Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
Christ the King-Epiphany, Wilbraham
The Rev. Martha S. Sipe
June 30, 2024 / Sixth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 13B
Mark 5:21-43
She was used to making herself small, the woman with the 12-year hemorrhage. Making herself small most likely started out of consideration for others. We don’t really know the nature of her ailment. It was probably related to her monthly cycle, but Mark doesn’t specify. Really, though, it didn’t matter the cause. Her active bleeding made her ritually unclean, impure – and not just her, but anyone or anything she touched. Her ailment made her an exile among her own people. For more than a decade. And so she grew used to avoiding crowds, steering clear of any situation where she might accidentally come into contact with someone or something. And on those occasions when she couldn’t avoid being around other people, we can imagine her hunched over, drawn inward, her dress gathered tightly around her, trying to be as small as she could be to avoid defiling another.
But what likely started as concern for the welfare of others probably became self-preservation, too. Because, really, can’t you just imagine the scene when this poor woman showed herself in town? I imagine the crowds parting quickly, not just to let her pass, but more out of fear of contamination. No one would want to be anywhere near her. And because it’s just who we are as human beings, I can’t help but think that there was also some finger-pointing and tongue-wagging going on, too. Did they whisper, “Watch out!” “Unclean!” “Unworthy?” Or was it judgmental silence that passed through the crowd whenever she drew near? I wonder what was more painful for her: their fearful avoidance or their turning away with disgust and disdain. I suspect making herself small also became a means of self-preservation – protecting herself from the awkwardness, protecting herself from embarrassment, protecting herself from shame. She probably got pretty good at avoiding attention. And eventually, so good was she at being inconspicuous that she became virtually invisible.
Which was probably why she thought she could get away with approaching Jesus that day in the crowd. She had heard about Jesus, and so great was her desire to get close to the healer that she took the risk of being in the crowd with all the others who were jostling to see him. She heard Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, begging repeatedly for Jesus to come with him to heal his daughter, and she saw the resolve in Jesus’ eyes as he made to go to Jairus’ house. She would never have dreamed of detaining Jesus – would never have wanted to cause a fuss or call attention to herself. Who knows how much trouble it might have stirred up if Jairus and the other synagogue officials caught her there in the crowd. But, she thought, if she could just keep her cloak of invisibility about her, if she could just keep herself small and sneak up from behind and touch Jesus’ cloak . . .. And when she did, she immediately felt her bleeding stop and her body healed. Just by being in the presence of love-in-the-flesh.
And, as Mark tells us, just as immediately, Jesus was aware of healing power leaving his body, and turning around he asked, “Who touched me?” Now the reality is that this woman, who was so good at making herself small, avoiding notice, could probably have slunk away into the crowd as unobtrusively as she had approached him. But she didn’t. For Jesus’ healing power had done more than cure her bleeding. It had healed her of her need to make herself small. She stepped forward toward Jesus, with confidence and courage large enough to counter her fear and trembling, and falling down before him in gratitude, confessed that it was she. “Daughter,” said Jesus, reminding her and the crowd around them that she was a daughter of Israel, a beloved child of God, “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague.” So she was both cured . . . and healed.
But hers was not the only healing that day. Those in the crowd were also returned to wholeness when she was made well because her healing reinstated her, their sister, into the community. They became richer for being able to see the one from whom they had turned away. Because every community is dis-eased and dis-abled when we turn away from those who are different. Every body suffers when we respond with fear of those whom we deem unclean. And when we make others small – or allow them to make themselves small – in order to preserve our own privileged position of comfort, we damage the body of Christ.
It strikes me that this is the perfect story for this very time in the life of our body because there are many plagues from which we need healing: the plagues of racism, heterosexism, and xenophobia. We’ve just passed the holiday of Juneteenth, the day when we remember the official end of the enslavement of our Black siblings – a reminder that we are not free until we are all free; that there is no healing without our ability truly to see the scars that people of color still bear and the wounds that they continue to suffer. June is also the month of LGBTQ+ Pride – a time when those who have been made to feel small – or who have found it easier to make themselves small to fit in – can celebrate, can live large in the expansive love of God. And this past Thursday evening was the first presidential debate, in which immigration was front and center. And while there is no doubt that we do need to fix our broken immigration system, we must look for a solution remembering the biblical injunction to provide for the alien, the immigrant. We must seek a solution to our immigration policy woes with our hearts convinced of the truth that every person is made in the image of God. Like the hemorrhaging woman in the gospel, our siblings of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those who have come to this country in search of a better life have been made to feel small, made to feel unclean, made to feel less than. But their healing, as well as ours, comes from the one who was the perfect embodiment of inclusive love. And it is through us, the members of his body, that healing power can flow. For only when we uphold the dignity and worth of every child will we live well, live blessed – and find healing for our church, our country, and our world. We never need to make ourselves – or anyone else – smaller in the presence of Christ.
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