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July 27, 2003 Mark 5:21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ³My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.² 24 He went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been having a flow of blood for twelve years. 26 She had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had. And having profited nothing, but rather having grown worse, 27 and having heard things about Jesus, she came up from behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, ³If I but touch even his clothes, I shall be healed.² 29 Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she knew in her body that she was cured of her plague. 30 Immediately, knowing that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ³Who touched my clothes?² 31 And his disciples said to him, ³You see the crowd pressing in on you; and you say, OWho touched me?ı ² 32 He looked all around to see the one having done this. 33 And the frightened and trembling woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell before (toward) him, and told him all the truth. 34 And he said to her, ³Daughter, your faith has healed you (saved/delivered); go in peace (unity), and be whole (pure) from your plague.² What is this story about? Thatıs a pretty easy question, right? Itıs about the healing power of faith in Jesus. Well, I know that understanding the biblical stories is just that easy for some folks, but, unfortunately -- or maybe, fortunately -- that isnıt usually my experience. I always seem to have questions. With this story the initial questions went something like this: - Did this woman really think that touching Jesusı clothes would be enough to heal her . . . and why did she believe that? - What exactly does Mark mean when he says Jesus knew that ³power had gone forth from him²? - And ... was this something he knew in his mind, or something he felt in his body ... or both? - And ... did he know at that point about the womanıs physical healing, or only later when she fell before him and told him ³all the truth²? - Also, if the woman had experienced this healing, then why and/or of what was she afraid? - And, if she was so afraid, why didnıt she run away instead of falling at his feet and telling him ³all the truth²? - And, what exactly was the content of ³all the truth² that she told him? My questions about a biblical text are often the beginning of a search -- an outer search into the writings of others and what they might have to say, but also an inner search for what the Spirit wants me to know about this particular story and these particular people. As my preparation for today proved once again, my searching doesnıt always end up answering all the questions I started with, but that just means I get to enjoy another search at some other time. I do always seem to end up with the answers that God needs me to have. And whatıs so lovely about this for me is that I get to really live with a passage of scripture for a while -- become friends with it -- and then I find myself looking forward to our next visit together . . . and my next search. In my outer searching for better understanding of this particular story, there were certain cultural considerations that seemed pretty crucial to me. The people about whom and for whom Markıs gospel was written lived and related to one another within a societal structure that was vastly different from the culture that we live in. We can observe some remnants of this ancient cultural system in some Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures today, but these remnants donıt really convey the full picture of the highly formalized relationships that existed in the 1st century. The cultural system of that time is commonly referred to as an ³honor/shame² system. Itıs not really a system that can be explained in just a few minutes, but Iıll try to cover some of the basics. In the honor/shame system honor would be defined as ³a claim to worth along with the social acknowledgement of worth.² Oneıs degree of honor determined oneıs social status, and oneıs social status determined to whom one could speak and how one could interact with those persons. Public interactions were engaged in primarily by men, and these interactions had the character of what might be better understood by us today as business transactions -- the major difference in those transactions being that honor, not money, was the most highly valued medium of exchange. A most difficult concept for the modern Western mind to grasp about the honor/shame system is that identity was not an individual matter, but a corporate one. People understood themselves as representatives of their social group -- an individualıs primary concern was not with meeting personal needs, but, instead, with fulfilling his or her prescribed role in maintaining the corporate honor of his or her social group. The manıs role in this cultural system was to publicly defend the corporate honor of the group. The womanıs role in this system is a little more difficult to explain. Her role was to preserve the corporate shame of the group. What we have to realize, though, is that the word ³shame² did not have the primarily negative meaning in that cultural system that it does today. Preserving the corporate shame was about maintaining an awareness of group boundaries -- which, essentially, involved being sensitive to what others think, say, and do that might affect the corporate honor. (Mom) The key thing to recognize about this system in relation to todayıs scripture is how incredibly marginalized women were in this honor/shame culture. Referring to these women as ³second-class citizens² would not even come close to describing their actual position (or non-position) in 1st century society. For one thing, women werenıt ³citizens² -- privileges of citizenship and ³class² status were held only by men. Even within the closest circle of the family, a woman was not ³second², she was ³secondary² or ³last.² Women were, at best, a procreative necessity, and, more often, they were seen as potential sources of threat to the honor of the men to whom they belonged. Daughters were property -- they might be potentially useful for establishing beneficial social or economic alliances, but primarily they were perceived as burdens to be ³disposed² of in a ³favorable² marriage as quickly as possible. Women had no voice, no honor, and no status of their own. A womanıs identity was ³embedded² in the identity of the man who was the head of the group, and her situation could become quite desperate should she be severed from this primary ³embeddedness² by divorce or by that manıs death . As if the complex rules of the honor/shame system were not oppressive enough, a Jewish woman was subject to even further marginalization -- and humiliation, I might add -- because of the Levitical purity laws. These laws reinforced a womanıs peripheral status by defining the natural processes her body -- menstruation and childbirth -- as ³unclean² or ³impure.² Additionally, her ³impurity² was considered ³infectious.² Anyone or anything that she touched was considered ³defiled.² She was not to touch or be touched by others -- specifically men -- until she had completed a prescribed period of separation. And these periods of separation could be extensive. Women were considered impure not only during menstruation but for a week afterwards. And childbirth rendered them ³unclean² for seven days after giving birth to a boy and 14 days after giving birth to a girl, and a further Opurification periodı was required for 33 days with the birth of a boy and for 66 days with the birth of a girl. (Lev.12:2,5 ) In Leviticus 15:31 it even says that ³Death is the expected penalty if these laws are not observed.² I think the phrase ³vulnerable woman² begins to take on an entirely new meaning in this context. Now, admittedly, these were laws that were thought to require interpretation according to specific circumstance, buteven if a particular community chose to interpret these laws more leniently, at the very least, a womanıs failure to observe these laws would result in some degree of ³social death.² It must be pointed out that women were far from being the only people that were marginalized by the purity laws. Men and women with any questionable discharges or deformities were similarly shunned -- as with leprosy, for instance. In our modern, enlightened society, of course, we know that such excluding behavior is irrational and fear-based, donıt we? And we wouldnıt even think about adhering to such laws, would we? . . . But, maybe we need to talk with a few people who are living on the street or who are living with AIDS before we honestly can say that . . . And maybe if we listen more closely to the woman in our story, we may learn something more about ourselves. In some ways she is the ancient day equivalent of someone with AIDS. She is someone with suspicious blood . . . someone whom we, too, might have found ourselves hesitating to touch. She is someone who has spent many years and every ounce of energy seeking a cure . . . someone who has exhausted all her social, emotional, and financial resources in search of the wonder-working doctor, the charismatic healer, the marvelous magician, or the miraculous potion (or ³cocktail²) that will bring her relief from the perpetually painful plague of her physical and social isolation. She is someone who, over time, has found herself to be without family, without friends, without even the fleeting companionship of strangers. She is little more than an anonymous shadow. And yet . . . this invisible woman, driven by only the faint hope that dimly flickers in the eyes of the desperate, reaches out once more from her shadowy existence . . . . . . . . . There he is. He must be the one Iıve been hearing so much about. They say heıs no mere magician, and that heıs even somehow different from all those other charismatic miracle-workers that have been seeking followers around here lately. Some people think that there is special power even in the clothes of these miracle-workers. What if I could just touch a corner of his clothing . . . maybe, just maybe, I could be cured. Oh, how fortunate is that little girl that heıs on his way to see. She actually has a father who genuinely cares for her and who is willing to indebt himself to this healer. Did anyone ever care that much for me? I donıt remember. I canıt even remember what it feels like to belong somewhere . . . anywhere . . . Thereıs a large crowd around him. It would really be pretty easy to go unnoticed in that crowd. If I could just touch a corner of his clothing . . . But if anyone sees me, then what? I wonder if they would really kill me? Oh, hell, I donıt care . . . let them kill me. The way Iım living now feels worse than death anyway! But who is this man? Is he all that they say he is? I just have to believe that heıs the one who will deliver me. Is he the one? He must be the one . . . And then she reaches out to touch him . . . reaches out to be touched by Godıs power in him. A couple of weeks ago, I was at meeting, and at the end of meeting, we gathered around to pray for someone. I reached out and touched that personıs arm. And as we started to pray, tears started rolling down my face. I still canıt really explain what I was crying about. I only know that as I touched this person, I was deeply touched. There was the physical sensation of warmth, but there was that other sensation -- that sort of electrical feeling that we sometimes experience when we worship, or when we pray or are being prayed for. I am convinced that something in me was healed in that moment, though I still donıt really know what it was. What I do know is that my experience that day brought me closer to understanding the woman in our story . . . closer to understanding the power she felt moving through her when she touched Jesus and was touched by him in return. Maybe thatıs why my tears came . . . because I could better understood who she was . . . I was a nameless nothing . . . the most faceless of females . . . condemned by social convention to utter isolation and anonymity. I donıt know how I found the nerve to reach out to him . . . but I did . . . And not only didnıt he ignore me or condemn me, but he turned and looked straight at me with eyes that had more loving kindness in them than I have ever seen. He touched me. And even though I knew immediately that my bleeding had stopped, I really donıt remember if he ever actually physically touched me . . . but do know that I will never forget the touch of his eyes . . . or the way he touched me with his words . . . He actually spoke to me . . . asked who had touched him . . . Not ³why² but ³WHO.² And I could tell from his voice that he wasnıt asking me my name . . . He really wanted to know who I was! And so right there, in front of everyone, I told him . . . blurted out everything about me . . . all about what my life was like before my body betrayed me . . . and all about my suffering and my sorrows and my sins . . . and, finally . . . about the miracle of how the blood had stopped . . . and about my gratitude . . . And then the most incredible thing of all happened . . . He called me . . . ³daughter². . . It was in that moment I knew that my life was forever changed. He had given me a new face . . . a new voice . . . a new name . . . a new family . . . a new sense of really belonging . . . to life . . . and to God. I have to say that when he told me that it was my faith that had delivered me, and then assured me that I was indeed whole, I just laughed and laughed and laughed. You see, I thought that all I had brought to him was my brokenness and my desperation, but somehow those eyes saw through all of that -- saw deep inside me to the place where faith still faintly flickered and the beautiful flower of my wholeness was quietly waiting to bloom. Oh, how he has touched me. And now I know that it is my turn to offer healing touch others. My turn to respond with compassionate eyes when some suffering soul reaches out to me. My turn to ask ³Who are you?² My turn to listen deeply into the life of others and see beyond their brokenness and desperation . . . see beyond to the faithful and whole daughters and sons of God that are waiting within them to be recognized and embraced for who they are. Yes, itıs my turn now. . . . Maybe itıs your turn too . . . . . . . |
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