Last weekend, my family and I drove back from vacation and got back home at about 3:30 a.m. Fast forward six hours later and my wife, Julie, and I were sleeping in bed at about 9:30 a.m. It was then that one of our kids came into our bed and asked Julie to turn on a TV show and Julie said, “no, your Dad is asleep.” Then another one of our kids came into our bedroom asking Julie to go get a smoothie. I was laying there doing that pretend sleeping thing you do when you are awake but you really want to go back to sleep. I started thinking to myself, these kids sound so entitled and spoiled. I thought to myself, the first thing these two children did in the morning was not thank their parent for the vacation or driving the car back from vacation while they were sleeping, or asking her what they could do for her, or even to just to be with her for a moment, no, the first thing they did was hit her with these requests for things they wanted from her.
As I was laying there pretend sleeping thinking to myself how entitled and spoiled my kids sounded, something unusual happened. In what I can best describe as God the Father whispering in my mind, I heard the following, “That sounds like another child I know. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My beloved son, how often do you come to me in prayer first thing in the morning with all the things you want me to do for you before you ever say thanks to me for what I have done for you, before you ask me what you can do for me, or before you just enjoy just being in my presence?” I thought to myself, “Wow, I’m convicted, God. Guilty as charged.”
As I was reflecting on today’s Gospel reading, Jesus must have felt like all the people do is come at me with one request after another. First, the synagogue official Jairus comes up to Jesus requesting that Jesus come heal his 12-year-old daughter who is at the point of death. So, Jesus goes off with Jairus to heal his daughter before she dies and what happens?
Before he can even get to the girl to heal her, there are all these people pressing in upon Jesus presumably wanting something from him. Then, the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years comes to Jesus with the desire that Jesus heal her from her bleeding and touches his cloak with the belief that by doing so, she may be healed. Jesus stops in his tracks.
Now, for a moment, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Jairus who is there with Jesus at this moment. Jairus is standing in the place of each and every one of us who have ever made a request of Jesus and not got what we requested as quickly as we would like. As much as Jairus must have wanted Jesus to hurry up and go heal his daughter before she dies, Jesus stops along the way asking “who touched me?” The woman approaches Jesus in fear and trembling and falls down before Jesus.
Then, we are told that she tells Jesus “the whole truth.” This must have taken awhile. I imagine she told Jesus her whole story, how she started bleeding 12 years ago, how she has felt lonely, unloved, disconnected, and abandoned by God since she hasn’t been able to go to the temple for 12 years, how she went to all these doctors, how they actually made her worse, and how she is now broke physically and financially because of this.
Now, if you’re in Jairus’ shoes standing there thinking of your daughter who is in desperate need of healing before she dies, what are you thinking as you hear this woman go on and on about her loneliness, her ailment, her doctor’s visits, and her financial troubles? I know I would be tempted to think to myself, “come on lady, let’s get on with it, hurry up with your story. Jesus doesn’t have all day to sit here and listen to you go on and on. Jesus has got something way more important to do as he has to heal my daughter before she dies. My request is an emergency as it is a life-or-death situation that I requested Jesus’ help with.”
As Jairus was waiting on Jesus to perform the healing that he requested, Jairus had to wonder “is Jesus on my side”? Jairus, of course, Jesus is on your side. He is literally by your side. I think the question Jairus may have came to realize that he needed to be asking himself is, not “is Jesus on my side,” but instead, “am I on Jesus’ side?”
From Jesus’ perspective, what’s better than healing one person he loves? Healing two people he loves. Sometimes this means we, like Jairus, don’t get the request we made of God addressed as quickly as we would like. As we wait for Jesus to provide us with what we requested of him, may we patiently wait in Jairus’ shoes.
What I think Jairus must have come to realize as he waited there with Jesus listening to the woman tell Jesus the whole truth is that the request he made of Jesus is intertwined with the story and the request of another.
The same is true for each of us and our request of Jesus today. It’s so easy for us children of God to just focus on getting what we want from God when we want it, now, like my child who wanted my wife to turn on the tv show now, not realizing how that may negatively impact someone else. As we wait in Jairus’ shoes, maybe we are being called to show great care and patience to another in need. As we wait in Jairus’ shoes, may we focus in this moment not on what we are requesting of Jesus, but instead on what Jesus may be requesting of us to do for him and for another one of the persons he loves. May we give thanks to Jesus in this moment for how he has come with us this far in our journey, and may we simply enjoy being in Jesus’ presence.
I believe this is exactly what Jairus must have done while he was waiting on Jesus, because there was no mention in the Gospel reading of Jairus interrupting the woman or telling Jesus to hurry up and go with him. I think Jairus realized that if he had insisted on Jesus cutting short his interaction with the woman who was healed of her bleeding, his request would have negatively affected the woman who had bottled up for 12 years all the things she wanted to say to God and just wanted to be heard by God.
What I love about Jesus is that he is not like a politician who all too often tells people what they want to hear, whether it is true or not. Instead, Jesus always tells us the truth we need to hear whether we want to hear it or not. Even though it is not what we want to hear after making a request of Jesus, I think the truth that Jesus knows we need to hear today is this: be like Jairus.
Instead of focusing on how busy we are, how important all the things are that we have to do, and how we really would rather be doing something else, let the person in front of us know that we care about them by simply listening to them tell us and Jesus who is with us and soon-to-be in us the whole truth. Yes, especially if that whole truth involves them sharing with us about their loneliness, their ailments, their doctors’ visits, and their financial troubles.
In these moments, we have the ability to be both Jairus’ and Jesus’ presence in their life, to let them know they are cared for by simply listening to them. Not just Jesus listening to them who they might feel like he has to listen to them, but us listening to them too because we choose to listen to them, even though we don’t have to. Jesus was on his way to do the most important thing I could think of someone doing as he was going to save the girl’s life and yet he took the time to listen to this woman tell the whole truth.
If listening to the woman tell the whole truth was the most important thing Jesus felt he could be doing in that moment, who am I to think that I could possibly have anything more important to do than to listen to a child of God share the whole truth of their story with me? Just as Jairus must have felt great hope when Jesus came to be with him as they went together to provide the healing Jairus requested, so too should we feel great hope as Jesus comes to be with us today in the Eucharist. Jesus hears and responds to our requests today just as he heard and responded to Jairus’ request for healing his daughter.
We must realize with all humility that this is not our journey with Jesus along for the ride. This is Jesus’ journey with us along for the ride. When we mistakenly think that this is our journey with Jesus along for the ride, we take the steering wheel of the boat, relegate Jesus to being the back-seat driver, and we leave a wake of frustration, destruction, and resentment behind us for others to deal with. I know it is a cliché, but when we let Jesus take the wheel, realizing it is Jesus’ journey with us along for the ride, it is a completely different and ultimately better experience for everyone involved. So, may we be like Jairus by focusing on being grateful for all Jesus has done for us, enjoying being in his presence, caring about what Jesus is asking of us, and by doing so maybe we’ll let our loved one get a little more sleep.