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    Sep 06, 2015

    Sunday's Message - Jairus’ Daughter

    Sunday's Message - Jairus’ Daughter

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Series: Women in the Bible

    Category: Women

    In Mark’s gospel, chapter 5 focuses on Jesus performing miraculous healings. The second half of the chapter focuses on 2 intertwined stories, and I must admit that until I read the poem about Jairus’s daughter, I didn’t connect the 2 stories. The poem really took some getting used to! When I read the passage about the child by itself, it just doesn’t make sense at all.

    Vivian: Good morning and welcome to this live, Sunday morning taping of The Pastor’s Corner Show on WWJD – the station where we always consider the question, “What would Jesus do?”  Today it is my pleasure to welcome to our studio all of you who seek to be more like Jesus and to welcome back Deborah Grubb-Wheeler.  You may remember that Deborah was a guest on our show recently when we began a conversation about her review of Joy Mead’s book, A Telling Place – poetry inspired by the lives of women in the Bible.  Welcome back Deb!

    Deb: Thank you, Vivian.  It is a pleasure to be back!

    Vivian: The last time you were here, we looked at 3 poems, but today we have time for only 1, a poem about the raising of Jairus’ daughter – very different from the poems about Eve.

    In Mark’s gospel, chapter 5, the whole chapter focuses on Jesus performing miraculous healings.  The second half of the chapter focuses on 2 intertwined stories, and I must admit, Deb, that until I read the poem about Jairus’s daughter, I didn’t connect the 2 stories.  The poem really took some getting used to!  When I read the passage about the child by itself, it just doesn’t make sense at all. 

    Deb: Me, too!  I had to go back and really read 21 to 43 very carefully and think about how Joy Mead reached the conclusions for her poem.

    I had never thought about the two stories in this long passage as being intertwined in any way.  I saw the second story as just a kind of interruption to the first, but now I have noticed some interesting points of intersection – all because of Joy’s poem!

    Basically, the stories begin with a Jewish leader by the name of Jairus, approaching Jesus, desperate for Jesus to heal his 12-year-old daughter.  As is often the case, the scripture does not mention the girl’s name – just the name of her father.

    As Jesus leaves with Jairus, he is followed by a crowd and is interrupted by a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.  Most of us know that story.  The woman touches the hem of Jesus’ robe and is healed.  Then Jesus goes on to Jairus’ home and brings the daughter back to life.

    Vivian: Why don’t you go ahead and read the poem, Deborah?

    Deb:             

    Jairus’s Daughter (Mark 5:35-43)
     
    ‘Get up, my child!’
    This is no time for sleeping.
    Lighter tan Lazarus,
    This raising; his touch
    An affirmation of womanhood
    Amid the misted familiar
     
    Flute players re-tune
    To celebrate the coming
    Of her bleeding, and the chance
    Between waxing and waning
    Of moons, for new life
     
    Mother and father watch,
    Unable to do anything
    But offer wholesome food
    For the journey.
    The threshold is hers
    To cross alone; her knowing
    Is outside theirs
    In the shadow of the unsaid.
    -Joy Mead
     

    Vivian:           It’s the second stanza of the poem that is so perplexing: 

    Flute players re-tune
    to celebrate the coming
    of her bleeding, and the chance
    between waxing and waning
    of moons, for new life.

    So, why do you think Joy Mead connects the daughter’s illness with her reaching puberty?

    Deb: There are a few things that I think are clues.  First, biblical scholars have said that if something is repeated in a passage, pay attention.  Did you notice that the woman suffered with the hemorrhage for 12 years and the girl was 12 years old?  Though I’m guessing, it seems to me that Joy may have seen 12 years as a kind of connection and that connection led her to imagine how women are bonded by biology – especially how that biology is not always comfortable or easy.  I’m sure that bond led her to speculate about what the girl and the woman with a likely gynecological issue had in common. 

    As I read the poem and the passage, I was moved by what I saw as a story of a young girl on the verge of womanhood, a suffering, desperate woman plagued with “female” discomfort, passionate faith, far-reaching determination, deliverance through healing miracles, fundamental peace, overpowering joyfulness, and ultimately God’s righteousness and His profound power. Joy captures it all in three short stanzas. She alludes to parenthood and the patience, tolerance, and empathy children need especially as they reach puberty. Eventually, children must leave and experience life on their own terms, with their parents hoping they have nourished them with enough wisdom to be successful in life just as God allows us free will but hopes that during our journey of life with all of its trials and tribulations that we are inspired to receive His goodness, accept His mercy, and motivated to seek His kingdom. After all, He is offering us ever-lasting life.

    Vivian: Well, that’s all the time we have for our show today.  Tune in again on September 6 when we will discuss another poem from this collection, a reflection on the healing of Jairus’ daughter.

    Thank you, Deborah Grubb-Wheeler, for sharing your insights and appreciation for both the poems of Joy Mead and the women of the Bible.  The book is entitled A Telling Place and will available by September 15 in the Rachel Bruehl Memorial Library.  And thanks to our guests assembled at Reisterstown UMC for this live taping of our show on WWJD – the station that asks the most important question, What Would Jesus Do?