Praying for Jairus’s Dying Planet (Mark 5)

by Lowell Bliss, Director of Eden Vigil Institute for Environmental Leadership

Yesterday’s Gospel Reading for many churches around the globe was Mark 5:21-43: Jesus heals a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, and a girl whom the family had feared was dead.

Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him. (Mark 5:22-24).

I tried to turn Jarius’s request into a Climate Intercessors prayer: “Our planet is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” It doesn’t quite work as a climate prayer. Some people from our network are involved at the end of this month with a consultation in Washington, DC entitled, “The Old Future is Gone: Eco-Realism and Re-imagined Faith for the New Future” (see materials here: www.edenvigil.org). We’ve been supported by others from our network in the UK who have been reflecting on the same dire future at www.borrowedtime.earth. Part of our shared understanding is that, despite traditional sloganeering, the world is NOT going to end. According to scientists, the planet is not going to die, at least not until the Sun exhausts its store of nuclear fuel, perhaps five billion years from now. In the near future, Earth may begin to feel fractionally a bit more like Venus, and parts of Earth where plants and animals including humans used to thrive might begin to look more like Mars. Nonetheless, like the second and fourth rocks around the sun, the Third Rock will survive. So will “Nature,” despite the many species that will not survive the Sixth Extinction.

So if we apply Jairus’s prayer to climate change, how do we do so with integrity towards and respect for the prayer? I believe that we should pray for our daughters (and sons), just like Jairus prayed for his. By this I mean, we should responsibly ask ourselves the question: “What EXACTLY is it that we think is dying?” At the beginning of this passage, Jairus falls at Jesus’s feet. His pleadings with Jesus are described as “earnest.” When Jesus arrives at Jairus house, “Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly” (Mark 5:38). When you feel an earnestness stir up in you, when a commotion in your soul stirs and your eyes are near tears and your throat feels an involuntary wail forming, what is the “death” that you are fearing? It’s probably not for Planet Earth, though I envy those who have developed sensibilities for “Mother Earth.” Nonetheless, with climate change there are worlds that are ending for us. And there are dyings which touch us and compel us to pray. The world of comfort and security that I hoped my son and two daughters would inherit, is dying. The world of certain beautiful landscapes that I have loved, is dying. I also grieve the dying of the respect that I used to feel for my church and my government. I had wanted to live out the rest of my life on this planet believing that I was raised and protected by caring leaders, teachers and compatriots. That wish feels like it is slipping away from me.

Jairus told Jesus, “My little daughter is dying.” We know from the text that she was twelve years old. She still has a few years where her body will be growing, but according to modern physiologists, the human body peaks at around age 22, after which the long slow decline of cell die-off inexorably begins. If Jairus’s daughter had been 30 years old instead, then a cry of “my daughter is dying” could be met with the statement, “Yes, and so is everyone else.” What was dying for Jairus was a sense of timeliness and appropriate expectation and lost potential for his daughter’s little life. Mostly what was dying was his daughter’s presence and thus a piece of his heart as well. When climate skeptics argue that climates change all the time, species go extinct all the time, I want them to know: “Yes, but never before the climates, the species, the ecosystems, and the people that I have loved.” And I want them to know: “Yes, but never before at the hands of my species, humanity, and with the complicity of my churches, nations, and clans.”

Why does Jesus seemingly upbraid Jairus’s family with the words, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep”? Did Jesus have some underlying understanding in the moment of the biology and physics of this girl’s body that the others were not aware of? Was he speaking metaphorically, confident of his healing ability to make death look like a brief nap? Jesus is no less mysterious in his interactions with our prayers than the Creator God, the Spirit-that-moves-in-all things. But there is one touch in this story that means a lot to me personally. “After Jesus put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”) (Mark 5:40-41). I have dear friends who have a daughter whose name is Talitha. She is no longer a little girl. By her own admission, she has many troubles in mind, body, and spirit. When I pray for her, “Talitha” is not an abstraction. Her sweet face comes quickly to my mind, as does the memory of her infectious laughter. I love her.

Sometimes I do pray for “Planet Earth,” by which I mean all the little Talithas running around out there who are dying, and sometimes by which I mean one specific Talitha whom I know and love. (And of course, I always try to stay attentive to Jesus who even after a miraculous healing nonetheless instructs Jairus to “give her something to eat.” How earthy!)