This Gospel Reading from Mark is two stories entwined together. Separately, they are powerful stories but when they are combined their force is greatly increased. Here, in one episode, we have Jesus, the healer, raising a little girl from the dead and curing a woman who has suffered for twelve years from her affliction. While these two healings are wondrous in their power it is the status of the ones who are healed that gives the story its power.

It is difficult for us today to understand the social structures of Jesus' time. Women and children on the whole did not fair very well anywhere. The understanding of the broader culture was that men, slave owners, and adults were the powerful while women, slaves, and children were to be used. Combine that with the current Jewish obsession with ritual cleanliness and it was not a good time to be a woman. It was really not a good time to be a girl. Into this very lopsided cultural situation strides Jesus. In these two stories he heals a woman who has a continual menstrual flow and raises a dead girl to life.

While we today think of these acts as signs of great power and compassion, they would have been unthinkable to those who witnessed them. It was unseemly for a man, especially a religious teacher, to even speak with a woman who was not a member of his family and he wouldn't even talk to a female family member out in public. If being a female did not make the woman unfit to even talk to Jesus then her menstrual flow made her completely unclean, so that anyone who came in contact with her would also be unclean. Here is someone who no self-respecting Jewish man would ever talk to and someone a man must not come in physical contact with at any cost. It is no wonder that when Jesus stopped the procession and ask who touched him that she was afraid to answer. Yet, the fact that she had felt healing power rush through her from Jesus gave her the courage to own up to her act. She probably thought that she was in for a good tongue lashing and she would be glad if that was all she received for her rash act.

When the woman came trembling and fell at Jesus' feet confessing her deed, she was not met with harsh words of rebuke but instead addressed as daughter. This woman who had no standing in the community and was ritually impure was accorded the title of being a daughter of Israel, one of God's chosen ones. Her status went from one who was worse than "of no account" to being "the beloved of God." Where others saw someone who was not worth even speaking to and someone who was to be avoided, Jesus saw someone who was precious and valuable. He did not see her as impure but as a glorious child of God.

This story of the woman with the flow of blood is embedded in the story of the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue leader. Once again, although the person begging for Jesus' help is a man, he is asking on behalf of his daughter. Jesus changes his itinerary in order to go heal a female child. Incredible! One can hardly believe that her father even knows she exists. She is not of any value to the family and they can only hope she is married off young so that she will no longer be a burden to the household. Yet, here is the teacher who had done so many wondrous acts going to her house to heal her.

Once again, we have Jesus standing against all of the cultural and religious values of his day and proclaiming by his actions that this daughter is worthy of his time and worthy of the healing power of God. He stops the event from being a grand spectacle by not allowing the crowd to follow him to the house. He takes only the closest of his own disciples with him along with her father. When he arrived at the house, the mourners were already there with their crying and wailing. When Jesus asserted that she was not dead but sleeping, the crowd laughed at him. Jesus thought the little girl was worth facing the taunting of the crowd. He then put them out of the house and went with her parents to the room where the little girl's body lay. Jesus then took the little girl's hand. To touch a dead person, regardless of who they were, was a no-no. It made one unclean and impure. Jesus did not hesitate, but reached out and took her hand and called her to get up. When she got up he reminded the parents that they needed to give her something to eat. One can imagine that by now they were delirious with delight and might not be thinking clearly.

In this double story, Jesus leads us to understand that there is no one who is not worthy of the love and grace of God. In spite of what people may say about someone, no matter how vile they seem, God declares that they are God's own beloved child. No one is seen as being beyond redemption. No one is seen as not worth the time or resources it might take to reach out to them and touch them with God's love. If these twin stories are not enough to bring us to that realization, then Jesus will offer us time and time again the example of his eating with tax collectors, prostitutes, and known sinners. We will see him reach out and touch a leper. We will see him asking for a drink from a woman of Samaria. No one in Jesus' eyes is beyond the love of God.

So where does that bring us as disciples of this Jesus who finds value and possibilities in everyone? Sadly, it brings many of us to judgment. How often have we looked at the things someone was buying at the grocery with their food stamps and clucked our tongues, declaring them unworthy to receive our help? How many folks begging along the road have we passed by assuming that they were just trying to trick us out of our money so they could go and squander it on drugs and alcohol? We know there are people who take advantage of the help programs offered by our government and our churches, but our response should not be to paint every recipient as a clever thief and ask how we can keep from giving them money. Rather, our response should be to look at our system and ask if we are doing what we need to in order to truly help people.

It is very easy for us to use the greed of some people to justify our stinginess. There is an old rabbinic saying that we should be grateful for those who cheat the welfare system because if it were not for them we would have no excuse for being stingy. It is easy for us to look at the physical appearance of someone and make judgments about their character and their worth. But the one we call Lord and Savior stands beside us and also makes judgments about their value. He looks and sees a child of God, a brother or sister of his. He sees someone in need of the love and grace of a God who cares for all people.

Many folks wear the WWJD bracelets to remind themselves that they need to ask "What would Jesus do?" in each situation of life. Perhaps we should wear HWJJ bracelets to remind us that another question is, "How would Jesus judge?" the value of the people we see and meet? We know that there is no one whom Jesus would not judge as worthy of the grace and love of God; that there is no one whom Jesus would not judge as worthy of justice; that there is no one whom Jesus would not judge worthy of having enough to eat, having clothes to wear, a place to live, and the respect of their neighbors.

Let us go into the world not just as those who have taken the name of Jesus but as those who have taken his value system. Let us go out and declare to those we come in contact with that they are worthy of God's love and of our respect. Let us tell them by our actions as well as our words that they are the beloved children of God and our brothers and sisters. Let us follow our Master in ignoring the judgment culture may place on the value of people and in declaring the untold value of each of God's children.