Jesus, an Unclean Woman, and a 12-Year-Old Girl

On Mark 5 and Clergy Sexual Abuse

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. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Mark 5:40-43

In the lectionary this week, the gospel writer of Mark tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who was dead (or close to it). At the pleading of a desperate father, Jesus comes to the little girl’s home where the household is wailing and weeping. It is too late, and she has died, or so they think. And perhaps she had, but Jesus, often cryptic when surrounded by people who don’t understand the ways of the Kingdom, instructs them to stop their weeping because “the child is not dead but asleep.” At this they laugh, but Jesus puts them out of the house and, with his inner circle of disciples and the girl’s mother and father, he goes in to see the girl, takes her by the hand, and speaks the words that raise her back to life.

These words are translated in most of our Bibles, “Little girl, get up,” but New Testament scholar Morna Hooker says the words “Talitha cum are a transliteration of an Aramaic phrase, whose literal meaning is ‘Lamb, get up’.”¹

By custom, 12 years was close to the minimum marriagable age for Jewish girls. But Jesus addresses the synagogue leader’s daughter with little regard for her reproductive abilities (if they were even developed) nor her value as the property of a wealthy father (or of a prospective wealthy husband). Instead, she is Jesus’ little girl. His little lamb.

As I studied the passage I couldn’t help but think of a 12-year-old girl who was in the news last week. In the early 80s, Cindy Clemishire was coerced into the sleeping quarters of family friend, revival speaker, and founding pastor of Gateway Church. That night Robert Morris began sexually assaulting her. This lasted for four years.

Now 54, Clemishire said of that first night of abuse: “I was a little girl, a very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home.”² At the age of 16, she found the courage to tell someone. Morris was demoted from ministry for two years, and then went on to receive the endorsement of a well-respected traveling evangelist, which fast-tracked Morris to widespread influence in the evangelical world.

To my knowledge, Morris and Gateway Church elders have not denied or disputed Clemishire’s story, which includes the recollection that, when the abuse was made known to their immediate circle of acquaintances, Morris’s wife, Debbie, allegedly called to tell 16-year-old Clemishire that she “forgave” Clemishire. This alleged declaration of forgiveness framed Clemishire as a perpetrator of sexual sin. Add to that an alleged insinuation from Morris’s lawyer in the early 2000s that Clemishire had been “flirtatious,” and the transformation is almost complete from little girl in pink pajamas, snap-up robe, and bloomers to a provocative and highly sexualized female predator.

Our culture sexualizes girls so early that it was, seemingly, conceivable to a Christian pastor and his wife that this little girl was to blame for his crimes. But in a world where it’s true that girls are sexualized and objectified, Jesus insists that readers of Scripture see a 12-year-old girl as an innocent lamb. There will be no blame-shifting with Jesus when it comes to sin against girls, even if the world insists on seeing them as objects for pleasure or scorn.

Jesus’s 12-year-old girl was so precious that he kept her miracle from the gawking eyes of a jeering household. “He strictly ordered [her parents and the disciples] that no one should know about [the miracle]…”. What exactly were they not to know that wouldn’t be obvious when she began walking about the house? Or went outdoors? Perhaps he was trying to keep from others the knowledge that she was, truly, dead in the first place—to protect her from grounds anyone might claim for treating her as defiled and impure. (She was dead, after all, or so it seemed.)

Morris, on the other hand, allegedly told his 12-year-old victim: “Never tell anyone about this because it will ruin everything.”³ Can you see the contrasts between Morris and Jesus? In these stories, Morris conceals to protect his marriage, power, and status. Jesus conceals to protect her dignity.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that woven into the Scripture-story of the girl’s healing is the story of another healing, this time of a woman who bled for twelve years (for as long as the little girl had been alive!). For twelve years, the bleeding woman was unable to have children, which may have prevented her from marriage or resulted in a divorce. For twelve years she spent all she had on doctors—to the point of poverty—yet no one could help.

In the scene, she surreptitiously sneaks through the crowd to touch Jesus’ robes, sure she’ll be healed if she can reach his garment. She goes in secret because to announce herself would be to announce her shame. If the crowd recognizes her, they’ll revolt at the knowledge that she has come close, perhaps defiling them with her defilement of blood. But Jesus calls her in, not out, before the crowd (“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”), making sure she and the crowd understand she is no longer an outsider.

Most child sexual abuse victims do not come forward right away. In fact, I learned today from an interview with Julie Roys that most girls who are sexually abused will wait until they are in their 50s to come forward. In other words, they wait much, much longer than twelve years. In secret, they struggle with a sense of shame and defilement. For decades they pay, like Clemishire and the woman with the issue of blood, for physicians and counselors whose services can never quite approximate the value of truth being told in a wider social context (the church, the team, the school, the family) in which the abuse took place.

All the while, they brace themselves for messages of denial, accusation, and blame if they dare tarnish the name of a powerful man of God.

Jesus, however, leaves room for none of this.

Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, author, and life and leadership coach. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.

1. Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel according to Saint Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1991), 150.

2. https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-robert-morris-confesses-to-moral-failure.html

3. https://thewartburgwatch.com/2024/06/14/i-was-12-years-old-and-wearing-my-pink-pajamas-when-robert-morris-now-of-gateway-church-began-to-molest-me-the-alleged-abuse-lasted-for-4-1-2-years-churchtoo-arctoo/