The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

The Two Daughters Who Needed Life:  Mt.9:18 – 26

^9:18 While he was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before him, and said, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.’ ¹⁹ Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did his disciples. ²⁰ And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak; ²¹ for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch his garment, I will get well.’ ²² But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.’ At once the woman was made well. ²³ When Jesus came into the official’s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, ²⁴ he said, ‘Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.’ And they began laughing at him. ²⁵ But when the crowd had been sent out, he entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. ²⁶ This news spread throughout all that land.

A young woman at a church said, ‘This community doesn’t feel like my community anymore.’  She was referring to the fact that a couple of other women who she didn’t know had started to come to her small group.  The group dynamics had shifted.  She didn’t feel like an ‘insider’ anymore.  I sympathized with the feeling to some degree, but had hoped that she would see this as a time to grow in love for others.  I hoped she would understand that this was never actually her community; it was Jesus’ community.

The context of this story is important.  Jesus is not just collecting a scattered group of followers, but people who would love one another and do mission together.  He is making a new community.  Earlier, some Jewish leaders (the Pharisees and scribes) refused to embrace the outcast tax collectors who were coming to Jesus.  Jesus makes clear, sadly, that they were also rejecting Jesus himself.  Now, Jesus invites a Jewish synagogue leader to embrace an outcast woman.  Jesus gives this important Jewish mainstream leader a chance to say ‘yes’ to Jesus’ new community, to which many Pharisees and scribes were saying ‘no.’ 

The man is a highly respected ‘insider.’  Synagogues were buildings where a Jewish community would meet for worship, prayer, and study of the Torah.  As a leader of a synagogue, he was a recognized leader in his community.  He was the one to know the Jewish law and traditions.

The hemorrhaging woman, by contrast, is an ‘outsider.’  Twelve years ago, she had started bleeding.  For various reasons, the Jewish law required that she live separately from everyone else.  She was regarded as ‘unclean.’  Ironically, the synagogue official might have been the one to pronounce the verdict and ask her to keep her distance from the community. 

The key word in this section is ‘daughter.’  The Jewish leader is a synagogue official with a daughter who died (Mt.9:18).  Jesus calls the hemorrhaging woman ‘daughter’ (Mt.9:22).  The synagogue official does not consider the hemorrhaging woman to be his ‘daughter.’  So Jesus is making that association for him. 

The synagogue official loves his young daughter as a caring father would.  He cares enough to ask Jesus to come to his house and do something that is prohibited by the law, namely:  to touch a dead body.  That was considered unclean according to Jewish law.  Nevertheless, the official says, ‘Come and lay your hand on her, and she will live’ (Mt.9:18).  His request is poignant and ironic.  But perhaps he had heard of what Jesus had done elsewhere, that he had touched unclean lepers (Mt.8:1 – 4) and gone to other unclean Gentile regions (Mt.8:28 – 34).  Somehow he believed that Jesus wouldn’t care about this uncleanness, and that Jesus’ love had power to bring his dead little girl back to life.

But along the way to his home, they’re interrupted.  The bleeding, outcast, and unclean woman reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak.  Symbolically, the hem of one’s cloak represented authority and status.  So she was appealing to Jesus’ power and authority to heal her.  She thought she could do this quietly.  But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well’ (Mt.9:22).  Jesus is pointing out that she is someone’s daughter, too:  God’s.  She is God’s precious daughter. 

Jesus continues on and arrives as the synagogue official’s house.  He touches the little girl’s dead body, which is, again, unclean, and raises her back to life.  I’m sure the little girl’s father was in tears.  His heart must have been filled with gratitude towards Jesus. 

But was he willing for his heart to be shaped by Jesus?  Did he look out his window to see where the healed, formerly outcast woman had gone?  Did he make the connection that Jesus looked at that woman as his ‘daughter,’ and must have felt compassion for her as well?  What did he tangibly do to honor Jesus’ love? 

The family of God that gathers in the name of Jesus is never ‘our community’ or ‘my community.’  It is really Jesus’ community.  Our response to Jesus must always be to ask him to give us love enough to embrace those who we have cast out.