Mark 5: 21-43
“Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had and she was no better, but rather grew worse.”
Healing is hard sometimes… isn’t it? Here’s a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years. 12 years of hemorrhages that have made her, in the eyes of her community, “unclean.” Anyone who touches her, anyone who touches something she has touched, becomes unclean. I suppose some may have braved it, but imagine 12 years without a touch, without a hug, without the basic comfort of human contact. Not only the hemorrhages, though, not only the isolation, but also the doctors. Doctors that had consumed all her money, and for all their so-called care, she had only gotten worse.
Healing is hard to find, sometimes. Maybe the diagnosis itself is elusive. Maybe you’re depressed, but can find for the life of you no good reason for it. How do you fix something when you don’t know what it is, where it comes from? Maybe the doctors just can’t find a reason for your symptoms. There’s something wrong with a relationship, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. It’s hard to heal something that doesn’t have a name. And sometimes, even if you’ve got a name, there’s really nothing that can be done.
Maybe there’s some denial involved. Most of us are pretty good at that, somewhere in our lives. We just saw “The King’s Speech.” The king stutters – but doesn’t want to talk about his personal life, doesn’t want to look at when it started or why it started. For all of us, I’m sure, there are places in our souls we don’t want to look. There are things we don’t want to hear. There are places we don’t want to go. It’s tough to heal what we pretend isn’t real – or isn’t important.
Sometimes, ironically, we get pretty attached to our ailments. Sometimes, if the truth be told, we don’t want to be healed. Being a victim can be a strange kind of asset at times, and being whole carries some freedoms and responsibilities of which we are sometimes afraid. Sometimes folks smoke because they like it! And while we may think we should lose weight or get fit, we may not want the diet or exercise. Jesus often asked, “do you want to be healed?” It’s sometimes a significant question.
It’s hard to heal relationships. After all, it takes two to tango. And reconciliation – repentance and forgiveness – like the tango, is a very complicated dance. It requires courage, and vulnerability, and constructive action from at least two people. That’s hard.
I could go on. Healing is hard, sometimes. Here’s a woman who has suffered for a dozen years. Not touched for a dozen years. Hurt by those who were supposed to help. 12 years.
Healing is hard sometimes… isn’t it?
“She had heard about Jesus.”
The Bible is amazingly compact sometimes. What had she heard? Probably something like what we proclaim in this church – that God through Jesus Christ can heal, that God, through Jesus Christ, can transform our lives, that God heals, forgives, reconciles, makes new. Our mission statement states that we are “seeking wholeness in Christ.” The assumption, I suppose, is that wholeness can in fact be found in Christ. We’ve heard that it can.
A woman who has been unwell and untouchable for 12 years hears about Jesus – that he can heal, that he can bring new life, a new beginning. Is this just another doctor? Another disappointment? Is it just religious fantasy, a nice fairy tale for children, but not to be trusted in the real world?
What is she to think, this woman? What are we to think? Is it true? Does Jesus Christ heal people? For real? Is there really recovery for addiction, reconciliation for relationships, transformation for our real lives, in Jesus Christ and in the gospel? Is there wholeness to be found in Christ?
“And she thought” – and this is the amazing part – “if I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” And so she – the untouchable woman – pushes through the crowd surrounding Jesus. She spreads her contagion of uncleanness through the whole blessed crowd. Stepping on toes, elbowing her way through… Whatever else you might say about this woman, she has gumption! She has courage! She has faith – somehow 12 years of unsuccessful doctoring have not killed her faith. She has not given up, she does not sit passive and wait for someone to come fix it for her – she pushes through the crowd for just a touch of Jesus’ clothes. She touches – and it happens. The thing she has hoped for, worked for, spent for, for these twelve years.
“Who touched my clothes?” Jesus stops and turns and asks, in a pushing crowd, who has touched him. His disciples ask, “who hasn’t?” but Jesus knows that power has gone out of him. There’s two paradoxes in this.
- Power goes out of Jesus – his power accomplishes the healing. But when he speaks with the woman, what he tells her is “your faith has made you well.” Which is it? Or both? Jesus’ power or her faith? It’s funny how in life both things seem to be true. Ignatius of Loyola used to say, “pray like it’s all up to God, act like it’s all up to you.”
- Normally, we expect – and the law states – that it is uncleanness or disease that is contagious. If the unclean woman touches someone, they become unclean. If someone sneezes wetly next to you, you look for the disinfectant. But here, the unclean woman touches Jesus and becomes clean. It is holiness that is contagious. Here, the sick woman touches Jesus, and becomes well. Health, or wholeness, is contagious. Can it really work like that?
Here’s the really breathtaking part of this. A Canadian catholic named Ron Rolheiser – writer of several marvelous books – suggests that when we read this story, we remember that we, the church, are called the body of Christ. We, the church, are now the incarnation of Christ in the world. And he asks, “can someone come and touch the hem of our garment now, and be healed?” Does touching the church – even the edge of the church – bring healing?
The Darfuri community holds an event in a church – called “Beautiful Darfur.” A man tells a story about a lost son, and begins a conversation with a church member. Just a touch of the church’s clothes – and now that lost son is home.
A family in need is put on a list to receive a Christmas hamper. It’s just one of many in a year, and another family – part of the church – delivers the hamper. Just a brief touch, the hem of the church’s garment. But a relationship begins, and the two families begin to share a lasting bond.
Perhaps you’ve touched the church, thinking that you were touching a very flawed human institution – and discovered power flowing from Christ, through this all-too-human church, and making you whole. If only this church were like the clothing of Christ, such that when you touched the church, you somehow touched the power of the living God underneath.
What do you think? Is it unhealth that is contagious? Is it our disease, our flaws, our failings and our sins, that are contagious, such that we must constantly be building walls, casting people out, protecting ourselves from one another?
Or is there something miraculous among us, and inside us, is there a contagious wholeness about us, as flawed and human as we are, such that our touch can make the wounded whole? Can we reach out to each other, and find Jesus Christ?
Here is what I believe deeply: day by day we must choose to be more than a collection of ordinary believing human beings. Day by day we must choose to be the church of Jesus Christ, we must choose to be and to act as if Jesus was in our very midst.
Healing is hard, sometimes – I know it. But then comes Jesus.
AMEN.
