Mark 5: 25 -34
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages 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. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’
Reflection
Isn’t it funny how two (or more) people can read the same text – and receive it totally differently!?! I am sure my anonymous sister (yesterday) won’t mind me speaking back to her chosen passage.
I have long disliked this story! I understand what people tell me it means, but I see it differently – maybe because I have struggled with ‘embarrassing’ health issues myself! When I look at this passage, I see a woman who has suffered…struggled…and now, in desperation, inconspicuously touches Jesus’ garment, hoping for her long-awaited healing. And, praise God, she is healed. She knows it straight away. She has what she needs, and I think that was enough for her. She could go and live her life, sharing her news – or not – as she wished. Either way, she was freed! But Jesus demands to know who touched him. In the middle of this crowd, Jesus forces her to ‘out’ herself. People say Jesus was restoring her to her full part in society – but I assume the crowd (and wider society?) was unaware of her affliction – until she felt forced to share her story. And how is her place actually restored? Who can/will verify that she is healed? And how? Potentially, this is more humiliation for the woman who has suffered enough. Why could she not have agency to handle her news her way? Why was it OK for this man (albeit Jesus), existing in a man’s world, to decide what the woman should or shouldn’t do?
[Editor’s note: look at Leviticus 15: 25-28 for the laws around ritual uncleanliness in this case; to be ritually unclean meant one was not allowed to take part in Temple worship but one could still worship at the Synagogue and say one’s own prayers. Impurity was a ritual not moral issue.]
I wonder about our reading of scripture – how often we take our understanding as being ‘the’ understanding, without considering the lens through which we (or others) see. What looks like liberation for one may feel like torture for another – coloured by geography, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, (dis)abilities, age, and more. Maybe we need to actively consider different perspectives – and we may all be enabled to see more fully, even if not always more clearly.
Prayer
God of gentleness,
Help me to walk gently,
Mindful that what I see
Is only one tiny part
Of what there is to be seen;
That what I understand
Is understood in a myriad ways
By those who see
From countless different vantage points.
Give us humility to recognise
That all of us,
All together,
Could never fully know you –
Our infinite,
Intimate,
Unknowable God –
Yet each of us
Has something of value to share. Amen