Abstract
Death is the great leveller. As the psalmist so eloquently puts it, there is no price anyone could pay to avoid the grave – rich and poor, wise and foolish, all are destined to die (Ps. 49. 7-14). Vanity of vanity, says the Preacher, all is vanity: the fate of all humans from prince to pauper is the same as the fate of every other animal; ‘as one dies, so dies the other’ (Eccl. 3.19f, NRSV). Ultimately, all human glory fades simply into dust.
So, David stands by the bodies of Saul and Jonathan and laments the passing of yet two more heroes. The mighty warrior is crushed, and all that is left is the haunting memory of what used to be: three times, the catchphrase ‘how the mighty are fallen’ echoes like a chorus in this OT reading as it seeks to capture the incredulity of grief at the loss of two characters who have been so central. Kings, princes, prime ministers and generals all join the foot soldiers in the shadow of the grave. Soon, so soon, even the memory of the great and the good will be forgotten as the living move on towards the tomorrow the dead will never know.
David’s lament is as remarkable for what it does not say as for anything else. Unsurprisingly, David laments the death of his closest friend Jonathan, the one who more than once has protected David from his father Saul, and with whom David has shared a degree of intimacy which seems noticeably absent in his many relationships with women. More surprising, perhaps, is the lament for Saul – the fallen king who pursued David, drove him into exile and attempted to kill him on more than one occasion. David is presented in this sorry tale as the great rival, the one destined to displace the anointed king. No wonder Saul seeks to remove such a threat to his power and prestige. Yet David is presented in this text as the loyal and faithful servant who mourns the death of the very person who tried to kill him. It is almost as if the lament is trying to draw attention to at least three layers of grief: the grief of intimate friendship broken by the death of Jonathan; the grief of social order reduced to impotence in the brokenness of Saul; and the grief of humanity before God wherever that gift of life is taken away. Three levels of relationship broken by these two deaths: friendship, community and divine gift. No wonder David weeps.
Death makes yet another appearance in the gospel reading today. Mark is skilfully constructing his narrative Christology as he shows Jesus taking Galilee by storm. He has already begun his ministry of preaching, and demonstrated the power not only of his teaching but of his divine authority through the stilling of the storm. Like the Spirit hovering over the waters at creation, Jesus emerges from the tempest to restore God’s broken order. Is it the Devil who is sent packing in the story of Legion or is it the occupying Roman army? Or is it both? Either way, Jesus rides out the storm and takes the battle for God’s sovereign rule right into enemy territory. The demons which corrupt and destroy our humanity are driven out of the graveyard, and the uncleanness they produce is swallowed up by the same waves Jesus has just subdued. Christ in triumph is reclaiming God’s people for God’s kingdom.
Enter Jairus and his unnamed daughter. She was about 12 years old, we are told, roughly the age of puberty, with all that means for a woman in a heavily patriarchal society. Just to make sure we make the connection, Mark drives the point home with one of his characteristic literary tricks, known in the trade as intercalation or a Marcan sandwich. The story of Jairus’ daughter is split into two halves as the story of another unnamed woman is slotted in-between. She, it seems, has been suffering from a flow of blood for about 12 years, that is to say, for the daughter’s lifetime. The woman’s problem probably presents itself to us as a medical issue: she needs treatment to stop the bleeding. But the first century world would catch other nuances easily overlooked in our neatly sanitised society: this constant bleeding renders the woman unclean, pushed to the margins of society. She is quite literally, perpetually ‘impure’.
Now we return to the pubescent daughter and start to realise that this narrative is carefully intended to forge a connection. Jesus is triumphantly pushing out every form of uncleanness from God’s people. Legion is cast out; the bleeding woman is cured. And just to make sure we get it, Mark shows us Jairus’ daughter who is rendered unclean on no less than three separate counts: she is female; she is reaching puberty; and she is dead. How much more impure can you get? But Jesus breaks through these social taboos and takes the girl’s hand. As he says ‘Talitha cum’ so even death is transformed by the presence of God. This is the good news: as Jairus’ daughter takes her place back in the network of relationships in her family, she joins the bleeding woman in a restored community, and yet more demons are driven from the Promised Land. As Paul would put it, the old is passing away, and everything has become new (2 Cor. 5.17). Even death is recontextualised in the presence of Christ.
Two stories, Old and New Testament side-by-side, interpreting each other. David gives voice to the ambiguity of the human condition; indeed, he embodies it in the very person who can betray Saul and strike a deal with the Philistine enemy, lead a guerrilla war, then seduce Bathsheba as he neatly arranges the murder of her husband. ‘How are the mighty fallen’, David says, speaking perhaps with the typical concern for his own well-being that characterises his story. Yet death, the great leveller, is itself challenged by the Christ who calls to life those who cross into its shadow. Not just the great and the good lamented by David, but the really important people who are normally dismissed as unclean and irrelevant. Christ calls ‘Talitha cum’ across our world of social dismissal, and speaks directly to the poor, the unemployed, the elderly, the neglected, the forgotten. All these rise from the dust of death to claim their rightful place in a society touched by the presence of Christ.
How easily all this is forgotten, says Paul, in the epistle. In our own jostling for position, status and power, just like David, we easily forget the generosity of a God who inverts our expectations and turns the social world upside down. The generosity of God made known in the healing and transforming power of Christ calls God’s people to reflect the same subversive care. You can almost hear the rattle of loose change as Paul seems to be preparing for the collection plate to be passed around. But this will not do, says Paul. God does not ask for small change but for radical transformation, a generous celebration of the new order established in Christ.
David mourns the passing of three levels of relationship: of friendship, of community leadership, and of divine gift. The bleeding woman and Jairus’ daughter celebrate the restoration of each of these relationships by a generous God who calls creation into life. This same gracious God overwhelms our fearfulness and grief even in the face of death. Now Paul asks us to do the same: to reflect a similar gracious generosity in our relationships one with another.