For Sunday
Proper 8B
Collect
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
We read these two healing stories together so that they can share in their teaching—in this case, about Jesus’s healing and the people’s expectations.
In one, the disciples try to discourage Jesus from figuring out who healed themselves by touching him (!) and in the other, a leader who hopes to save his daughter hears discouraging words.
It seems that Jesus has other plans than our rational expectations for him.
Both stories are improbable, reflecting the expanding scope of Jesus’s power than most like to imagine. In one, raising a girl from the dead.
And the other, even more shockingly, without his intention—but hers. She made herself well. The mechanics are immaterial—like the placebo effect, we can be healed, not by drug interactions only, but by the power of belief.
How might we see belief so innocently and intentionally as these two coming to Jesus for healing and finding in him far more than that?