WARMING UP: How are we likely to respond when someone we don't know asks us to do something for them? 

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:
21-24    Have we, like Jairus, ever reached some point of desperation over illness - our own, or someone else's? How well have we / did we 'put our case' to God? Did that have any effect? Did we / do we have any sense of Jesus coming to us, or being with the other person? Has there been any kind of 'good outcome'? For whom? How do we recognize a 'good outcome' in such situations?

25-34    How good are we at handling being interrupted? Even if something urgent is being asked of us? How flexible are we really? Have we discovered yet that 'Lfe is what happens to us while we're thinking about what we're planning to do next'? Does Jesus' gift of being able to respond to people at their point and time of need resound in us? Do we have any sense of needing, or having that same gift? How good are we at responding to the immediate situation, whatever, wherever it happens? {The woman, let's call her 'Rachel', has a long term, chronic condition which in 1st C. Jewish eyes made her unclean & therefore outcast from church & society.} Can we imagine what hell life must have been for Rachel? Are we ever party to holding attitudes towards towards, or imposing conditions or restrictions on anyone that make life hell for them? What about in our past? Has anyone ever condemned us to the same kind of hell? If the idea of touching Jesus' robe smacks of magic, how does that compare with the fact that magic is on the increase among us? What's the difference between faith & magic? In 'up-dating' worship might there be a danger of de-mystifying God that might leave some looking for something to fill the gap? Is there anything at all we can learn from 'new age' magic or other practces? Are we serious enough about the 'earthiness' of a God who can make a desperate human being feel as important to God as Rachel finds herself here?  

35-43   (Let's call the girl 'Naomi'.) Do we accept the story of Naomi at face value, or are we more comfortable with explaining a miracle like this away? What's at the heart of this issue? Would we be more comfortable, sometimes, with a different kind of God?  Is the question, 'What is God really like?' one that more extremist Christians & Muslims, not to mention others, need to ask themselves today? How much are we making God in the image of an ugly side of ourselves, rather than living out the God in whose image we believe we're all made? Are there people 'dead' in various ways today who aren't being 'raised' because it's not important to us to raise them?