A Woman's Touch
(Rutgers,
June 13, 1999; 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A; Holy Communion)
Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7 (OT, pp. 15, 18); Matthew 9:18-26 (from 10 Ord, NT, p.9)
“A
woman’s touch” –
I
asked several women this week what that phrase suggests to them.
According to one, it suggests “a woman’s distinctive touch in home
decorating,” the distinctive effect of a woman’s influence on a space –
making it somehow frillier, softer, warmer, better arranged, with more attention
to comfort and beauty and to establishing an air of
“friendly refinement.”
Another
interviewee said “a woman’s touch” suggests to her the gentle, nurturing,
supportive, loving, healing way in which a woman holds, + handles, + caresses, +
strokes other persons – whether a child, or a friend, or a spouse, or a
partner.
Well,
these were the results from my small and unscientific survey, and they convinced
me that most of you in the congregation, after reading my title, would approach
this sermon having in mind a far different type of “woman’s touch” from
the one described in this morning’s Second Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew.
For
in the cultural context of first-century Palestine this “woman’s touch”
was positively polluting, and from it most men would have recoiled – most
me, but not Jesus!
The
woman of our Gospel lesson-who, sadly enough, goes unnamed - has had a flow of
continuous menstrual bleeding for not just a week, or a month, or, heaven
forbid, even a year, but for twelve years.
And
according to the religious understanding of her day, she has been, throughout
the long duration of her bleeding, unclean – physically, socially, ritually
unclean – such that anyone who touches her, whether accidentally or not, will
themselves, according to the law of the Torah (Lev. 15:27), become defiled and
have need to wash their clothes, bathe their bodies, and remain unclean until
evening.
So
for twelve long years, this “unclean” woman has been denied access to the
temple, and to the synagogues, and to the homes of “respectable” persons.
For her “pollution” is considered much more than a private matter.
It is a societal concern as well, for her “pollution” is held to be
contagious – catchable by others.
Still,
as this woman walked through the streets of Capernaum, circumscribed as she was
by a socially imposed “containment field,” she must nonetheless have been
able to observe that this man Jesus, who spent so much time in her town, had
been showing remarkable openness to out casts.
Why,
just a day or two before, had he not publicly invited into the innermost circle
of his disciples a despised tax collector by the name of Matthew, and had he not
shared food and eating utensils with groups of unclean tax collectors + other
wretched sinners?
Yes,
here was a man willing to endure the wrath of religious leaders because he was
challenging their practice of excluding groups of people form the circle of
god’s hospitality.
Still,
it must have taken an extraordinary dose of courage and daring for this woman to
violate her culture’s strong taboo against contact between a woman in menses
and a man and to risk a rejection by even this most open of all men.
For a rejection by this man would doubtless extinguish whatever
glimmer of hope she had for breaking her isolation and for being rejoined to
society.
Yet,
despite her undoubted courage and daring, it should be noted that after twelve
long years of social exile for impurity she has internalized her marginalization
to such an extent that she can imagine approaching him only indirectly and in a
servile manner, stooping to the ground behind him + furtively touching the
dust-dragging tassels of his cloak.
But
when Jesus senses the woman’s touch, he does not fail her.
Turning to her and reaching across the boundaries of social stigma and
imagined contagion, Jesus acknowledges the woman’s act of faith, and commends
it, saying, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”
And
instantly, the woman is healed – healed in body, and healed, as well, in mind
and spirit, for along with the gift of her being physically healed come the
gifts or her being released from internalized oppression, of her being restored
to a condition of dignity, of her being renewed in her sense of god’s love and
grace, + of her being re-incorporated into human community.
Here
we see, as in most narratives of Jesus’s healings, that Jesus seeks to restore
health not only to a particular person but to the whole of society as well.
In this case, he acts to overcome the superstition and fear that has
marginalized and excluded women. And
he does so by rejecting outright the concept of menstrual impurity and by
ignoring the commandment to wash his clothes, and bathe his body, and remain
unclean until evening after the woman’s touch.
So
the woman’s courage and daring in approaching Jesus leads not only to her
personal healing but eventually to a radical change in society, such that this
woman and others like her need no longer be subject to social and religious
ostracism and isolation.
But
our story is not yet over, for today’s gospel lesson, taken in combination
with last week’s, has at least one other miraculous element to it.
In
last week’s lesson, Jesus breaks a strong social taboo by calling a hated tax
collector, Matthew by name, to become part of the innermost circle of his
disciples.
And
in this Week’s lesson, Jesus goes on to break not just one other social taboo,
but two others: first, as
we’ve seen, he accepts the touch of the woman in menses without believing
himself to have been defiled and without rushing off to wash + bathe + purify
himself; and second, as the narrative continues, he proceeds onward to the home
of a deceased girl, where the funeral rites are already underway with the
prescribed flute playing and rituals of mourning.
There Jesus reaches out to touch toe girl’s corpse, another act that,
according to the religious thinking of his day, is considered defiling.
For according to the torah, according to scriptures, corpses are impure
and are not to be touched. Exceptions
were made only for close relatives so that they could properly bury them.
But these relatives then needed to wash and bathe and purify themselves
before being reincorporated into society and being readmitted to sacred places.
But
in this case, too, Jesus rejects the very concept of impurity, a concept taught
by the torah itself, the scriptures themselves. And when Jesus touches the deceased girl, she is given the
gift of life. And after Jesus’s
touching of the corpse, he feels no need to undertake rituals of purification.
So
this 9th chapter of Matthew describes the breaking of one social
taboo after another, and it portrays a graciousness that has a snowballing
effect: Jesus’s willingness to reach out to the out cast tax collector
encourages the bleeding woman to reach out for Jesus’s hem, and her act in
turn leads to Jesus’s willingness to reach out to the dead girl.
Acceptance begets acceptance, which begets acceptance.
And
this pattern to the 9th chapter of Matthew is the pattern that we are
to pray for in our own life and ministry. For
if we reach out to the outcast and the word gets around, there’s no telling
how quickly and widely grace will spread!
This
spreading of grace was precisely what happened when Christian missionaries
arrived in India and began to work graciously and lovingly among the
“untouchables.” Many of the traditional occupations of the lowest castes in
India had to do with acts deemed by society to be unclean and defiling,
including the touching of corpses and the handling of dead animals, as was done
by leather workers. The
“untouchables” were thought to be unclean, and their uncleanness was thought
to be contagious. But Christian
missionaries rejected the concept of uncleanness and embraced those who were
held to be “untouchable,” bestowing on them the dignity of human personhood.
Furthermore,
the establishment of missionary hospitals, where people worked with the bleeding
and the dying + accepted patients from every caste, including the untouchables
– this founding of missionary hospitals offended many Indians, being seen as
an affront to traditional concepts of purity.
But because Jesus had been touched by the “untouchable,” and rejected
the whole concept of “untouchability.”
They were undeterred in the founding of hospitals and in restoring
millions of people to health – health of body, and of mind, and of spirit.
Well,
is uncleanness + untouchability really a foreign concept to us?
Is it a concept found only in far off places like ancient Palestine +
India? Many may think so, but I
think not.
All
of us reach out to shake hands with friends, but how many of us reach out to
shake ands with homeless persons on the street?
All
of us are willing to be touched by acquaintances, but how many of us can refrain
from recoiling if a beggar sitting on the sidewalk reaches out to touch even the
cuff of our pants?
Yes,
the homeless and the poor are the outcasts, the “untouchables,” of
our society. Jesus was not afraid
to touch and to be touched by those that society considered unclean.
And all of us disciples of Jesus need to be unafraid as well – so that
many persons may be made whole, may be released from internalized oppression,
may be restored to dignity, may be re-incorporated into human community, and may
be renewed in their sense of God’s love + grace.
And
who knows! If we succeed in
bringing God’s love and grace to the homeless and to other poor persons around
us, we might eventually succeed in restoring health to our society.
For
if we do reach out and touch the outcast and the word gets around, there’s no
telling how quickly and widely that grace will spread!
Let
us pray:
O
God,
A
woman’s touch prompted Jesus’s loving and life-giving touch, and we pray
that it may prompt ours as well. May
we never exclude persons from your community and table. And may we actively include in our community and at our table
those whom society deems outcasts. This
we pray in the name or Jesus, who included everyone in his touch. Amen.
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