A large crowd followed Jesus and pressed in on him.
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.
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 hemorrhage 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?’”
Jesus looked all around 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.”
***
I remember being in seventh grade, sitting with my best
friend Ashley on a concrete bench in our middle school courtyard chatting away
during our lunch period. A girl walked past us, arms awkwardly taunt, clasped
behind her, holding a book over her behind. After she’d past, Ashley commented
on the strangeness of her gait, and I, I knew, because I’d been that girl too.
“She’s bled through her jeans,” I said to Ashley. Our hearts fell
watching her measured pace and contrived demeanor, as if even in a solider’s
rigidity everything was okay, in fact jovial, when we all knew if she moved her
book, she would be shunned as dirty, and dumb. I wished I hadn’t known, but I
think Ashley and I, and I bet most middle school girls knew what that was like,
our bodies throwing curve balls of irregular days and exorbitant amounts, and
we, all the while, still on that cusp of childhood where play was paramount to
planning and experience was beginning to teach us otherwise. I wish I hadn’t
known, because if I was her, I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to notice. I hoped
no one else would, that she would make it through the day without spotting the
grey concrete benches, or the desk’s plastic chairs. That she’d already had
gym, and didn't have to figure out how to change in front of the other girls. I
hoped that she’d make it home, having tricked the school, everyone, but Ashley
and I.
The woman in the scripture had been suffering from
hemorrhages and bleeding for twelve years, and like our culture today, she was
considered dirty because of it. In Biblical times, many women would stay away
in what were called Red Tents during their menstruation, so as not to
contaminate the outside world. But you can’t stay in a tent for twelve years,
so instead, for twelve years society learned to stay away from the hemorrhaging
woman. The middle school had seen her stain and made her an outcast. Yet, she
was doing everything she could to return to the fold. She had endured much
under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better,
but rather grew worse. She needed healing. She longed for community.
At that time there was a common belief that if you touched a
religious person you could be healed. She had nothing to loose by reaching out
to Jesus, could not be cast out further. She was always untouched, pushed away,
and told to stay back, to stay out, not to sit, or enter, but the crowd was so
thick, pressed in against each other that she could go unnoticed and disappear,
be one of many, something she hadn’t been in years. I imagine her bravely
holding her breath and almost diving into the sea of people and weaving way
through like a fan at a concert until she was right behind Jesus in the crowd.
She touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be
made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage 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?’” But Jesus knew that in the pressing crowd was the answer to
healing. The woman who had been cast out because of the shame of her blood, had
the courage to enter in blood and all. Perhaps in their pressing and her
pushing she spotted the rest of them, and instead of walking rigid and alone
through the hallway, now they all carried the red spot of blood and realized
its lack of shame. That the spot they all wore was the thing that gave life,
brought birth, mirrored the moon and the waves, and marked the transition from
childhood to adulthood. Jesus looked all around to see who had done it, who
blessed his cloak with the courageous stain of the spot. But the woman, knowing
what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before Jesus,
and told him the whole truth, that she believed, somehow, by reaching out to
him, there would be healing and she would be restored to the fold. He said to
her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of
your disease.” Her faith that led her to drop her book, and push in against the
crowd, hoping Jesus would change meaning of the stain had created peace, and
made the community well, unified by their spots. The crowd I imagine, stood
there with their clothes stained red, embarrassed at first, like Adam and Eve
in the garden after the fall. Looking at the scene of stains and red spots, and
the man whom they followed with the biggest stain of all, watching him and
watching the woman, and finally they understood that all of them were healed of
their disease, of shaming, of shunning, of casting out, of calling a woman
dirty, and denying that which creates life, and follows the order of creation.
That nothing about a body is shameful, and no person should be outcast.
I had similar thing happen to me on our mission trip. After
a days work, dirty from dust and debris, I showered and put on a simple flowey
and loose 3/4 sleeve cotton dress. We had worship that night, and I thought it
would be nice to look a little dressier than the shorts and t-shirt that serve
as mission trip uniforms. Michelle commented on how much she liked my dress,
and I told her how comfortable it was, and how soft the cotton. “Can I feel?”
she asked, and conquered that it was indeed soft and comfortable. A couple
hours later, the site director cornered me in the kitchen. “I’ve been watching
you and your dress is inappropriate. I am going to ask you to change.” “No, I’m
not going to change. I’m a feminist.” I responded with an assurance that
surprised me. It helped that I knew she was Southern Baptist and upon meeting
she’d articulated that she didn’t believe women should be preachers, but that
the last few of her twenty-four years, she’d finally learned not to debate it,
though apparently not learned enough to know it was rude to state as an
introduction, especially to a female minister. I told her, she was welcome to
have a dialogue with me about why she thought my dress was inappropriate, maybe
there was something I was missing I relented. But the more she talked the
bigger the hole she dug and the further I was from changing. “I know your not
that way,” she responded. “Slutty?” I clarified, almost amused, wondering, ‘How
on earth would she know?’ Were there fliers on chaperone’s personal lives sent
ahead of time, the box, ‘slutty,’ checked, ‘no?’ or was “that way,” just lingo
slipped in like the old Southern, bless her heart, standing in for the things
you aren’t supposed to talk about, but in its couched phrasing suggesting way
more than a direct definition. “Slut,” means one thing, “that way,” can mean a
million. She said, if my dress were shorts, the length would be fine, but as a
black dress the extra two inches of lace on the bottom hem was too revealing.
“I carry myself properly,” I countered, to which the conversation went on.
“Yes, your fine when your sitting, but when you stand it seems short. Same with
your girls, their shorts are also too short, but that’s yours to deal with.”
And it was at that point I knew I was for sure keeping on my dress. It was how
I was going to deal with my girls, and the idea, that their puffy gym shorts
were too short. If it were just me in question, I might have wondered,
replaying comments I’ve heard my whole life. As the tallest and first to
develop in my class, I was used to my body being labeled as shameful or at
least weird. I was told not to act my age, but act the age my body portrayed me
to be. My legs were long like the Lehman girls’ and no matter the length of my
shorts, be they appropriate - as their’s always are, whatever I wore was going
to look short. I remember teachers testing their length, to see if the hem past
my fingertips which my shorts then, and my cotton dress the other day did, (I
checked and had inches to spare) but in both cases I was threatened to be sent
to change. The idea, either way, that there was something shameful, distracting
and dangerous about my body. It was a stain, shameful, and expected to be
hidden. The site director had made me feel it all over again; I questioned what
made me a woman, the way I was created to be, slightly tall. I texted my pastor
friend Marci both for reassurance and comradere.
Kathryn Nicole: Was just told by a Southern Baptist college
girl that my dress length was inappropriate on a mission trip and would I
change. "Nope." was the short answer. Thanks Marci for being in the
back of my head! The young woman said she knew I wasn’t, "that way."
Marci Glass: wow.
Kathryn Nicole: I should come out in a burka
Marci Glass: or a bikini
Kathryn Nicole: Nice!
Marci Glass: People need to get over their fear of women’s
bodies. for real.
Kathryn Nicole: She said to me stuff's hanging out - its
not.
Marci Glass: And think of the teen girls she has said that
too
Kathryn Nicole: That makes me sad. Its times like these
ministry is draining. Same old convos
Marci Glass: Glad you can be there to stand in the face of
it. Damn patriarchy
Kathryn Nicole: Truly. Thanks Marci.
People like Marci have been Jesus’ cloak to me. I just
needed to reach out, and feel the healing of a release of shame. Its because I
know both the feeling of shame, have experienced the pressing crowd, and the
spoken release of healing, that there’s not much I keep hidden away, and I’d
encourage you likewise. Is it infertility, incontenance, impotence, insomnia,
immobility, AIDS, addiction, Alzheimer's, abortion, arthritis, ADD, depression,
deafness, diabetes, dyslexia, blindness, bulimia, bipolar, that you’ve been
made to feel like your body has betrayed you, that you walk around rigid with a
book over you behind? What would be like if everyone openly shared their spots?
We’d have signage for restrooms, a railing up to the chancel and concrete
walkway that went straight out the front of the Fellowship Hall front door
instead of a dirts path and disturbed planters. Alcoholics Anonymous and
Overeaters Anonymous would meet in the Fellowship Hall instead of the basement
and back rooms. We’d have more large print Bibles and people like Mardelle
Ebell who was unashamed to look for hers and Sid Johnson would not have had to
feel weird with an ear set for amplyphing the church speakers. We’d have a row
of rocking chairs in place of pews for those with arthritis and sleeping babies
with new parents, and those of us who just can’t sit still. We’d have Mother’s
Day sermons about infertility or adoption, and our gluten free communion option
would flow as beautifully as Ginger’s homemade our bread. There would be no
prayer request left unvoiced and compassion unshared. Prisons would not be
running out of sanitary pads and they wouldn’t be called that. All restrooms
would be public and buildings and walkways handicapped accessible. Our soldiers
would be unafraid of the label PTSD and our psychologists would not be
overburdened with too many patients. We’d be better at serving the mentally ill
and developmentally delayed in a way that kept them in community. We wouldn’t
be as surprised when our national heroes- athletes, turn out to be humans
who've used steroids, and instead we’d insist on human heroes. Our heroes would
be the ones that insisted on joining the crowd, spots and all, and made us see
and share our stains, and in the sharing, healing and peace would come.
I imagine it a little like our youth group mission trip.
When you’re on a mission trip you get to know one another well, and the things
you often try to hide, become obvious for the group. Kourtney was affected by
the heat more than any of us, and ended up getting sick to her stomach one
night in ear shot of the rest of us. Like the hemorrhaging woman, the crowd
knew her illness, but what meant was they were also able to care for her.
Bryson and Luke stayed up with Kourtney and the first thing out of Calli’s
mouth, come morning, was, “How are you feeling Kourtney.” People didn't gripe
when Kourt needed a break from the hot sun in the AC of the van, and all packed
up without comment from swimming when it got too hot. Ironically, we had shared
some spots the night before by turning a game which normally is played with
animal actions into one where you make bathroom humor noises. We closed our
eyes and belly laughed because everyone knew the noises and the best ones were
the most accurate. The next day, Benny said he heard Kourtney, Bryson said,
“Did it sound like this _____ and Benny said, “No, like this_____” and made the
best throw up sound I have ever heard. We all laughed, not at Kourtney, but
because we shared the same stain, the same spot. We’d all been there and Benny
in his naivety nailed and named it and we’d been healed of the shame and there
was peace in the laughter.
