Mark 5:21-43
I've always wondered why it was important to call out the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment to be healed. I was just like the disciples, everyone is touching you, what possible difference could this make. Some have said it's because Jesus heals fully so she has to have the personal encounter, but I've never quite bought this explanation. I've come upon another answer this week and this one seems to fit. First we have to get a setting though.
Imagine being ritually unclean for twelve years. Everyone in the village would have known. You couldn't sit and eat with others, you couldn't sleep in the same bed, you couldn't go to worship, you were marked. This woman dares to break all of the taboos though. She has a plan, she knows if she can just do the lightest of touches, just the fringe, she will be healed. First of all she has faith this plan will work. Second she has to get herself into the fray of a big crowd without being noticed. Thank goodness for strangers who have followed Jesus across the sea. There are no suggestions in the story that she is recognized by a local person, maybe she isn't even in her hometown. Someone would have recognized her if she was and the whole plan would have been for nothing. Remember the rules.
So Jesus when he is touched is calling her forward so she is known, so her story is known and heard, so she can claim the good which has happened to her. If she had just gone away in silence no one would've known what happened and she would be still known as unclean. It would have taken years for people to stop avoiding her. Years before they would have touched her again. Years before she was brought back into community. So it is important for Jesus to call out and find her, for things to be put right and full community, full restoration can happen.
Unclean meant you were set apart from everyone. Unclean was something the lepers had to advertise where ever they went so no one would be unclean by touching them. This is the same for this woman. Alienated, on the margins of the whole community, for twelve years. We seem to have no equivalent to it except now at this time in society we have taken up a very dangerous practice in our public rhetoric of dehumanizing one side or the other. I have been reading Brené Brown's book called Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone and she states we have come to a place where dehumanizing one side or the other has become such a norm it is invading all our structures. So for a spiritual practice this week I've been listening to the words or phrases which dehumanize and turning the programs off or skipping over them on Facebook.
Dehumanization keeps us apart from truly belonging with one another. It keeps us looking at one another as if we are unclean, unworthy to be spoken with or associated with. We can't listen to so and so because they believe what this group believes. Lumping people by labels such as these keeps us apart and will lead to violence on one another. The thing about doing this lumping together labeling is that people are much more complex than the labels we are using. If we truly believe in a God who makes each of us unique, a God who calls each one of us for special ministry according to our gifts, a God who sent Jesus to die for us and unite us in a heavenly community we shouldn't be using or listening to this kind of rhetoric which makes people unclean. By this I mean we can't listen, associate, talk to, communicate with, see how they are made in the image of God. Dehumanizing means we loose that ability to connect with what is eternal.
We do have hope though. We have a unique example, in Jesus, who calls out and listens to those who are unclean. Jesus with this woman could've berated her for touching him. Jesus could have not listened to a word she had to say and let her go off. Jesus calls her instead. We each have this ability to be brave enough to connect with others. Connecting with others means we listen graciously even when we don't agree. We put forth our own thoughts civilly and without ramping up and becoming angry. Think of a time when you have connected with lots of people at once. I will never forget when I was a teenager, traveling to an away football game against a rival team. We got down to the last minutes and we were tied, we had never won a game against this team. The football came down to our end zone, I think it came down to a kick and we watched that ball sail, and we prayed, and time seemed to slow and it went through the goal and pandemonium ensued. We were hugging each other, even people we didn't know or talk to. It was like the air was charged with something wonderful and we celebrated this spirit.
This is what it is to cross the lines and belong one to another. We as Christians should be steeped in allowing the Holy Spirit to bring us together in spite of our differences. We have fallen prey to the use of words which devalue one another and devalue God's image in each other. The only way forward, the only way for healing is to start recognizing when we are falling into this trap. We need to be the places of healing in our world and not the places of dividing out one another. Because until we see the wonder of God's spark in each other the darkness has won. We all believe in the light winning out, so let us remember to let our light shine. In kind words, in acts of kindness, in love because as our Presiding Bishop says if it's not about love, it's not about God. We can be the healing balm this world needs if we just listen.
I've always wondered why it was important to call out the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment to be healed. I was just like the disciples, everyone is touching you, what possible difference could this make. Some have said it's because Jesus heals fully so she has to have the personal encounter, but I've never quite bought this explanation. I've come upon another answer this week and this one seems to fit. First we have to get a setting though.
Imagine being ritually unclean for twelve years. Everyone in the village would have known. You couldn't sit and eat with others, you couldn't sleep in the same bed, you couldn't go to worship, you were marked. This woman dares to break all of the taboos though. She has a plan, she knows if she can just do the lightest of touches, just the fringe, she will be healed. First of all she has faith this plan will work. Second she has to get herself into the fray of a big crowd without being noticed. Thank goodness for strangers who have followed Jesus across the sea. There are no suggestions in the story that she is recognized by a local person, maybe she isn't even in her hometown. Someone would have recognized her if she was and the whole plan would have been for nothing. Remember the rules.
So Jesus when he is touched is calling her forward so she is known, so her story is known and heard, so she can claim the good which has happened to her. If she had just gone away in silence no one would've known what happened and she would be still known as unclean. It would have taken years for people to stop avoiding her. Years before they would have touched her again. Years before she was brought back into community. So it is important for Jesus to call out and find her, for things to be put right and full community, full restoration can happen.
Unclean meant you were set apart from everyone. Unclean was something the lepers had to advertise where ever they went so no one would be unclean by touching them. This is the same for this woman. Alienated, on the margins of the whole community, for twelve years. We seem to have no equivalent to it except now at this time in society we have taken up a very dangerous practice in our public rhetoric of dehumanizing one side or the other. I have been reading Brené Brown's book called Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone and she states we have come to a place where dehumanizing one side or the other has become such a norm it is invading all our structures. So for a spiritual practice this week I've been listening to the words or phrases which dehumanize and turning the programs off or skipping over them on Facebook.
Dehumanization keeps us apart from truly belonging with one another. It keeps us looking at one another as if we are unclean, unworthy to be spoken with or associated with. We can't listen to so and so because they believe what this group believes. Lumping people by labels such as these keeps us apart and will lead to violence on one another. The thing about doing this lumping together labeling is that people are much more complex than the labels we are using. If we truly believe in a God who makes each of us unique, a God who calls each one of us for special ministry according to our gifts, a God who sent Jesus to die for us and unite us in a heavenly community we shouldn't be using or listening to this kind of rhetoric which makes people unclean. By this I mean we can't listen, associate, talk to, communicate with, see how they are made in the image of God. Dehumanizing means we loose that ability to connect with what is eternal.
We do have hope though. We have a unique example, in Jesus, who calls out and listens to those who are unclean. Jesus with this woman could've berated her for touching him. Jesus could have not listened to a word she had to say and let her go off. Jesus calls her instead. We each have this ability to be brave enough to connect with others. Connecting with others means we listen graciously even when we don't agree. We put forth our own thoughts civilly and without ramping up and becoming angry. Think of a time when you have connected with lots of people at once. I will never forget when I was a teenager, traveling to an away football game against a rival team. We got down to the last minutes and we were tied, we had never won a game against this team. The football came down to our end zone, I think it came down to a kick and we watched that ball sail, and we prayed, and time seemed to slow and it went through the goal and pandemonium ensued. We were hugging each other, even people we didn't know or talk to. It was like the air was charged with something wonderful and we celebrated this spirit.
This is what it is to cross the lines and belong one to another. We as Christians should be steeped in allowing the Holy Spirit to bring us together in spite of our differences. We have fallen prey to the use of words which devalue one another and devalue God's image in each other. The only way forward, the only way for healing is to start recognizing when we are falling into this trap. We need to be the places of healing in our world and not the places of dividing out one another. Because until we see the wonder of God's spark in each other the darkness has won. We all believe in the light winning out, so let us remember to let our light shine. In kind words, in acts of kindness, in love because as our Presiding Bishop says if it's not about love, it's not about God. We can be the healing balm this world needs if we just listen.
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