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Genesis 45:1 - 15 

⁴⁵ Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.²And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.⁵And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. ⁷God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ¹⁰You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ¹¹I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.”¹²And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. ¹³You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ ¹⁴Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Sometimes family be like that.

After being abducted and sold into slavery by his brothers, then falsely accused and thrown into prison, Joseph finds himself in a position of power. A position that brings people from across the region to him in hopes of favor. It is in this position that his brothers, unbeknownst to them, come face to face with Joseph again. 

Joseph erupts! He can no longer conceal his emotions anymore, sends all of his underlings out of his presence and after revealing his true identity to his siblings he cries so loudly that almost all of Egypt hears him. We aren't told if these are tears of joy or of rage or of pain, but I would assume they are a mixture of all of these emotions pent up over the years.

But at the end of this outburst he calls his brothers close, wraps his arms around them and tells them not to dismay. Ultimately, that all is forgiven.

What would I do? Who would I have become in that situation? Would I welcome my brothers in with open arms? Would I use my my new found power to retaliate and seek some retribution? I like to think that I would be magnanimous and forgiving, but a modicum of self-reflection and humility would reveal that I might just as likely be unsympathetic and vindictive. Certainly my behavior towards my own brothers, for far less severe slights as Joseph endured, would belie any pretense of sainthood on my part.

And yet I am continuously given opportunities to choose the more honorable path. The path that Joseph took. To embrace my brothers & sisters (the family I was born into & the family I have chosen) and say, "I forgive you" or more often than not, "please forgive me."

Friends,

Some info about local super markets: 

Windsor Farms Market has agreed to open one hour early from 6-7 am for ELDERLY-ONLY shopping, so seniors and people with disabilities can purchase the items they need in a less crowded environment. They anticipate being 80% stocked by tomorrow and will begin the initiative this coming Wednesday, March 18th @ 6 am. Imad “Joey” Abuzahrieh and members of his staff will be there early to welcome seniors into the store.

Windsor Farms
589 Prospect Avenue
718-788-0323

Stop & Shop
1009 Flatbush 
(Flatbush & Albermarle) 

Special Shopping for Seniors 6-7:30 

If you do not want to go out and would like someone to shop for you please let us know.  We have many willing parishioners who are ready to help and drop off groceries. 

In peace,
The Mothers

Mark 5:21-43

²¹ When Jesus had crossed again in the boat^* to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. ²²Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ ²⁴So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.²⁶She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,²⁸for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’²⁹Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ³¹And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ ³²He looked all round to see who had done it. ³³But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

³⁵ While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ ³⁶But overhearing^* what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ ³⁷He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ ⁴⁰And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ ⁴²And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Do not fear, only believe. 

I honestly can’t believe how lucky I am to get to talk about this scene from the Gospels, which I have always loved - not the least because there’s a beautiful Sam Cooke song about it. But reading this story again and trying to see it with fresh eyes was extremely surprising to me. I had always remembered the woman who was healed by touching Jesus’s cloak, but had completely forgotten two crucial elements of the story.
 
The first was the woman’s motivation for touching Jesus. In my dim recollection of the story I always grouped this healing in with Jesus’s healing of the paralyzed man and the man with the withered hand. But reading these stories now it feels important to note that Jesus doesn’t heal people simply because it’s a nice thing to do; in both of those other cases he’s proving a point to onlookers, using a miracle just like a parable - to provoke a discussion. 
 
When the woman approaches Jesus to touch his garment, she is not doing this because Jesus heals indiscriminately. Jesus doesn’t have a special cloak, he hasn’t said that anyone who touches his cloak will be healed, there isn’t a long line of people touching his cloak and being healed. In fact, the space is so crowded that Jesus is constantly being pressed and jostled, to the point where the apostles are surprised he would notice a particular touch - but none of the other members of the crowd receive any miraculous benefit. 
 
When this woman touches Jesus, however, she instantly feels that she is healed. It’s an incredibly beautiful and very private moment - unlike Christ’s miracles up unto this point, there’s no indication that anyone else notices or could notice. She feels her body heal, and he feels the power moving through him. Why does she receive this blessing, which is so spontaneous it seems to surprise Christ? We don’t know whether she was a good person, or whether she was a committed follower of Jesus. All we know about her is that she was suffering, and she had faith - she says, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well’ - and Christ replies, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

The second thing I forgot about this miracle is that it happens entirely inside the story of another, arguably greater miracle! This entire scene occurs while Jesus is on his way to perform another miracle - raising a young girl from the dead. And it honestly seems a little strange, narratively, for these two events to happen one after the other, especially when one is kind of weird and the other fits a familiar pattern - where Jesus says something a little difficult to understand and then performs a miracle to make his point. But there is something different about this second miracle. 
 
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he did so in front of a crowd, explicitly stating that he was doing so in order to show that he was the son of God. But here he leaves the crowd outside, wakes the girl gently, tells her family to feed her and to not talk about what has just happened. The scene feels very gentle and very private - exactly how you would want to wake a child who has fallen asleep.  

I think that these miracles are bound together because they are both quiet, private miracles. A wound deep in the body is healed; a terrible loss in a family is restored. Something very important is changed, in a place that very few people can see, and it is changed by faith. I am not certain if we get any of the big ticket miracles anymore but I think these private ones can be just as impactful.

Six months ago it would have been impossible for me to imagine how much of a difference Holy Apostles has made in my life - it was almost impossible for me to imagine going to church, much less praying and reading the Bible on a regular basis. I didn’t come because I had a spiritual awakening or epiphany or felt I desperately needed a relationship with God. Something deep inside me simply changed, quietly and without any obvious outward signs. 
 
Right now I am feeling a lot of fear. I cannot predict what tomorrow will bring - I honestly can’t tell you what the next six hours are going to bring. What a perfect story for us to read right now.
Do not fear, only believe. Do not fear, only believe.
 
P.S. If you liked the Sam Cooke song Basia Bulat also has an incredible cover!