Sermons

Third Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 2nd July at 10am

Simon Cowling
Readings: Wisdom 1. 13-15 & 2. 23-24; Mark 5. 21-43

Today's first reading is taken from the Apocrypha, and I want to say a few words about that collection of books first.

The Rev'd Ian Paisley is not one of the United Kingdom's great ecumenists. Over fifty years ago he fell out with the Presbyterian Church of Ireland and founded his own denomination of which he is still Moderator. There are very few Christians, including Christians from his own Protestant background, with whom he will work ecumenically. It's said that he has a simple test for establishing whether he'll work with another Christian or not: he asks them 'Are you willing to use the Common Bible?' If the answer is 'yes' then the Paisley shutters come down.

The Common Bible is the name given to an edition of the Bible, in English, that emerged out of discussions between Christians from Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant traditions in the sixties and seventies. Crucially, it includes the books we call 'apocryphal'. These are books within the Jewish tradition, almost all written in the two centuries before Christ, which do not appear in the Hebrew Bible used by Jews today but which were included in an early Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. This was the version used by Greek speaking Jews living in the eastern Mediterranean before and around the time of Christ. The apocryphal books appeared also in the earliest versions of the Christian Bible, but their status has always been uncertain. They are included in the Old Testament in Roman Catholic versions of the Bible, but even in the Catholic cycle of readings they crop up less frequently than the other books. In the Anglican and mainline Protestant traditions, the books of the apocrypha have generally been considered useful for instruction but inessential for fundamental Christian teaching. The number of Christians who regard the Apocrypha - and any who will countenance its use - as beyond the pale is comparatively small; but this number does include Ian Paisley: hence his suspicion of the Common Bible.

The Church of England honours its historically balanced view of the books of the Apocrypha by occasionally setting an apocryphal reading and today's text, it seems to me, is especially interesting for Christians. It's taken from a book called the Wisdom of Solomon which has some similarities with the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. One of the key features of the early chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon is the stress that the writer lays on immortality for the righteous and we can see this in today's reading: the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For righteousness is immortal. And at the end of the reading: God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity… Verses such as these are interesting for Christians, because they show how certain parts of the Jewish community in the years before the birth of Christ were beginning to adopt a belief in the afterlife. Surprising as it may seem, belief in the afterlife did not feature in Judaism at all until comparatively late, and at the time of Jesus the arguments were still going on. One of the many ways in which Jesus' teaching resembled that of the Pharisees was that he believed in, and taught about, an afterlife, as against the Sadducees who had no such belief. Jesus, famously, has an argument with the Sadducees about this very matter in the week before his own death.

I want to move on now to reflect on today's Gospel, in particular on the raising of Jairus' daughter. In the light of what I've just been saying, about the stress on the afterlife in the Wisdom of Solomon and about the continuing disputes about the afterlife in Judaism at the time of Jesus, the story of Jairus' daughter has a particular resonance

When Jairus speaks to Jesus at the lakeside he says: My little daughter is very ill. Please come and place your hands on her, so that she will get well and live. The girl is still alive - just - at this point and Jairus' faith in Jesus is based on his reputation as one who could heal, even if his little girl was on the point of death.

(Jairus, incidentally, is described as an official of the local synagogue, which makes it clear that, whatever the official misgivings about Jesus, at a more local level even quite prominent individuals were willing not only to admit his power but to beg him to use it on their behalf. )

Anyway, Jesus sets out with Jairus, but before he reaches his home, healing the woman with the flow of blood en route, messengers intercept him to say that the little girl is already dead. Why bother the Teacher any longer they say. Those who had believed enough in Jesus to trust that he could heal the girl see no point in detaining him any longer now that she is dead. But Jesus ignores the messengers and speaks only to Jairus: do not be afraid, only believe. He continues to the house, expels the professional mourners and, accompanied only by the girl's parents and his inner circle of disciples, enters the room where the dead girl is lying. It is there, with this small group of five people, where Jesus shows that not even death is beyond his control.

Healing and parables are characteristic of Jesus' ministry as recounted in the Gospels: he heals over a dozen individuals and tells over twenty parables. By contrast just three individuals are raised from death: Jairus' daughter, Lazarus at Bethany and the widow's son in the town of Nain. Routinely bringing the dead back to life is not something that Jesus is shown to do. But this is surely a case of less being more, for the stories of Jesus raising these three individuals are all highly significant. After he raises Jairus' daughter Jesus goes to his home town of Nazareth where he is promptly rejected not only by the townspeople but his own family also. Mark tells us that Jesus was greatly surprised because the people did not have faith. After he raises the widow's son at Nain, Jesus is pursued by the followers of John the Baptist who, on John's behalf, ask if he is the promised one. How happy are those who have no doubts about me says Jesus. And as he is about to call Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus says to Martha, Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed? The stories of Jairus' daughter, the widow's son and Lazarus being raised from the dead all reveal God's glory at work in a way that challenged those around Jesus to believe in him. Some chose to; most chose not to. That challenge remains for us, the challenge to believe that God was working, and continues to work, in and through Jesus; to believe that, in bringing Jairus' daughter back to life, God was momentarily lifting the veil between history and the glory of his Kingdom, between what is and what is to come. To believe, finally, that the promises of that Kingdom, the promises of what is to come, are made real and tangible for us through faith in Jesus Christ, whose own journey through death to resurrection life has made our journey possible. Jesus says: Do not be afraid, only believe. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay