01/07/2018
THE DIVINE IMPERATIVE TO LIVE AS FRIENDS
(Sometimes) we need to use the Lectionary (prescribed) texts in their entirety to understand the early church teaching of Jesus' healing of the woman with the 12 year long haemorrhage and the raising from "dead", Jairus' 12 year old daughter. The story of David's friendship with Prince Saul and his son, Johnathan together with Psalm 133 hold the key to further textual interpretation. This key is about the need for the early Christians to realise that the Creator God's desire, delight and joy is for all humanity to live together and interact in friendship for one another's harmonious co-existence. In other words, the Christian should above all know, develop and cultivate FRIENDSHIP among its own kind and especially amidst the marginalised, outcast victims of political, social and economic injustice. So, today's stories of Jesus' healings should be read in a context of sheer religious bloody-mindedness and a rejection of who Jesus said he was. The Hebrew religious experts might have asked (my paraphrase) "who does he think he is to side with and bring God's mercy, justice and healing to the marginalised and outcast?" Apparently, some of the inner circle of Jesus' followers might have thought so too!!! Perhaps this is why Jesus decides to take along his close FRIENDS, Peter, James and John who witness the wonders of G_d in the raising to life of the Jairus' daughter, pronounced "dead" by a scoffing crowd on their arrival. I want to believe that Mark presented the early church with these stories for two reasons. First, in the midst of animosity, strife, confusion and "obnoxious dissonance" (as one of my church members put it to me) in community and/or within the congregation, Jesus is unable to do his work of healing, reconciliation and faith-building. Secondly, Mark told this version of resistance to God's healing work to anticipate the road to death and the cross that Jesus would face in seeking healing, wholeness and reconciliation for a broken humanity. It seems to me that Christians the world over still require a "David-Johnathan" and "Peter-James-John" like FRIENDSHIP in the midst of our 21st century witness to God's grace, justice and mercy for the healing of human diversity rather than the promotion of diversity as a fragmentation of a divinely intended friendship, togetherness and harmony. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advised (I think) "we must learn to live together as friends, or perish as fools." (Texts used: 1 Samuel 8: 1-5; Psalm 133; Mark 5: 21-43)
