Seeing sandwiches in the gospel and in our lives
02/04/2025
Mark 5:21-43 When Jesus had crossed
again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he
stayed close to the sea. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came
forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying,
“My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that
she may get well and live.” He went off with him and a large crowd followed
him. There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had
suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had.
Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came
up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his
clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in
her body that she was healed of her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power
had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched
my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing
upon you, and yet you ask, Who touched me?” And he looked around to see who had
done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and
trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to
her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your
affliction.”
Are you hungry this morning? You
know you should fast for an hour before Mass, so you would need to get up
before 6 a.m. to eat anything. Apollo and I always eat breakfast together so he
waits for me to come back from Mass so we can have our bacon and eggs together.
It used to be the rule that you
should not eat anything from midnight on before you receive Holy Communion. In
any case, the point is you should feel a little hungry when you arrive at Mass.
Why? Because God alone can satisfy your greatest hunger, namely, for him, and
fasting reinforces that theological point.
We are all in luck this morning
because St. Mark has prepared a spiritual sandwich to satisfy our hunger in the
rather long gospel from Mark 5:21-43. What do I mean? Well, the reason it is so
long, and even looks like Mark got distracted in the middle of telling his
story, is because the whole pericope is one piece called a chaism, or more commonly,
a Marcan sandwich.
That is, just like a sandwich has
two pieces of bread with the meat in the middle, so this passage begins with
the story of Jairus’ daughter and ends with the same story, with the meat in
the middle of the woman with the hemorrhages.
And the clue that connects the two
seemingly distinct and disjointed stories is that Jairus’ daughter was 12 years
old and the hemorrhaging woman suffered for 12 years. In other words, the
chaism is intentional; the two stories are intimately interconnected.
But this episode is really a
sandwich within a sandwich because the story of the hemorrhaging woman is
itself a chaism or sandwich. How so? Well, if you study the story carefully,
you will see the same elements are repeated at the beginning and at the end.
For instance, she suffers at the
hands of doctors but is healed at the hands of Jesus. She approaches Jesus at
both the beginning of the story and also at the end of the story. She says, “If
I but touch his clothes,” and Jesus asks, “Who touched my clothes?” Her blood
no longer flows out of her, but Jesus power flows out of him.
And again the meat is in the
middle, namely, the verse, “She felt in her body that she was healed of her
affliction.” In other words, Mark’s main point is that Jesus really can heal us
and make us whole if we put our faith in him like this woman did.
By the way, you have heard a lot of
my homilies in the past eleven years. This is my 12th year as your pastor, like
the 12 years of Jairus’ daughter and the hemorrhaging woman! You have suffered
for 12 years hearing my sermons! And have you noticed how many of my homilies
are like a sandwich too?
That is, I begin with a joke or
story, then talk about the Bible and faith, and usually return to the original
story or joke at the end. My sermons, like a good sandwich, have the meat in
the middle (although you only remember the joke!). I go to your house and you
feed me steak, and you come to God’s house and I feed you a sermon sandwich.
Who gets the better deal?
By the way, have you noticed that
life is a lot like a sandwich, too? We begin life and end life in very similar
circumstances; we depend on others to take us places, we can’t talk or think
very well, we wear diapers, we cannot drive a car, we struggle to walk steadily
on our feet.
And maybe that is as it should be
because Jesus said, “Unless you become like a little child you cannot enter the
kingdom of God” (Mt 18:3). But when it comes to eating the sandwich of life,
what matters is not the meat in the middle but the dessert at the end, that is,
heaven. Only then will we no longer be hungry.
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