A Message from the Rector:
Daughters in Peace
When Jesus had crossed again in a boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came up, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He asked him urgently, “My little daughter is near death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.” Jesus went with him, and a large crowd followed and pressed around him.
Now a woman was there who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years. She had endured a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she kept saying, “If only I touch his clothes, I will be healed.” At once the bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Jesus knew at once that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” But he looked around to see who had done it. Then the woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 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, people came from the synagogue leader’s house saying, “Your daughter has died. Why trouble the teacher any longer?” But Jesus, paying no attention to what was said, told the synagogue leader, “Do not be afraid; just believe.” He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. They came to the house of the synagogue leader where he saw noisy confusion and people weeping and wailing loudly. When he entered he said to them, “Why are you distressed and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep!” And they began making fun of him. But he forced them all outside, and he took the child’s father and mother and his own companions and went into the room where the child was. Then, gently taking the child by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up.” The girl got up at once and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). They were completely astonished at this. He strictly ordered that no one should know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:21-43, New English Version)
One of the consequences of choosing to preach a summer sermon series on King David is that I have had to forego preaching on stunning scripture passages that would likely have been sermons if I were choosing a scripture reading each week. The Gospel passage from June 30th, Mark 5:21-43 is one such passage, the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and of the woman with the 12-year flow of blood. This is a compelling and beautiful healing account: a woman healed who has been bleeding for as long as the sick girl has been alive; Jesus stopping and listening to a bankrupted, desperate woman explain her story while powerful and prestigious Jairus is trying to hurry Jesus to his ailing daughter in time; Jesus ordering the amazed parents who have just witnessed their dead daughter come back to life to give the girl something eat.
A favorite commentator, Debie Thomas, wrote this short piece on Mark 5:21-43 that is both a deep dive into this Bible passage and a short memoir of her own healing moment. I hope that you find both the Gospel and the attached commentary illuminating and inspiring.
In peace,
Jen+
P.S. You can find collections of short essays by Debie Thomas and others on the Bible passages we hear in church each week on the webzine Journey with Jesus https://www.journeywithjesus.net/.
When Daughters Go in Peace
By Debie Thomas
Published 24 June 2018 on Journey with Jesus webzine
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1821-when-daughters-go-in-peace
There aren’t many Bible verses that bring tears to my eyes as quickly as the one that lies at the heart of this week’s Gospel reading: “But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before Jesus, and told him the whole truth.”
According to St. Mark, the woman had been bleeding for twelve years. Her condition rendered her ritually unclean — not just for a day or a week or a month, but indefinitely. She could not enter the Temple, the heart and soul of her religious community. She could not touch or be touched by anyone without rendering them unclean, too. By the time she approached Jesus, she had spent every penny she owned, and “endured much under many physicians” to find relief, but her bleeding had only worsened. The woman’s very body — its femaleness, its porousness — had become a source of isolation and disgrace. She was an outcast, an embarrassment, a pariah. Lonely beyond description.
And so it might have remained if the woman hadn’t — in a desperate and stunning act of civil disobedience — defied the religious rules of her day to pursue an encounter with Jesus. She knew she had no business polluting the crowds with her presence. She knew she was forbidden to touch any man, least of all Jesus. She knew that even her fingertips on his cloak would defile him. She decided to touch him, anyway.
If the story ended there — with a stolen touch, an unremarked healing, and an invisible but still potent transformation of the woman’s life — I would consider it miracle enough. But no. Jesus invited more. He insisted on more. He insisted that the woman, terrified though she was, come forward and tell her story. Her “whole truth.” He knew that she had spent twelve long years having other people impose their narratives on her. Their interpretations, their assumptions, their prejudices. She’d been reduced to caricature. Shamed into silence by bad religion. Even if she trembled, stammered, and took all day to tell her story, Jesus knew how desperately she needed someone to listen, to understand, and to bless her “whole truth” in the presence of the larger community. This is what Jesus did. He restored her to fellowship, to dignity, to humanity. “Daughter,” he said when she fell silent at last. “Daughter, go in peace.”
Part of the reason I find this story so compelling is because I can relate to aspects of it. When I was nineteen years old, I tried to tell my family a “whole truth” about my childhood, a dark, secret truth I had carried alone for ten years. I still remember vividly how hard my hands shook and my heart pounded as I sat my family down around our kitchen table and whispered the ominous words no one likes to hear: “We need to talk.”
I had been sexually molested by two men in our church community, from the time I was nine years old until I turned fourteen. During the years the abuse was happening, I had no language for it, no narrative I could fit the violations into. All I understood was that something huge and wrong was happening — something I must have caused and therefore deserved. Because the perpetrators were not strangers, I didn’t think of their actions as criminal; I took every shred of blame for the abuse into my own bones. By the time the abuse ended, I believed that my body was irrevocably polluted. Ugly, promiscuous, and dishonorable.
My attempt to tell my family the truth came after my first year away at college — a year during which I finally faced the trauma of the molestation, and began the process of healing. I practiced telling for weeks, mouthing the awful words into the bathroom mirror, or writing them down to get the sentences just right. And then, one weekend while I was home, I sat my family down, took many deep breaths, and asked them to listen.
They couldn’t. My “whole truth” was too large, too scandalous, and too taboo to fit into any narrative they could comfortably accept. As South Asians living in America, they lived by a strict code of honor and shame. Some things were sayable, and some were not — especially for girls and young women. Our community could tolerate small doses of truth when it came to “bad things.” But whole truths, especially whole truths involving sex, gender, abuse, and the female body, were too dangerous to name. Whole truths like mine belonged in the darkness, and I was told to keep them there.
I was lucky, though, in that I eventually found people who could bear my story. Not bear it as in “tolerate” it, but bear it as in, help me shoulder its horror and bring it into the light. Over many months and years, these good people walked alongside me, carrying my “whole truth” with grace and compassion. With each shaky retelling, the story lost more of its sting. In the patient, tender company of loving listeners, I healed.
“But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.”
Something beautiful happens when we give each other permission to tell the truth. Something dies when that essential permission is stripped away. For me, the experience of having my loved ones turn away from my story was a trauma nearly as damaging as the abuse itself. It unhoused and unhinged me. But the experience of having people listen with compassion and wholeheartedness? That experience saved my life.
I hope it’s lost on none of us that our lectionary this week features 1) a desperate father pleading for the life of his dying little girl, and 2) an outcast woman telling her shame-laced truth to the only man in a crowd who will listen. In Jairus’s story, Jesus demands that we not pronounce death where he sees life. In the bleeding woman’s story, he demands that legalism give way to compassion every single time. In each story, Jesus restores a lost child of God to community and intimacy. In each story, Jesus takes hold of what is “impure” (the menstruating woman, the dead body) in order to practice mercy. In each story, a previously hopeless daughter “goes in peace” because Jesus finds value where no one else will.
Are we listening? Could there be a more fitting lection for our time and place? As I write these words, I’m haunted by the hundreds of immigrant families at the U.S border who are in anguish because their “whole truths” remain unpalatable to many Americans. These asylum seekers have searing stories of violence, pain, and terror to share. But those stories are falling on deaf ears because they don’t fit into our culture’s mainstream racist narratives about “illegals,” “aliens,” and “criminals.” Immigrant children are living in cages. Nursing babies are being ripped out of their mother’s arms. Empathy, mercy, and human decency have been replaced by “zero tolerance.” Where God sees life — hungry, hopeful, needy, broken, sacred, inviolable life — those in political power are pronouncing death.
In response to these and other horrors, Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, reminds us that “if it doesn’t look like love, if it doesn’t look like Jesus of Nazareth, it cannot be claimed to be Christian.”
If it doesn’t look like love, it isn’t Christian. Period.
What looks like love? What looks like Jesus of Nazareth? The one whose heart melts at the cry of a desperate father. The one who visits the sick child and takes her limp hand in his. The one who risks defilement to touch the bloody and the broken. The one who insists on the whole truth, however falteringly told. The one who listens for as long as it takes. The one who brings life to dead places. The one who restores hope. The one who turns mourning into dancing. The one who renames the outcast, “Daughter,” and bids her go in peace.
Connect With Us
Rector’s Office Drop-In Time
Rev. Jen has set her office drop-in day as Wednesday of each week from 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. for anyone who would like to stop in and visit. You are always invited to make an appointment for a time convenient for you. Mondays are her Sabbath day. NOTE: No drop-in hours July 17 and July 24.
The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 11B
In-Person Sunday Morning Worship Service, July 21, led by the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Oldstone-Moore, 10:15 a.m. You can stream the service via St. Andrew’s Facebook Page. Click on this link to view the Live Stream. We will start the Live Stream 5 minutes prior to the start of the service.
Click here for the service booklet for July 21.
The Latest Updates
CHARITY CRAFT – TURN T-SHIRTS INTO JUMP ROPES
Sunday, July 28 at 11:30, help craft jump ropes for Operation Christmas Child. This is a ministry that sends shoeboxes full of gifts to children living in impoverished countries. Locally, New Life Baptist Church in Greencastle packed over 1,000 shoeboxes last year and hopes to do the same this year. We are assisting by doing the craft after the service on July 28. Come join us immediately after the service for this fun and easy craft. No experience is necessary and all supplies will be provided.
AUGUST 4 INDIANAPOLIS INDIANS GAME
The Wabash Neighborhood is having an outing at the Indians baseball game on Sunday, August 4 at 1:35 p.m. The cost per ticket is $15 and kids eat free that day!
VESTRY MEETING MINUTES
If any of you are interested in what your Vestry is doing, there are two copies of each month’s minutes on the top of the piano in Hamilton Hall. Feel free to read and return!
TUESDAY BIBLE STUDY
Most weeks, the Tuesday Bible and Book group meet at 4:30 p.m. Meetings will resume in early August.
THIS WEEK’S SHOPPING LIST FOR NON-FOOD PANTRY
Please add razors, Stain Remover Sticks, and shaving cream to your shopping list for the NFP for the month of July. Meals and conversation in Hamilton Hall are going well. Patrons are now able to pick out items they most need. Your contributions help our budget go farther in helping meet the needs of those in Putnam County. The next Non-Food Pantry will be Saturday, July 27 from noon – 2:00 p.m.
FREE DAILY DEVOTIONAL
We have some large print Day by Day daily devotionals in the sanctuary that you are free to take home for your personal devotions–and if we know that people would like copies, we can order the right amount. Many of you may also appreciate the on-line version of Day to Day. Click here.
ON-GOING COVID PROTOCOL
We continue to respond to both our county’s current CDC designation and to the current variant. Masking is optional. Decisions on COVID policy have moved from the Reconvening Committee to Rev. Jen and the Wardens.
Prayers and Reflections for This Week
We have heard that the daily reflections and scripture readings provided during Lent were appreciated. The meditations are written by persons from Gobin UMC and Beech Grove UMC. They will be in the newsletter each week and go from Wednesday to Tuesday, except for Sunday. Whether you enjoy these every day or as the Spirit moves you, may this resource continue to bring you spiritual food for the journey. Blessings!
Click here to view the readings and accompanying links.
Non-Food Pantry Latest
Saturday, July 27
• Noon to 2:00 p.m.
There will be a distribution in Hamilton Hall and light lunches will be served inside. We are grateful for all those who have worked so hard to obtain supplies for the Non-Food Pantry. Items are having to be purchased from a variety of sources making it much more expensive. Donations to help offset this extra cost will be gratefully accepted!
Top 3 Needed Items
Your prayers are asked for:
Haile Bane, grandson of Joanne Haymaker
Beth Benedix, friend to many of us at St. Andrew’s
Amy Berry, friend of Pam Smith
Vernon Bothwell, friend of Warren & Connie Macy
David Bryant, brother of Stephanie Gurnon
Marthe Chandler, friend of Martha Rainbolt
Clara Copeland, friend of Jen+
Anita Edenfield, friend of Skip Sutton
Bob Fatzinger, brother of Barbara Pare
Carole Greenawald
Janet Jenks, friend to many at St. Andrew’s
Lisa Breese Kincaid, daughter of Bob & Mimi Breese
Mary Mountz
Tom Mullen, father of Patti Harmless
Marilyn & Leo Nelson, sister & brother-in-law of Joanne Haymaker
Sarah Oldstone, sister-in-law of Jen+
The family of Chuck Schroeder, friends of Dave & Sue Murray
Elizabeth & Natalie Sheffler, daughter & granddaughter of Page & Narda Cotton
Skip Sutton
Karen Swalley, friend of Thom & Gwen Morris
Deb Wilder, sister of Connie Macy
Dwight Ziegler, uncle of Stephanie Gurnon
Kat and family, friend of Jen+ & Chris
Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: St. Stephen’s Church, New Harmony: Mr. Bishop Mumford, Senior Warden.
Our companion dioceses: The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil: The Most Rev. Mauricio Jose Araujo De Andrade, Primate of Brazil and Bishop of Brasilia. The people and Diocese of Haiti and Saint Andre’s in Mithon.
Anglican Cycle of Prayer: The Nippon Sei Ko Kai.
Birthdays: Macie Barker, July 21; Amelia Majors, July 23.
Anniversaries: None .