Reflection on the readings for the 7th June, the 1st Sunday after Trinity
- Jun 8
- 6 min read
Readings: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Matthew 9:9-13,18-26
Today’s reflection is by the Vicar, the Revd Canon Jonathan Cain.
Two stories
This week our news channels have been dominated with the chilling story of the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak. Journalists have attempted to piece together the sequence of events in attempts to satisfy public demand for information. Body-cam footage has raised questions about policing. Anger boiled over into violence on the streets of Southampton. Concerns have been voiced about divisions in society along racial, cultural and religious lines. And amid all this frenzied activity, Henry’s grieving father said, “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension”. Respecting those wishes means not speculating, and I won’t.
But such tragedies remind us of our urgent need for hope when we feel the whole range of emotions that this news story this week invokes. Such tragedies open fundamental questions about belonging and belonging together and about how we come to terms with mortality. This morning, I dare to suggest that the vivid story in the reading from Matthew is one such source of hope. As we lament the events in the news this week, I encourage you to open your hearts to it. This is the whole Gospel in miniature, and it is a story to transform our lives and imaginations.
Notice first that there are two stories here. A story within a story. All captured in just 170 words. A close look at these words reveals the power of the gospel to transform. And that transformation has a number of dimensions. I am going to look at three of these now: personal, social and theological.
We’ll begin with the personal. The passage opens and closes with a story about a young girl who has died and of her father Jairus’ desperate plea for Jesus to heal her. Just think about Jairus for a while. He is described as a ‘ruler’. Other translations say, ‘leader of the synagogue’. He is an important and powerful man, no doubt with many responsibilities, places to be and people to see. But his life is in pieces because his daughter has died. Everything else is on hold. Only one thing matters. And he is on his knees before Jesus. And Jesus got up and went with him. On the way there is a woman whose life is also on hold. She touches his cloak and Jesus feels power go out of him as she is healed. Her life is changed. Then Jesus arrives at Jairus’ house and raises his daughter to life.
On a personal level, Jesus encounters desperation in Jairus, humiliation in the woman and derision from a crowd of mourners who have gathered at Jairus’ house. And he transforms all three. Desperation becomes celebration. Humiliation becomes restoration. And derision becomes amazement. These stories are saying that Jesus is present among the desperate, the humiliated and the derided. These stories are also asking the question, ‘Are you desperate? Are you humiliated? Are you derided?’ If you are, the power of this story is that, if you open your hearts, Jesus will be present to you there. That’s the personal power of this story.
Turning to the social dimension. Think about the difference between Jairus – named, of some standing, approaching Jesus directly – and the woman – unnamed, excluded and of no standing, approaching Jesus indirectly. The link between these two and the key to understanding the social dimension of this story is one word. ‘Daughter.’ On Jairus’ lips, this word, daughter, brings him to his knees. It strips away all his defences, his pride, his self-importance. The death of Jairus’ daughter brings him to Jesus. On Jesus’ lips, this word, daughter, raises the woman, who suffers many levels of exclusion – a continual flow of blood, ritual uncleanness, no community, no money. When Jesus’ says, ‘take heart, daughter’, he not only heals her physically; he restores all that she lacks.
This story illustrates the social transformation that Jesus brings. Jairus is raised from his knees, and the woman is brought in from her exclusion and there is a place for them both in the world around Jesus. The word ‘daughter’ illuminates the common humanity of Jairus and the woman. We are all someone’s daughter or son. That’s the social power of this story.
The third dimension that we will look at is the theological dimension, noticing the radical theological transformation that the story communicates. In Jesus’ community and culture men, and particularly Rabbis, were expected to steer clear of menstruating women and dead bodies for fear of becoming unclean or defiled. It is sadly true that such ideas persist in our time. Jesus turns this idea upside down. He does not catch impurity from the woman or the dead girl. They catch purity or holiness from him. In this sense, it is purity that is infectious, not impurity. Restoration is more infectious than exclusion. On a larger canvas Jesus’ incarnation does not soil the name of God by mixing with humanity; it exalts humanity by being touched by Jesus. I wonder how this theological frame might inform our posture towards those of different faiths and cultures…
I would like to go a bit deeper here by looking at the way the transformation of the woman depicts a transformation in our standing before God. She comes, no doubt, in fear and trembling, risking yet further humiliation at the hands of a Rabbi and the crowd. She experiences healing and peace – right relationship with society and with God. She experiences salvation. In between these two states, there is an exchange between the woman and Jesus in which Jesus knows the whole truth about the woman. And he responds with mercy and not judgement.
In my nearly ten years as a priest, I have rarely heard formal confession – that has not been the tradition in the places where I have ministered, but people have told me things. Things that are troubling them. Often embarrassing things that it costs them to share. They have attempted to tell me the truth about themselves. And after these exchanges I come away respecting and admiring them more. The story of the woman shows us that God already knows the truth about us and what happens when our truth comes face-to-face with God’s truth is not judgement, but mercy. That’s the theological power of this story.
We began by noting that there are two stories here. A story within a story. An inner story of restoration, a kind of this‑life resurrection. And an outer story of the resurrection that holds all things. Together these two stories encapsulate the whole Gospel.
And perhaps that is what gives this story power to speak into a week like this one. Because when a young man dies in such violent and bewildering circumstances, as Henry Nowak did, something in us cries out for both stories at once. We long for a this‑life resurrection — for communities that do not fracture under pressure, for streets that do not erupt in anger, for a society where fear does not spill into violence. We long for healing in the places where we are desperate, humiliated, or derided. We long for belonging that is not fragile. We long for peace that is not temporary.
And at the very same time, we long for the outer story — the story that is larger than our grief, larger than our questions, larger even than death. We long for the assurance that our small, fragile stories are held in a story that does not end in despair. We long for the God who says, “She is not dead but asleep,” and means it. We long for the God who knows the whole truth about us and responds not with judgement but with mercy.
The father of Henry Nowak said, “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.” Those words are themselves a kind of plea — a plea for a different story. A plea for the story in which restoration is more infectious than exclusion, in which purity flows outward rather than fear flowing inward, in which the dead are not abandoned, and the living are not left alone.
And this is precisely the story Jesus tells with his life.
The invitation of the Gospel is to let Jesus draw your small story into his great story. To let his mercy meet your truth. To let his restoration meet your wounds. To let his resurrection meet your fear.
And if you dare to open your heart to him, as Jairus did, as the woman did, you may just find that he is already on his way to you — already turning your story into his, and his story into yours.
Amen.