“Who has touched my clothes?”
The gospel reading for yesterday (Luke 8:45 / Mark 5:30) tells of a woman with a hermorrhage who is healed by touching Jesus' clothing. In The Questions of Jesus, by Jesuit peace activist John Dear SJ, , he writes about the question Jesus asks in this reading... "Who has touched my clothes?". It's a little long, but I think it's worth the read. Here it is below ...
*****
Who Touched Me?
There was a woman who had been hemorrhaging for a dozen years. Doctors had been no help; in fact, they had made her condition worse. She had spent all her money on remedies, to no avail. As a result, the woman was declared unclean by society. When Jesus passed by on some important business with a wealthy synagogue official, and the crowd presses in on him, the woman comes up behind him and touches the tassel hanging from his cloak. "If I just touch him," she thinks, "I will be cured."
Instantly, the woman knows she has been cured. But she does not expect what happens next. Jesus stops in his tracks, turns around, and asks, "Who touched me? Who has touched my clothes?"
"You see how the crowd is pressing upon you," his disciples point out, "yet you ask 'Who touched me?' Everyone's touching you!" But Jesus feels the power go out from him. "Who touched me?" he asks, looking around.
The woman is caught. She hoped to be healed anonymously, without interrupting Jesus, without causing a scene, without anyone finding out. She knows she is an "unclean woman", ostracized by righteous holy men. If Jesus knows she has touched him, he might yell at her, like every other man, for making him unclean too.
But it's too late. The woman has broken the law and must face the consequences. So she approaches Jesus "in fear and trembling, falls down before him, and tells the whole truth."
What happens next is as astonishing as the miraculous cure. Jesus looks at the woman and, rather than scolding her, he affirms her, loves her, and gives her back her dignity. "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction."
Jesus feels the power go out of him, but he does not want to be a magician. Rather, he desires a personal relationship with each one of us, with every human being who ever lived. He is not some magic impersonal god, a healing machine. He is a human being who wants to look us in the eye, love us, and be loved by us. He wants to know us as his daughters and sons. He wants to save each one of us individually, with his own personal touch, so that we might live with him intimately in peace forever.
Jesus practiced what Dorothy Day called gospel personalism. In light of his radical personalism, his question makes sense. In asking "Who touched me?" he wants to know who is close to him, who wants him, who is being healed by him. Over time, Jesus turns away from the crowds and moves closer toward each one of us individually, calling each of us by name, announcing that we are his friends. He is learning the hard lesson that crowds can quickly turn into mobs, and mobs can cause riots. Here, in this moment, Jesus sees that the crowd will eventually turn on him and shout out "Crucify him, crucify him!" So, aware of his own impending death, he looks for the touch of faith, hope, and love from us. He looks for our individual response, and he intends to heal and save us, one person at a time.
Jesus' question leads us to ask some of our own: Have I ever touched Jesus? Do I want to touch him with the same determination as the woman with the hemorrhage? Dare I touch Jesus, risk having him find out, and turn toward me in my brokenness and weakness? Do I want Jesus to know that I touched him? Am I willing to enter that intimate relationship with him that he desires with me?
At some point, each one of us has touched Jesus. Mother Teresa says we touch Jesus in the poor and the homeless. Martin Luther King Jr. says we touch Jesus in the struggle for justice and racial equality. Philip Berrigan says we touch Jesus in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Don Helder Camara says we touch Jesus in every act of compassion. Mahatma Gandhi says we touch Jesus in the life of nonviolence. Thomas Merton says we touch Jesus in our contemplative prayer and solitude. Dorothy Day says we touch Jesus when we welcome and house the homeless. Oscar Romero says we touch Jesus when we liberate the oppressed. Henri Nouwen says we touch Jesus in one another whenever we recognize each other as a beloved daughter or son of God.
When we touch Jesus, he turns around and asks us to identify ourselves, tell him our stories, and get to know him. He heals us - but he wants more. He needs our companionship, our presence, our love. He wants to be our brother, our companion, our friend.
The gospel invites us to tell him, as did the heroic woman, when we touch him, how he is healing us, and who we are. If we dare, we will not be disappointed.
- Christ addressing a Kneeling Woman by Paolo Veronese
*****
Who Touched Me?
There was a woman who had been hemorrhaging for a dozen years. Doctors had been no help; in fact, they had made her condition worse. She had spent all her money on remedies, to no avail. As a result, the woman was declared unclean by society. When Jesus passed by on some important business with a wealthy synagogue official, and the crowd presses in on him, the woman comes up behind him and touches the tassel hanging from his cloak. "If I just touch him," she thinks, "I will be cured."
Instantly, the woman knows she has been cured. But she does not expect what happens next. Jesus stops in his tracks, turns around, and asks, "Who touched me? Who has touched my clothes?"
"You see how the crowd is pressing upon you," his disciples point out, "yet you ask 'Who touched me?' Everyone's touching you!" But Jesus feels the power go out from him. "Who touched me?" he asks, looking around.
The woman is caught. She hoped to be healed anonymously, without interrupting Jesus, without causing a scene, without anyone finding out. She knows she is an "unclean woman", ostracized by righteous holy men. If Jesus knows she has touched him, he might yell at her, like every other man, for making him unclean too.
But it's too late. The woman has broken the law and must face the consequences. So she approaches Jesus "in fear and trembling, falls down before him, and tells the whole truth."
What happens next is as astonishing as the miraculous cure. Jesus looks at the woman and, rather than scolding her, he affirms her, loves her, and gives her back her dignity. "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction."
Jesus feels the power go out of him, but he does not want to be a magician. Rather, he desires a personal relationship with each one of us, with every human being who ever lived. He is not some magic impersonal god, a healing machine. He is a human being who wants to look us in the eye, love us, and be loved by us. He wants to know us as his daughters and sons. He wants to save each one of us individually, with his own personal touch, so that we might live with him intimately in peace forever.
Jesus practiced what Dorothy Day called gospel personalism. In light of his radical personalism, his question makes sense. In asking "Who touched me?" he wants to know who is close to him, who wants him, who is being healed by him. Over time, Jesus turns away from the crowds and moves closer toward each one of us individually, calling each of us by name, announcing that we are his friends. He is learning the hard lesson that crowds can quickly turn into mobs, and mobs can cause riots. Here, in this moment, Jesus sees that the crowd will eventually turn on him and shout out "Crucify him, crucify him!" So, aware of his own impending death, he looks for the touch of faith, hope, and love from us. He looks for our individual response, and he intends to heal and save us, one person at a time.
Jesus' question leads us to ask some of our own: Have I ever touched Jesus? Do I want to touch him with the same determination as the woman with the hemorrhage? Dare I touch Jesus, risk having him find out, and turn toward me in my brokenness and weakness? Do I want Jesus to know that I touched him? Am I willing to enter that intimate relationship with him that he desires with me?
At some point, each one of us has touched Jesus. Mother Teresa says we touch Jesus in the poor and the homeless. Martin Luther King Jr. says we touch Jesus in the struggle for justice and racial equality. Philip Berrigan says we touch Jesus in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Don Helder Camara says we touch Jesus in every act of compassion. Mahatma Gandhi says we touch Jesus in the life of nonviolence. Thomas Merton says we touch Jesus in our contemplative prayer and solitude. Dorothy Day says we touch Jesus when we welcome and house the homeless. Oscar Romero says we touch Jesus when we liberate the oppressed. Henri Nouwen says we touch Jesus in one another whenever we recognize each other as a beloved daughter or son of God.
When we touch Jesus, he turns around and asks us to identify ourselves, tell him our stories, and get to know him. He heals us - but he wants more. He needs our companionship, our presence, our love. He wants to be our brother, our companion, our friend.
The gospel invites us to tell him, as did the heroic woman, when we touch him, how he is healing us, and who we are. If we dare, we will not be disappointed.
- Christ addressing a Kneeling Woman by Paolo Veronese
posted by crystal | 12:34 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Crystal,
This is a great post. Thanks for putting it up. The story of the hemorrhaging woman is one of the Gospel stories that most aptly demonstrates how radically different Jesus was from his contemporaries. Here is an instance where historical research really helps to enlighten us. In the Old Testament, this is what we learn about a woman in this predicament:
When a woman has her menstrual flow, she shall be in a state of impurity for seven days. Anyone who touches her shall be unclean until evening.
Anything on which she lies or sits during her impurity shall be unclean.
Anyone who touches her bed shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
Whoever touches any article of furniture on which she was sitting, shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
But if she is on the bed or on the seat when he touches it, he shall be unclean until evening.
If a man dares to lie with her, he contracts her impurity and shall be unclean for seven days; every bed on which he then lies also becomes unclean.
When a woman is afflicted with a flow of blood for several days outside her menstrual period, or when her flow continues beyond the ordinary period, as long as she suffers this unclean flow she shall be unclean, just as during her menstrual period.
Any bed on which she lies during such a flow becomes unclean, as it would during her menstruation, and any article of furniture on which she sits becomes unclean just as during her menstruation.
Anyone who touches them becomes unclean; he shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.
If she becomes freed from her affliction, she shall wait seven days, and only then is she to be purified.
On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the meeting tent.
The priest shall offer up one of them as a sin offering and the other as a holocaust. Thus shall the priest make atonement before the LORD for her unclean flow.
You shall warn the Israelites of their uncleanness, lest by defiling my Dwelling, which is in their midst, their uncleanness be the cause of their death.
This is the law for the man who is afflicted with a chronic flow, or who has an emission of seed, and thereby becomes unclean;
as well as for the woman who has her menstrual period, or who is afflicted with a chronic flow; the law for male and female; and also for the man who lies with an unclean woman.
--Leviticus 15:19-33
In Second Temple Judaism there was a high premium placed on ritual purity. The laws regarding ritual purity were incumbent upon everyone, but the higher one went up in the priestly heirarchy, the more stringent the rules for purity were.
Menstruating women were not allowed in the temple precincts at all, not even in the outer court where the gentiles were allowed. Women who weren’t menstruating couldn’t advance past the Court of Women into the Court of Israel, where the men assembled. The men couldn’t advance from there into the Court of Priests, where only priests and levites were allowed, and so on… Entrance to the Temple precincts required ritual purity and as one moved into its inner courts access became more restricted. Ritual purity required cleanliness and the absence of bodily emissions in order to draw near to the divine presence. The Holy of Holies could only be entered by the High Priest once a year, on Yom Kippur.
When the ritually impure came into contact with the holy, it was the impure that was considered destroyed, not the holy. Contact with the holy in a state of ritual impurity resulted in death or excommunication. It was also considered contagious, as we saw in Leviticus.
The poor woman in the Gospel story had been suffering from hemorraghes for 12 years, which means she would have been completely cut off from communal worship at the temple for 12 years! Not only that, but due to the contagious nature of ritual impurity, she would have avoided contact as much as possible with observant Jews. This is why she wants to touch his garments without being noticed, and reacts in fear when she is found out. When she secretly reaches out and touches Jesus’ garments and is discovered, does he react in anger or offense in the impurity being passed on to him? Certainly not. Rather, He tells her that her faith has healed her. Rather than being “destroyed” by coming into contact with what was holy, she was healed. She was “saved”. The respective quotes by Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, Marin Luther King, Phillip Berrigan, et al, recognize this and are right on the money.
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Sorry Jeff ... at least I didn't call you Kermit :-)
Kermit? Don't worry, I've been called worse. :-)
Not to worry, I do stuff like that all the time.
Just one additional note, because I want to be careful not to unfairly caricaturize Judaism. Ritual impurity was not the same thing as moral impurity. There was no "sin" or moral stigma attached to it. All that the ritually impure needed to do was to go through a purification ritual in order to approach the Divine, but obviously, in the case of this woman, the situation was more problematic in that it was chronic.
Good post, Crystal
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