"Say My Name, Say My Name" a sermon on Mark 5:21-43

Mark 5:21-43
“Say My Name, Say My Name”
Preached Sunday, June 30, 2024

Calling someone by the name they wish to be called, by their name, is important. It shows them respect, consideration, kindness, and affords them basic human dignity.

When I was on staff at Camp Asbury, every year, on one of the first days of staff training, they would have the staff sit in a circle and share the story and meaning behind their name - and how they would like to be called.

If I was doing this today I would share:
Allison - named loosely after my grandmother’s: Alice Ann and Dolores Ann.
And I kept my maiden name as part of my middle name because it will always be a part of my identity and important to me.
And LeBrun - the name shows my love and marriage with my husband, a name I chose to take for me and my family.

I would then ask for you to call me Pastor Allison - a title and name which recognizes my calling, education, and ministry. The Rev. LeBrun for official documents. Do NOT call me Mrs. Zachariah LeBrun - that used to be the norm but most in my generation have come to hate this distinction as my name and identity are my own, not lost in my husband’s. If we’re friends or in an informal setting, you can call me Allison. Allie for family and for those friends who have known me since I was a child. Don’t call me Allie without permission.

Because how you refer to someone also conveys intimacy as well as respect and kindness, right? Only my family calls me Allie. Only my husband can call me a term of endearment - and even then, just a couple of them.

Each of you has stories behind your names and reasons you like to be called what you are called. Maybe you go by a middle name, maybe a nickname, maybe you hate your nickname - “No, it’s John not Johnny, thanks.” Or maybe “Only my mom can call me that!” Anyone have one of those?

Simply calling someone by their name is a way to say “I see you. I respect you. You are a fellow human who deserves kindness.” Who knew that simply calling someone by their name could convey all that?

Think of how much being called the wrong name can hurt - that is, being insulted, or bullied, name-calling. When someone repeatedly calls you that nickname you’ve asked them not to call you. Or how much you are not seen as an individual person when someone goes “Hey lady!” Or even worse - when someone calls me the B-word - and that has happened to every woman ever basically. And then think of how much it means when a loved one calls you by a name that only you two share together. How it feels or felt for a parent to call you in a loving way...Whatever the context is, I am a big fan of loving my neighbor as myself - and that means respecting the names people wish to be called. For an act that costs me nothing, looking someone in the eye and calling them by their name, conveys shared humanity, kindness, and even the love of Christ.

Now, let’s pivot for a moment - do you know what the most common female name is in the Bible? ...Trick question, it’s “the Unnamed woman” - and we have one of those unnamed women in today’s Gospel reading.

In today’s reading we actually have two stories sandwiched together - a literary tool Mark often uses in his Gospel so that the two stories help interpret and shine light on the other. When put this way, two stories that are rich in meaning become even more nuanced, more complex, more layered - there are many ways these stories speak to each other. And today, what I want to narrow in on, is how Jesus speaks to the two women - well, one woman and one female child, that he heals.

So first, back to that unnamed woman: A woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years. The Greek seems to imply that it is a bleeding or menstrual issue. An illness that not only would have been painful. An illness that not only took all her money to try and fix and just made it worse. But also an illness that would have made her ritually unclean - unfit for society - unable to touch others. An illness that would have affected her mentally and emotionally as well as physically - as anyone who has had a long-term illness knows. It’s never just the body - it’s all of you.

And yet, after all this time, after trying and trying again, after enduring setback after setback, after living with the pain and anguished nights...once again, there was hope at the end of the tunnel: a man named Jesus. The text says “She had heard about Jesus.” What had she heard? This is the 5th chapter of Mark - had she heard that John the Baptist baptized him and that heaven spoke and called him “my son”? Had she heard how he cured a man with an unclean spirit in the temple? Had she heard how he had cured Simon’s mother-in-law and cured many there at that house? Had she heard about his preaching and him casting out demons, about his curing lepers, about healing the paralytic? Had she heard that he went toe to toe with the religious authorities, verbally sparring with them, proclaiming something new? Had she heard about how he had healed a man of his withered hand? Had she heard that unclean spirits shouted at him, calling him the Son of God? Had she heard how he calmed the winds and the waves - creation stilling at the sound of his voice? What had she heard? She had heard about Jesus. She had heard enough to know that Jesus was more than a man. She had heard enough to know - to know that if she just...touched him - not even him, just his clothes...she could be healed. I believe that she had heard enough to know that he, Jesus, this man was God-divine.

She had heard about Jesus - but she didn’t presume she was worthy of his healing. She was not even permitted to touch him. She would make him unclean. She had spent the last twelve years of her life being estranged from others, being an outcast - in pain and made to feel less than. And still - she had faith, that if she could just...touch his clothes - Oh God, if that would be enough - it WOULD be enough - she would be healed…

And so in the crowd, people pushing against each other every which way, a massive throng - she reached out...and touched Jesus - or really just his clothes. And instantly, knew she was healed.

And Jesus, Jesus knows that somehow, without him acting at all, he has healed someone - he felt the power leave him. And so he says “Who touched my clothes?” Which - given the crowd size was a little ridiculous - think the packed aisles at the Canfield fair - everyone was jostling everyone - how can you say who touched my clothes? Who HASN’T touched your clothes? But still, Jesus persists - WHO touched me?

And the text says that “But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him and told him the whole truth.”

Now, I used to read this text and assume that - since it says she came in fear and trembling - that there was anger in Jesus’s voice when he asked who touched him. Was he angry that someone touched him without permission? It’s definitely not my favorite thing - please don’t do that. Was he angry that power had left him? But I’ve come to realize that 1 - I suspect there was no anger in his voice when he asked who touched him - maybe more incredulity, wonder, earnestness - after all - she didn’t hide, she didn’t run away...she could have. No one would have ever known it was her. But she came in fear and trembling...not fear and trembling as in I’m so afraid that this man is angry at me. But fear and trembling as in...I am about to stand before one who is Divine. I am about to meet the one who healed me. I am about to enter into a personal relationship with God. Fear and trembling as in the Advent-Christmas hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence and with fear and trembling stand, ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descended, our full homage to demand.”

She comes before Jesus with fear and trembling. For she had faith in who and what he was before she was healed - and now that she has been healed - she knows with every fiber of her being, her body knows who and what Jesus is: God incarnate, Divine healer.

And as she comes before Jesus, God, healer - she tells him everything. And he looks at her, and calls her Daughter. This is not something that an unrelated man would call a grown woman. There is immense intimacy being shown here. As in, I know you. I know who you are. I know your name.

Now, there is obviously dialogue and conversation that happens that is not given to us in the Biblical text. I can imagine that Jesus, as she lay before him, prostrating at his feet, got down to her level and said, “Tell me daughter, what is your name?” We may not know her name today, 2,000 some years later. But I know that God knows her name - and I feel in my heart, that on that day, Jesus knew it too.

For he could have let her go - could have let her slip among the crowd. But he wanted to look into the face of the one who had such faith in him. He wanted to know her - to call her by her name. To recognize her humanity. To show her kindness. To bless her on the journey moving forward. Calling her daughter is an intimate act - one that says “You are part of my family now - part of the family of God. Go in peace, be healed.”

In her touching Jesus’s clothes, she was healed. In Jesus looking at her, in the eye, asking her name, calling her daughter - in that act, her humanity was recognized by God: You are worthy of love. You are worthy of wellness. Now that you have met God, may you be blessed.

And so, having recognized her humanity, shown her kindness, blessed her on her way...Jesus continues on his way to the house where a 12 year old girl is dead. And he enters her room, even with her parents, something a stranger would not do. It is a private, intimate moment - just like the moment with the woman before, even if that was on the street. There is intimacy here - there is deep knowledge that goes beyond our human knowledge - “I know you like only God could know you.”

And once, again, there is dialogue and conversation that we do not have in the text given to us. Did Jarius tell Jesus her name while he was begging to heal her? Did Jesus ask her name as he was bending over her body, the stench of sickness still in the air. “What is her name?” As Jesus was told, did he shed a tear at the sight of her, at the knowledge of her name?

What he does call her, as he takes her by the hand - is Little girl, little child, loved child of God - daughter of God, just as the woman with the bleeding disease for 12 years was a child of God, my child, get up, live.

And she does.

What a powerful, intimate moment. This little girl, opening her eyes, seeing Jesus, knowing that she was dead and now she lives - and this man, this man above her who knows her name and is telling her parents to give her something to eat - this man...no, not man...God...Christ, is the one who did it.

God in Jesus calls the bleeding woman daughter.
The one who is a daughter, the 12 year old girl, there is divine intimacy in the moment he takes her by the hand, and bids the little girl to rise from the dead.
These are healing stories.

Now, I know today, many in our congregation and in our world, are in the midst of grief over death. Anger in the healing that didn’t come in the way they prayed for. Or perhaps living in hope - praying for a healing as they or a loved one fights against illness.

For these people, for you if you are one of them, I know these healing stories may be hard to hear today. And what I want you to hear is this: There is healing in what we think of as the traditional miracle sense. And there is also healing, healing for our souls, knowing that the God who is Love, God the Almighty, intimately loves us, knows our names, and calls us our names out of love. In this life and the next, there is healing for our souls - by simply letting ourselves be loved and held by God.

So yes, these are healing stories.
They are also stories about who God is in Jesus - that he has power over life and death as well as the wind and sea.
AND, these are stories about the power of divine relationship with God. That God loves us all, hears and knows our pain, wants life and wholeness for us, journeys with us when that’s not our lot, looks us in the eyes….and calls us children of God.

So listen.

Can you hear Jesus calling your name?

Can you hear him saying Daughter, Son, Child… I know you by name. Know me. Go in peace.

Can you hear that? God knows your name and claims you as a child of God.

Amen.