Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Overview

Last week the reading from Job explored the complexity of God’s creative energy: tearing down in order to build up, unmaking us so that we may be re-made. Similarly, this week’s text, from Lamentations 3:22-33, acknowledges that suffering and setbacks are not a sign that God is absent but that God is at work in our world.

We hardly ever have a reading from Lamentations, yet lament is an important part of wisdom and growth: it encourages us to acknowledge and articulate all that is wrong with ourselves and the world, what needs to be changed before we can move forward into the newness of life God promises us.

In our gospel this week, Mark 5:21-43, this newness of life can only be experienced when all are included: the little daughter of Jerusalem, the symbol of the future of her people, is healed from what looks like death only once the bleeding woman, shunned and shamed, is healed and brought into the family of God.

We are the body of Christ; if part of us suffers, we all suffer; our calling is to work for the healing and wholeness of all God’s children.