Text: Mark 5: 21-42

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"...The gospel of Mark suits our instant culture: if Jesus had Twittered his life, blow by blow, followers would know where he went and what he did every minute, and almost every minute in this gospel something is going on. “Immediately upon coming up out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens open” “Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness” “The disciples immediately abandoned their nets and followed him.” Mark is short, it’s fast, it’s action-packed. Everything Jesus does is immediate.

The adverb is used six times in the first chapter alone. Jesus moves quickly from his baptism to the wilderness, from the wilderness to Galilee, and there calls the first four disciples—presumably, the first persons he saw. No one was left out. After preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, he heals someone afflicted with mental illness, goes to Simon’s house and heals his mother-in-law, works late into the night curing those brought to his door. And then he rises early to find a lonely place to pray. But Simon and Peter “manage” to find him (presumably they did a little searching), and Jesus commands, “Let’s go into the other villages so I can proclaim the good news!” If we didn’t already know Jesus was the Messiah, we’d say he was that, or an egomaniac or workaholic. He should have had an iPhone. Suffice it to say, he left no one out.

I signed up for Twitter just to understand how it worked; but when I scanned the list of people to follow, I didn’t recognize a single one. I may be technologically up-to-speed, but I am hopelessly in the dark when it comes to the beautiful people.

Today we have two stories sandwiched into one. Jesus has just returned from Gerasa (Jerash) where he healed a person of an unclean spirit. These spirits (who claimed they were “Legion”) entered a herd of pigs who rushed down the hillside into the sea. Not a good outcome—unless you’re Jewish. Jesus returns across the Sea of Galilee to meet a desperate synagogue leader begging him to heal his daughter. Jesus agrees to follow him home—you guessed it—immediately. But also immediately a large crowd presses around him, walking alongside. They don’t get very far before a woman comes into that crowd and touches the tassels on his cloak.

Here is a sense of the intensity of Jesus’ life, the drama of people desperate to improve their sorry lives, the stark contrasts between the well-to-do and the poor rabble that follows him everywhere, hanging on his every word. We never come close to this immediacy when we read only a few verses a week all year long. Imagine the urgency Jesus’ mission takes on in one telling, the string of events, the accumulating tension, the mystery of what he is up to. There are people who perform Mark just this way. And the result seems to be, What does Jesus think he is doing! Trying to get himself killed?!

Well, no, not exactly. Jesus is up to responding to his Abba God, following his call, doing everything in his power to share his good news, trying to spread the word, the healing, and the peace to all he encounters, leaving no one out.

When we think about it, in spite of email, cell phones, computers, automobiles, airplanes, instant messages, Facebook, it still takes forever to get something done. In fact some people are so busy posting what they’re doing on Facebook they don’t have time to do what they’re supposed to be doing. Yes, I have a Facebook account. After I learned the basics and began to feel smug as my list of friends lengthened, and lengthened, it began to take longer and longer to take in all the news. And then new features were added, so I had to figure out how to respond to the family tree, or the places I had traveled, and on and on. Every time I logged in, there was a list of people needing this or that, and there was no way I could respond to all of them. So I started leaving some out. ..."