Homily from the Parish Priest for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings for Year B: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; II Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43
Crowds are a phenomenon you get used to as part and parcel of living in the centre of a major city and it’s something we’re just getting used to again after this last year when at times London has been so eerily quiet. I’ve been reflecting recently in conversations with various people on how we respond to both realities, the busy driven life of a city dweller we’re so used to, as opposed to the oasis of peace and quieter pace of life some have said to me they encountered during the lockdown. Both seem to have affected people in varied and sometimes surprising ways. People who are normally happy and balanced finding the solitary life so difficult; others grateful to be away from the crowded tubes, offices and streets.
Here in this Gospel scene we have the crowded frenetic stressful world on the streets of Galilee Jesus knew. All these people in this large crowd, representing the diversity among those who follow him around the towns, villages and now here on the shore of the lake. They represent such a varied group of people, as in today’s world the converted, the curious, the anxious, the doubters, the seekers, those who find the crowd claustrophobic and restricting and wishing to escape back to the locked down oasis of peace, those who get all their energy from rubbing shoulders with the crowd and help to create and recreate the electricity of the surge towards this guru, this first century celebrity, this man who will cure all their ills and provide the elixir of life.
I suspect, as most of us searching for something of meaning in a world stricken by disease and injustice, there are many whose yearning curiosity spurs them on. Today they might surf around in different crowds on the varied paths of the internet, stumbling on self-help programmes which promise healing, spirituality of all types, drawn down darker alleys where that promise of fulfilment is a trap, gurus and conspiracy theories, and onto livestreamed church services and the like such as this one. If you are here because you’ve surfed onto our path unknowingly we want to say a special welcome. Because it was on this kind of journey that those in the crowd encountered Jesus for the first time.
There are many different people we could imagine were in that crowd but the Gospel tells us specifically about two of them. This lady with the haemorrhage has tried everything else. She’s spent thousands on doctors of all types, she’s now so desperate in her pain she’ll try anything. And the crowd surge to drive that desire to feel the power of healing and brand new life just from the touch of his cloak. There are the sneering sceptics too though and, when Jairus’ daughter is in the picture – she’s dead, remember, not just sick - a nastier, sneering laughter that raising the little girl to life is not possible pervades the mood. This Jesus is actually not coming with the authority of the God of Israel at all. All this promise that his movement will bring a people to freedom and fulfilment isn’t true. The Church is just another cult which will eventually be exposed for its corruption and falsity. We don’t know of the three apostles there if they joined in or not. I wonder though if we can only surmise they might as this whole section of St Mark’s Gospel is about the journey to faith of the disciples, who after going down so many roads and making all sorts of mistakes, they finally, finally, find they surf safely onto the rock which is Peter’s profession of faith in Chapter 8. This is not another guru, cult, latest trend, but, despite what others say – Elijah, John the Baptist, one of the prophets, he is the Anointed One, Christ, the Son of God, and on this rock the Church is built and will stand the test of time, of plagues, scandals, wars, and the ebb and flow of the search for meaning of human history.
Where are we in this crowd? And when we meet Jesus what does he want to say to us and what do we want to say to him about who we are, what we desire, what life is all about? And, in the crowded world of our lives, how will we speak of our faith in him this week? How will we listen to the human voices in that crowd, curious, looking for more, seeking answers, just wanting to touch his cloak, desperately seeking new life? This week may we listen well so we may find his face on the streets of our world and bring his mercy and his healing to others, and especially those who need his loving embrace the most.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ