“The Bold Power of Touch”                                                            April 3, 2011

Luke 8: 42–48 Story (with the Jairus story, vv. 40–56)                    The Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

Monologue of the Woman Bleeding for 12 Years

My name is Hulda; and besides taking care of my family – Micah, my husband, and the four children and my mother-in-law who lives with us, I see my life’s purpose now is to tell what Jesus did for me, what I’ve seen him do for others. It is a depth of joy and transformation I cannot contain; it is a gift I want each of you to have!

Believe me, my life has not always felt this centered. In fact, before that DAY when I touched Jesus and Jesus touched me, I was pretty pathetic and life was BLEAK. My condition was devastating!

It is somewhat embarrassing to talk about, BUT if we do not talk about the dark times, theycast their shadows on our lives and then pop up when we least expect them and then they try to take over again. They do their damage!

Maybe you have experienced this, you have dealt with an addiction but if you don’t continue to name it, “I am an alcoholic”, it’s likely to cast its ugliness on your life again.

Maybe you were wounded in childhood by some hurtful words that still rip through you today and you feel that cloud of anger and resentment building; or maybe you were ignored and the shadow of loneliness can creep in and consume you into a heap of depression. It is important to talk about the pain to get through it, and so it doesn’t take over again.

*****

Well, this particular time in my life I was a young adult, before marriage and children, and I was bleeding, hemorrhaging – my menstrual cycle was so out of whack, none of the doctors could help – no one had been able to help me. I was a basket case, an emotional wreck, I was so ostracized!

I was unclean, filthy according to our Jewish law. You can read all about it in Leviticus 15. The detail of this law is devastating; even where I sat was unclean! I was unclean all the time! Anything, anyoneI touched was unclean! People avoided me like the plague, since I had this bleeding all the time. I was unclean all the time! I felt so worthless, more worthless than the fleas on the mule’s back. If people saw me on the street, they would intentionally walk on the other side. If I went into the market, people would shout as me to go away. No one would even come near me to talk to me, much less touch me. And I was weak all the time.

Do you know what it is like to be ignored? To walk this earth with everyone around pretending you do not exist, being shunned, paid no attention; it is devastating! It damages the psyche, in here!

Not to be talked to, not to be touched, it is the worst form of hell. Thank God for my sister! I lived with my sister. When her husband, Zera would go to the olive orchards to work, I would go upstairs into her house (I slept down with the animals) and I would curl up in the fetal position in my sister’s lap and just (SOB). And she would touch me and she kept a good Jewish home, too. She took a risk, a big, bold risk touching me. But she said some things were more important than the law, but not to tell Zera. She would stroke me on the head!

“Oh, what would become of me,” I cried. I felt like dying! I felt I was dying! (SOB)

My sister said there was a new prophet, his name was Jesus, that had been going throughout Galilee; that she had heard from Zera that the Pharisees were all upset with what he was teaching (he had helped someone on the Sabbath – and said that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath). She also heard Jesus had healed Benjamin the paralytic who would sit and beg outside the synagogue. The fervor in her voice when she spoke about Jesus sent a chill down my spine. But I did not think about it anymore until one day late in spring after the barley harvest. I was crouched down in this cave place in the hills; I liked the darkness and coolness of that cave. In the dark, no one sees and no one knows. I often hid in the caves.

One day while I was crouched, lost in my self-pity, I heard a commotion and I went out, blinked at the brightness of the day, and I saw a crowd of people coming down the hill following this man. Everyone was eager and chatty. Then what I saw was incredible – this leper ran out from the lepers’ caves across the way from where I was and cried, out:

“Lord, if you choose you can make me clean.” And this man touched his hand and he was cleansed. I went closer to the crowd. And before persons could shout me away, I found out the man’s name was Jesus, the one my sister had spoken of!

It was the very next day when I was awakened by my sister tugging on my shoulder, “Wake up, Hulda, wake up! Jarius, leader of the synagogue had this Jesus over at the synagogue, everyone is gathered. He is causing quite a stir!” [Oh, Jarius, I thought, He is the one who crushed my spirits when I had come for prayer – he told me in no uncertain words when I stopped bleeding for seven days and did my cleansing bath – then he might give me “the time of day.] It was Jarius who Zera said had been criticizing this Jesus. I had heard that he even had talked about stoning him.

Well, it seems Jarius little daughter “miss princess Marian” was ill, really sick, near death.

I don’t know whether it was the intensity in my sister’s voice OR another inner voice, but I went running out into the street towards the synagogue. There were so many others gathering that no one even noticed me or said anything to me.

I got near enough, near enough to see Jarius kneel before Jesus and ask Jesus to come lay hands on his daughter to heal her. I heard someone say, “She’s already dead, Jarius.”

What happened in the next ten or twenty minutes was literally life-changing for me. Here I was this unkempt “unclean” barely above an animal chunk of life, creeping along, looking at the ground. I hardly ever stood up straight OR looked at anyone in the eyes. I didn’t think I was worthy.

But this day it was like an incredible energy just filled my body – I felt strong and bold, and only one thought filled my mind: this man Jesus can heal me, I know. I thought if I could just touch the fringe of his cloak, the fringe that reminded everyone this man belonged to God –those threaded knots that stood for the law – somehow I knew if I could just touch Jesus I would be healed. I pushed my way through the crowd before anyone yelled “UNCLEAN.”

I touched Jesus. I grasped the fringe of his cloak and then let go. He turned around and I crouched to the ground, as he asked “Who touched me?” One of the men with him said in exasperation, many people are pressing around you, how can you ask, “Who touched me?” But Jesus brushed him off with a firm “someone touched me, because I felt the power go out of me.”

Jesus looked down at me, looked me straight in the eye; it was as if time stood still. I gradually stood full of fear; I was trembling! I knew I had made him unclean. In the midst of this crowd of people who were all excited, going to the house of Jarius, leader of the synagogue (keeper of the laws, regulator of worship). In the midst of this movement Jesus stopped, the crowd stopped, for how many moments I do not know.

He gave me his full attention. “Oh, forgive me,” I thought, “forgive me for touching you, for making you unclean. Forgive me for bothering you. Forgive me for wanting to be healed. Forgive me for being so bold” then I blurted out, “I touched you!” But rather than condemn me, Jesus calls ME “daughter” and tells me my faith as made me well. I was not simply a poor unclean woman lost in the crowd!! I was a human being to whom Jesus gave the whole of himself! I felt clean and whole as I stood there before him.

That’s what I want you to know – for Jesus, no one is lost in the crowd! Not one is unclean, too dirty a sinner, too guilty, no one is just a housewife, OR the only LT Colonel who did not make the promotion list, OR the one who got dropped from the project, OR the divorcee, OR a retiree, OR the one with chronic pain, OR the unemployed, OR only a C+ student really, OR someone who never gets their work published, OR someone who no one notices. Jesus notices! No one is lost in the crowd! Everyone is of infinite worth and value!

Jesus touched me. I was transformed, reborn, given a new life! No more groveling and hiding in caves, no more looking down at the ground. I feel good about myself because he touched me and made me whole, because I know I am a child of God no matter what!

Maybe all this seems a bit unbelievable, hocus-pocus to your twenty-first century scientific minds? Let me remind you that touch is healing, that has been witnessed to right here in this room! Laying on hands for healing, just as Jesus showed us, has had great power to heal here at BPC!

We know from our scientific studies that children do not develop properly if not touched, held, cuddled.

Let us be aware of legalizing touch away. The elderly in our nursing homes cry out to be touched, the babies abandoned in our hospitals and on our streets cry out to be touched; the prisoner in isolation cries out to be touched. The orphans of Kibwezi cry out to be touched. Mothers who have lost children in the violent war cry out to be touched. Members of our own families cry out to be touched. Sons cry out to fathers to be touched. People of the world cry out for touch; the people of Libya and Japan cry out to be touched.

Our hearts cry out for hope, for health, and for the haling touch of Jesus Christ. Don’t let the gift slip away. Be audacious and bold. Reach out and touch – Jesus and one another, in Jesus’ name!

LET US PRAY:

O Jesus who enfleshed for us this Word of God, open our hearts to receive this Word, the mystery of your grace, your healing touch in our lives. And open us to be instruments of the healing power of your touch for others.  Amen.