Ordinary 13
Ordinary 13
by Allison Cline

Mark 5: 21-43

That was 24 years ago. Let's think about the lady who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years in Jesus' time. In her day, people didn't live as long as we do nowHalf of this woman's adult life had been drained away by the constant flow of blood. Think of the numerous physicians she had seen; each new one offering hope but in the end when no cure could be found, the feelings of exasperation and hopelessness would all come flooding back again. Imagine the isolation this woman felt because her society would consider her ritually unclean because of the constant flow of blood.

Today this problem would be considered a private matter; in her day it was a public matter-she would not be allowed to go to the synagogue; nor would she be able to use the same dishes as her family; she would be shunned by her community. All her energies would go into trying to keep herself somewhat attractive, trying to keep herself from being repulsive to others. She would be feeling very tired from the constant loss of blood and very lonely. Her self-esteem would be extremely low; she was a cripple physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Many persons suffer from the same isolation for any number of reasons: appearance, disease, and abuse are a few but all suffer from the same tiredness, and same low self-esteem. All their energy is used to try and keep their families safe as well as trying to figure out where to go next and what to do.

There is the same sense of hopelessness which both I and the lady of Jesus' time felt. Where do we turn next? When will it end or will it end? The sense of frustration, of bitterness, of "Why me, God?" and "Where is God's presence in this?" is all there until something happens to give new hope.

The words "touch", "heal", and "faith" in this passage are intertwined with one another. "Touch", in this pericope, has several definitions, including "to fasten one's self to, adhere to, cling to" or "to assail anyone", but it does not include "to heal". This lady did not fasten herself, adhere, or cling to Jesus but in her quest to touch Jesus and receive healing, she might have been considered to have assailed both he and the people in the crowd whom she touched. She contaminated every person around her, as well as Jesus, and rendered them ritually impure because her flow of blood rendered her unclean in accordance with Lev. 15: 25-27.

But she also knew that "anything that touched a holy person also possessed a sanctifying power". It was her faith in this sanctifying power that caused her to seek healing by reaching out to touch the tassels on Jesus' outer garment. The tassels were a reminder to everyone present of the commandments of the Lord which were not to be broken. In touching Jesus' tassels, this lady had broken the purity laws of the Old Covenant symbolized by the tassels. But Jesus, while wearing the reminders of the Old Covenant, brought the hope of the New Covenant as he fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy (Isaiah 35: 5-7) by bringing healing to the outcasts of society, including this lady.

For the woman with a hemorrhage, hearing about the new rabbi, Jesus, the new healer who could seemingly heal when no one else could, rekindled a spark of hope. Notice how she approaches. She approaches from the back from amongst the crowd-it provides more anonymity-she doesn't have to look Jesus in the eye and start a relationship.

In coming from behind to see healing, she tried to hide her impurity from Jesus and the crowd, knowing "it was considered indecent for a woman to speak publicly with a man, let alone touch him" and knowing that she could be severely rebuffed by Jesus. She touches the tassels of Jesus' cloak and the flow of blood ceases. She melts back into the crowd, as she is want to do anyway in her old life. But Jesus won't let her remain anonymous; he calls for the person who touched him and she is forced to come forward.

As a channel of God's love, Jesus sought to heal not just physically, but emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. This lady is no longer isolated from the community, but can now become a part of the community as she starts a new life. And that is what Jesus did for Matthew the detested tax collector and the outcasts and sinners he ate and drank with-made them part of the community.

The lady is no longer just a "woman" as stated at the beginning of the reading, but a "Daughter", a member of the community, a child of God, beloved of God and a sister in Christ. This is the only story in the Bible where Jesus uses the intimate term "Daughter". In doing so, Jesus establishes a relationship with her, recognizes her as an individual, accepts her as a child of God and a Daughter of Abraham, a person entitled to acceptance by the community, and a inheritor of the promises of God. He recognized her faith and her hope and did not bind her to secrecy as he had done with other persons he had healed.

In calling her forth, Jesus also forced her to make a profession of faith so that the people around her will not think that he performed some kind of magic with her touching his cloak and being healed. She is blessed by Jesus in his recognition of her faith and gives hope to those surrounding her as they listen to her. Her faith and hope that she would receive healing are a further confirmation that Jesus was the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy.

It is not only physical healing that this lady receives, but spiritual and mental healing. Jesus did not just physically heal her but in calling her "Daughter" and stating that her faith (or courage), had made her whole or healed her or saved her. "Save" in Strong's Concordance is defined as "to save a suffering one (from perishing), i.e. one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health" and is synonymous with "make whole or heal". While her original quest was to seek physical healing of the distressing haemorrhage, Jesus ensured that she was made whole in body, mind, and spirit so that she could truly love the Lord with all her heart, mind, soul and strength and thus receive the salvation which God extends to all people who love and worship him.

After establishing a relationship with this lady, hearing her profession of faith, and telling her that her faith has made her whole, she goes back to the community in peace, whole, cleansed, acceptable and able to start living a new life. She no longer needed to fear the community around her because she didn't have to try and make herself inconspicuous. She also was at peace with herself, able to use her gifts and talents for the benefit of others, knowing that she truly was a child of God, able to take her place in the synagogue and lead a normal life.

In this new life, although the pericope does not say what she did afterwards, quite possibly this lady became a proclaimer of the Gospel. Her life had been irreversibly changed and there is Jesus' unspoken command "to love and serve the Lord". This lady has been resurrected and as she walks forward into the crowd to go home, she turns her back on the old life and the Old Law and takes a step across the chasm into a new life to love and serve God through proclaiming Christ as the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy where the blind see, the lame leap for joy, and the deaf hear.

The same thing happens to us. Someone taps us on the shoulder from behind or calls us on the phone and says "Can I talk to you?". And we think "How can I help? I don't know enough." It takes courage for certain people to tell their story. It is far easier not to have to face the person while making the request, in case the request is rejected. The suffering one has picked the person they feel will listen, will understand, and will be a source of help.

We have become, for the person at the other end, what the Lord had become for this woman: a source of help, of hope, and of healing. We are being turned to for companionship and understanding rather than solutions because we are ordinary, vulnerable people. We are being used as a channel of God's love in the first step of this person's journey of hope. We may not know the right answers or all the things to do, but we will be lead by God to respond in simple ways to the person's story and concerns. We can be the start of healing for a person who is hurting and crippled in ways we may not be aware of because they have kept their secret so well for so long. Through us, God is healing this person.

This passage comes as part of the story of the raising of the synogogue leader's daughter from the dead, calling a tax collector to be a disciple and eating with sinners and outcasts. This collection of stories proclaim the power that God has, through his Son, Jesus, over life and death. The healing and the raising of the dead daughter, the calling forth of a detested public official and eating with outcasts and sinners were signals to the community and to Jesus' disciples that they needed to change their thinking about who was and was not acceptable in their lives, their homes and their religious communities.

It also forced them to think about how their lives might be changed if they accepted the teachings of Christ and his healing touch in their lives. The ruler of the synagogue, might well have been challenged by this lowly woman, who defiled everyone who touched her, and yet because of her faith was healed. These two people and their faith in Christ, are a clear demonstration of the inclusivity of God's Kingdom here on earth. She, who had nothing left in the world to offer God but herself, her soul, and her body, was found acceptable to God, healed, and made a Child of God, a member of His Kingdom.

The synogogue leader, well-off and attending to the various rituals and rules of the synagogue, was probably challenged by this low-status, unclean woman, and in a way, was asked by Christ to learn from her. The lesson learned was the same one learned by Simon Peter in the vision of the clean and unclean foodstuffs (Acts 10: 9-16): that what is considered unclean by human law, is not necessarily unclean in God's eyes. Both Jairus and the community learned that day that God's Kingdom included all people who had faith in God and tried to live in accordance with the New Covenant proclaimed by Christ. God's Kingdom included the poor and rich, clean and unclean, and the marginalized.

We are challenged by this pericope to think about how each of us, as we encounter Christ's healing touch, are made a Son or Daughter of God, how our lives have been transformed by this relationship, how we know God's presence in our lives, and how we live this out in our lives. Our faith is very much a part of this healing process as well as part of our relationship with Christ, as a child of God.

This collection of stories forces us to re-think our ideals about who each of us is, what kind of healing each of us needs to be made whole in body, mind, or spirit, how Christ's healing touch has been received through prayer and in reading His Word, and how we are changed and resurrected to new life. But we also need to consider how we prevent others from hearing the Good News of Gospel by erecting barriers of rules and regulations and how we proclaim the Gospel of Christ to others by including them in our communities and our lives.

Just as Christ touched, healed, and empowered the woman with the flow of blood, so Christ also touches our lives, heals us, and makes us whole. It is through Christ, "whose power, working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine" that we proclaiming his Gospel to everyone, regardless of infirmity, age, or gender and it is Christ who enables us, through His grace to be open to include all the people in the community who wish to follow Christ. We are no longer cripples but through God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, we are witnesses to God's love at work in raising people to new life, just as Christ raised the woman with a hemorrhage and raised the dead daughter to new life, just as He called Matthew to new life, just as God raised me to new life, and just as He raises each one of us to new life.

(Comments to Allison at aacline@isys.ca.)