if you have a) money or b) connections (or, in some situations, a history of government employment). That is just the way it is. If your experience is different, I’d encourage you to talk to somebody without those things and see how they’re faring.
This week’s lectionary text is another story from Mark’s warp-speed gospel. We’ve had a couple healings, a couple exorcisms, a lot of sailing across the sea, and now we come to this compound healing story. Jesus has just sailed back across the lake and there, ready to meet him is Jairus, a leader in the synagogue, a connected man of means.
Jairus falls at Jesus feet and begs him to come save his little daughter, who is on death’s doorstep. Jesus agrees, because healing people is sort of what he does and this guy is a VIP. The crowds follow him.
And in the crowd is this woman, who probably used to be a woman of means, but used up all her savings and her clout trying to find a cure for some sort of hemorrhage that has been plaguing her for TWELVE years. This woman knows that she is a nobody, and she doesn’t want to call attention to herself or make a scene or be embarrassed. But she’s exhausted all her options at this point and she figures that maybe, if she can just touch the cloak of the Healer, something will shift.
So, that’s what she does. She sneaks up close to Jesus and just barely grazes the hem of his cloak. And it WORKS! She can FEEL it! Immediately, Mark writes, like he always does, she knew in her body that whatever had been causing her to bleed all these years was healed.
Jesus, who also knows how to sense things in his body, feels this healing happen. He feels, Mark says, the power go out of him. And he turns around and says, “Who touched my cloak?” Everybody assumed that he was stopping in anger, and the woman drags herself forward, falls down before him, and confesses. “I just thought,” she said, “that if I could just touch the hem of your garment that maybe, maybe, I don’t know, all these years of loss and grief and pain and isolation, losing all my money and being cast out of society because I can’t purify myself from unclean to clean, maybe, MAYBE you had the power to change all that.”
Can you imagine Jairus, here in this moment? He’s got a serious emergency on his hands. His DAUGHTER is on DEATH’s DOORSTEP. He came begging Jesus for help and is dragging him up the road to the house, as fast as he can convince the crowd to move, and here Jesus is pausing, stopping, calling the entire procession to a halt for this unknown, unnamed, penniless, desperate, unclean WOMAN on the street.
I don’t know about you, but if I were Jairus, I would be pissed. Like, COME ON JESUS DON’T YOU KNOW SHE’S DYING?! STOP MESSING AROUND IN THE STREET WITH NOBODIES! COME HELP ME NOW!
But Jesus is taking his sweet time with this woman, listening to her spill her life’s story, really listening, receiving her gratitude for his healing and finally putting his hand on her shoulder and saying, “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s your faith that’s made you well, your own boldness, your persistence. You are worthy of every bit of healing you receive. Every bit of attention. Every bit of love.”
And just then, Jairus’ impatience is interrupted because messengers come from his house and report that his daughter has, in fact, died.
I mean. Really. Can. You. Imagine. Jesus was on his way. Jairus’ daughter had the chance of being healed. And they missed it because Jesus stopped in the street to heal some old bleeding woman that no one had ever seen before.
But Jesus says, “do not fear, only believe.” And then he tells the crowd to scram, takes his closest disciples, heads to Jairus’ house and resurrects his daughter from the dead. And instructs them to make her a snack. Because, apparently, dying and being resurrected makes you hungry.
Mark is such a freaking master of storytelling. This interruption on the way to Jairus’ house is intentional, and cutting either story out from the other does his writing an injustice. Mark wants us to see Jesus interrupting his attention to the rich and powerful to stop and spend time with the poor and powerless. Jesus wants JAIRUS to see him interrupting his attention. And Jesus wants Jairus to hear that he - leader of the synagogue, guy who’s got pull all over Jerusalem, powerful, rich, man of means - could stand to learn something from this nameless, desperate woman.
And here’s the thing: Jesus doesn’t cut Jairus out, either. There is not a scarcity of healing power, here. It’s not a pie with a limited number of pieces of access. Jesus pauses in the street to pay attention to this woman who couldn’t even get into the free clinic for help, to listen to her and heal her and assure her that she is just as worthy of that kind of dignity as anyone else in town.
But he also then continues on with Jairus, not just healing his daughter but raising her from the dead. Because whoever Jesus is, whatever his power, it is something bigger than the lies of not-enough, the lies of worthy/not-worthy distinctions we tell ourselves.
Everybody is worthy of healing. Everybody is worthy of care. Everybody deserves dignity, and attention, and access. Sometimes, those of us in Jairus’ position need reminding of that. Sometimes, those of us in the position of the woman in the street need it, too.
I’m glad the Bradley Free Clinic exists. I hate that it still has to. I pray that someday we will manage to overcome our fears of scarcity so that we can build systems and structures together that assume, at their foundation, that every single person is worthy of timely, competent, affordable healthcare.
Another interesting take on the scripture text and the connection to our current unjust health care system.
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I am with you in this hope! Nothing frustrates and saddens me like hearing people’s struggles to get health care, insured people, uninsured people, undocumented people, so many struggles to receive good healthcare.