The Teacher has come home.  He is met with astonishment in some and a desire to bring Him down a peg or two by others.  If the astonished can follow their astonishment to its source, they will see that Jesus has His origins in God.  Even if they 'know Him' at an ordinary level, this knowledge will not prevent them from seeing his nearness to God.  They will welcome and walk with Him and they will see great deeds of power: healing, exorcisms and deeper truths.  But for some, His words and His works cause His  rejection.  They  know  Him.   They  know  His  work.   They  know  His  family.   They  know  He  is overreaching Himself.  They 'put Him in His place'. He is an ordinary bloke who should be doing ordinary things.   He  should  be  making  tables,  not  speaking  a  new  Wisdom,  curing  the  sick  and  casting  out demons.  In their minds, his ordinariness undercuts and refutes the greatness they have heard about and now have seen for themselves.  They cannot explain, or stomach Jesus Wisdom and Grace.  His ministry might be big potatoes elsewhere, but in Nazareth it only causes offence.  And so, His revelation, not received with faith, lacks the cooperation necessary for mighty deeds to be done.
 
One  of  Mark  Twain’s  memorable  lines  was,  "Familiarity  breeds  contempt  and  … children."  Familiarity happens when we get to know people a little better.  We tell ourselves that we know them.  We know how they look, how they talk, about their health, how old they are, what they like or don't like etc, etc.  We might include knowledge of their work and how they like to chill out.  We like to know where they have travelled, what successes they have achieved and what failures  they  have  endured.   We  gather  features  of  their  personalities.   Are  they  shy  or outgoing.  What are they passionate about etc? What happens next is that we tell ourselves we have them 'nailed down', or 'boxed in'.  Either way they cannot move.
 
It isn't easy to hold what we think we know about other people lightly, especially when it is confirmed time and again by the things  they  say  and  do.   That  is  why  it  is  very  good  to  be blessed by the experience of overhearing about the box other people have put us in.  We will almost certainly be offended by what we hear and reject  their categories.   All they have done, we will tell ourselves, is lopped away everything about us that didn't fit into the box they made for us.  We know that we are infinitely more than what they have nailed down!
 
And now we are presented with a challenge.  Can it be true that we are always more than other people think but other people are exactly as we describe them?  In Nazareth they will not let Jesus out  of  the  box  they  have  put  Him  in.   But  you  can  bet  anything  you  like  they  think  that  they themselves are beyond boxes.  The way to face this challenge is to stay aware of how comfortably we fit, if we fit at all, into the boxes others have made for us.  We must realise that while we are busy analysing and predicting the behaviour of others, not too far away someone is doing the same to us.  This creates space for the Golden Rule. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The key word is 'do'.  We start a new ball rolling.  We grant the others a universe in which to unfold.  This is the right and just thing to do.  We can only hope that they do the same for us.  When this happens we are always given the gift of surprise. We have to accept the fact that any box we make will be too small, or we have to reject the one who had the courage to break free.
 
I like to think that we all break the boxes other people put us in.  They did not think we had it in us - but we did!  But as a wise person once said, there are no enlightened people, only enlightened behaviours.   They  look  at  us  as  if  we  are  strangers,  while  in  reality  we  are  just  being ourselves.  Familiarity has been overcome.  Or to put it another way.  When we love someone, we find that we have very little to say about them.  It is the ones we do not love that we speak about mostly, and therein lies the key to our freedom.  And to our silence!

Jesus stays close to the sea.  He teaches there.  The crowds gather and He casts His net.  He teaches with authority.  His words and His deeds are movements of the same dance.  So, the sudden appearance of Jairus, the leader of the Synagogue, allows Jesus to let a new story unfold.
 
Jairus is unusual.  He does not watch and disapprove of Jesus like many of his colleagues.  They have Him as a lawbreaker because He works on the Sabbath, and as unclean because he embraces those who have crossed the impurity line.  Now, his daughter has carried him to the feet if Jesus.  He is desperate, afraid and impotent in the face of her sickness.  Still he can see that God is working through Jesus and he wants some of that.  Will one touch be enough?
 
Enter the sick woman who has been let down by every GP and Consultant she has met.  Worse still, they have emptied her bank account.  The crowd is moving and pressing against Jesus.  But when she touches Him, something is different.  Jesus' desire to manifest compassion and love is matched by her readiness to receive it.   Saving  power  has  gone  out  of  Him  and  into  her.   But  to  complete  her  healing  He  calls  her  to  tell  her story.  Since God has touched her, she can now be touched by others. Her loneliness is gone.  She has been restored in herself and restored to the community.
 
Now back to Jairus.  The news breaks that it is too late.  His daughter is dead and there is now no need for the Teacher and His miracles.  But Jesus instructs Jairus not to let the fear of death dominate his heart.  He has just witnessed one restoration and will soon witness another.  God’s love turns death into sleep, and those who are sleeping can be awakened.  The crowd are dismissed because they believe that death rules life. Jairus and his wife must hold onto the love of God that makes all things possible.  They must remain steadfast against the wailers and the mockers.
 
Jesus does not pray to His Abba to bring the little girl back.  He takes her tenderly by the hand and speaks to her.   His  voice,  and  the  intimacy  of  his  touch  awakens  her.   The  One  who  is  stronger  than  death  has arrived.  However, the full unfolding of this love will be revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The little girl is given a share in the story of the Eucharist.  If she eats and drinks at loves table she will know eternally what she knows in time.  This is the whole truth.  This is the story that must be told.
 
We have five senses.  Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell and Taste.  Perhaps we do not reflect enough on what it means to me touched by God and how touch is a powerful way of experiencing the Spirit.  Rachel Naomi Remen, a doctor who works on humanising the world of medicine speaks often about healing and touch.  In her workshops with doctors she invites them to touch one another with healing intent.  One doctor described his experience,
 
'At first, I thought I would just play it safe, but after Jane (his touching partner) told me about the pain she usually has in her back I decided to take a chance and tell her about my divorce. How hard it had become for me  to  trust  women.   She  asked  me  where  I  felt  this  pain,  and  I  couldn't  actually  say  it,  so  I  touched  my heart.  She nodded then put the palm of her hand on my chest.  I was really astonished by how warm her hand was, and gently, and tenderly she touched me.  A little at a time the warmth of her hand seemed to penetrate my chest and surround my heart.  I had a strange sort of experience.  For a while there, it seems as if she were holding my heart in her hand rather than just touching my chest.  That's when I felt the strength in her hand, how rocksteady she was. In a funny way I could feel she was really there for my pain, committed to being there, and suddenly I was not alone.  I was safe.  That's when I started to cry.' (Kitchen Table Wisdom, [New York Riverhead Books, 1996] 240)
 
I love this story because most of us keep our pain to ourselves and in so doing we isolate ourselves from the human companionship that is so necessary to get through it.  Pain and loneliness are often to be seen walking hand  in  hand  down  the  street.   It  seems  that  only  touch  can  build  a  bridge,  so  that  neither  invading  nor abandoning the person who is suffering we offer them a real experience of our Presence.  The touching person can become a conduit for the flow of divine love and whether it heals the sickness or not, the offering of inclusion always heals.  The isolated person is no longer alone and, here the mystery deepens, more safe.