Twelve

 

Sermon prepared for Grace Lutheran Church, Scarsdale, N.Y., June 30, 2024.

I have five daughters.

Perhaps this fact invokes for you Tevye’s sad but accepting lament from Fiddler on the roof.

“I have five daughters.” (Deep Sigh.) Daughters.

Naturally, as an early twentieth century Russian Jew, with. his life dictated by ancient tradition, Tevye would have preferred sons. Not that he doesn’t love each of his daughters dearly. But, dear God, a son would have been such a blessing.

In that case, I am more richly blessed than Tevye. I have five daughters – and a son! 

All of the six adults in the blended family Martha and I celebrate are wonderful, caring, responsible adults, and we could not be prouder of each of them.

Looking back on the drama of their adolescence, however, I have to marvel that all eight of us – with some slight guidance from therapists and pastors – got through it unscathed. 

I was the first-born of four brothers and a sister and, looking back, I realize my first family was a useful model of family dynamics. So was the experience of relating as pater familias to five daughters and a son. Perhaps you’ve heard the generalization that adolescent girls are subject to emotional chaos while adolescent boys exhibit physical chaos. But I look back on all this with serenity because most of our offspring are now dealing with these issues themselves, as parents or teachers or both.

One thing I remember is that our daughters tended to decide for themselves when they reached full adulthood with all the rights and privileges thereof.

Usually this happened when they were 12.

I would, of course, hide an indulgent smile because 12-year-olds are indisputably children. (No offense to any 12-year-olds within the sound of my voice.)

But it would be wrong to laugh at 12-year-olds who sense they are adults because that is what their adolescent bodies are telling them. They are experiencing physical and hormonal changes and in many cases 12-year-old girls look like an adult.

And as we know, some cultures regard a 12-year-old girl as old enough to marry and old enough to bear children. Some Fundamentalist Mormons allow men to marry girls that age, although if they are caught they will be prosecuted for child abuse. You may have read about the pastor of one of the nation’s largest megachurches who confessed to having an affair years ago with a “young lady.” The woman in question went public to declare she was 12 at the time. Horrifying. 

But make no mistake: a twelve-year-old, whether a girl or a boy, is a child. God calls on parents and adults to love them, guide them, nurture them, encourage them, and protect them from the evils of the world.

No matter how tall or developed they look, a 12-year-old does not have the gray cells to make responsible decisions about how to use their bodies. Doctors know that the cerebral cortex, the frontal lobes of our brains where logic and decision assessment are lodged, is not fully developed until about age 25.

I look back on some of the irresponsible or dangerous choices I made as a late teenager and I know this is most certainly true.

And I know that when I was 12, I was a child.

And all of my offspring and all of yours were or are, at 12, children.

Looking at our Gospel passages this morning, it’s notable that Jairus thought of his daughter as a child. He calls her, “My little daughter,” and he pleaded with Jesus to save her from death. Jesus thought of her as a child when he took her by the hand and said, “Talitha koum, Little girl, get up!”

One of the reasons I’ve been talking about the number 12 is that the Gospel writer is also talking about it.

Mark writes, “And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age).”

Earlier in the Gospel, Mark tells the story of a woman suffering from a chronic hemorrhage who, desperate for relief, reaches out to touch Jesus’ garment.

“Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my cloak?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”

But Jesus knew. Jesus always knows. Although the woman collapsed in fear, Jesus told her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

Mark, not known for using unnecessary words, added that the woman had suffered “for twelve years.”

As a Jew, Mark would not have overlooked the significance of the number twelve.

We think immediately, of course, of twelve disciples.

There were twelve tribes of Israel.

Solomon had twelve administrators.

In Hebrew, twelve signifies God’s divine order.

Twelve can refer to completeness of the people of God.

Twelve is the number of lunar months in the year.

And, a bit more obscurely, in numerology the number twelve represents growth from the physical to the spiritual realm, and vice-versa.

But we can delve more deeply into the significance of twelve after we rise from our afternoon naps.

For now let it be enough that for Mark, the appearance of twelve was not a coincidence and it was always worth noting.

The Gospel readings before us are extremely powerful.

Let’s employ the Ignatian bible study approach of imagining ourselves within the story being told.

We see ourselves standing by the sea as Jesus dismounts from the boat.

We see a desperate man approaching Jesus, Jairus a leader of the synagogue. Jairus is weeping and falls to his knees in front of Jesus, pleading and pleading: “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”

A father fearing the loss of a child. Is there anything worse? Perhaps our eyes fill with tears and we are glad to see Jesus following Jairus.

We join the growing crowd. We are bumped into and jostled by this sweating, smelly, surge of humanity. Is Jesus also having trouble keeping his balance as arms and shoulders press against him?

Jesus stops suddenly, and people in the crowd who can’t stop fast enough bump into each other.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asks. And we smile at each other. “Is he kidding? Who isn’t touching him?”

But a pale woman, used to hiding in dark corners, feels a bright light shining in her face. She has just committed a terrible taboo: she has reached out in public to touch a man, to tug on his garment. Terrified, she falls on her knees.

Trembling, she says, “I thought if I touch your cloak, I will be made well.”

In that moment she senses the hemorrhaging has stopped.

“Daughter,” says Jesus, “Your faith has made you well.”

At that time some people from the synagogue confront Jairus with bad news. “Your daughter is dead.”

Oh, no. Please no. Can you feel your eyes brimming with tears?

But Jesus continues to the synagogue. There a crowd of people – I suspect professional mourners – are weeping and wailing.” They must have been professionals getting paid for their grief because when Jesus says the child is not dead, only sleeping, they laugh derisively.

But Jesus took the child’s parents into the child’s room, took the child's hand, and said, “Talitha koum.”

“And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years of age).”

And we are overcome with amazement – and gratitude. Thank you, Jesus!

What are the lessons Mark would have us learn?

Certainly we all know chronically ill people whose cure eludes medical science. I interact with dozens of people on Facebook and Threads who are exhausted by chemotherapy, experiencing the degeneration of their nerves or muscles, facing the aggressive reoccurrence of a cancer they thought was long gone, and confronting an uncertain future.

I’m also in touch with people whose children could not be saved by doctors or who succumbed to other tragedies. One woman on Threads writes under the name, “This Grieving Life,” which offers companionship and shares words of comfort with other parents who, like her, lost a child to one of the school shootings that are a pandemic in our country.

Certainly illness and death and violence will always be with us.

But in this dramatic passage in Mark we are reminded that in the shadows of our lives God is present. Whether or not the miracles we seek will come, God is always with us, crying with us, laughing with us, mourning with is, sitting with us, dancing with us.

More than anything else, the cure of a suffering woman or the rescue of a dying child are stories of hope. They remind us that, despite all, Jesus loves us and God loves us unconditionally.

Let us pray that we will feel the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as if it were air in our longues, and may the Spirit always remind us that the loving God is intimately near to us.

And this week, whenever you see the number 12, let that remind you that miracles still happen and God never leaves us.