The Whole Truth - Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
June 30, 2024
“How are you?” This simple question gets asked a lot in
the course of our travels each week. When I was little, I remember someone
asking my Pop how he was and he then proceeded to regale them with a laundry
list of his physical ailments, medications and how his car was running and my
Nana interrupted him, with “Bill! Stop! No one cares! They don’t want to listen
to all that. Just say you’re fine.” Because “How are you?” is really often just
another way of saying “hello.”
And in truth most of us, even with our close folk, often
tell only the parts of our selves that we feel comfortable sharing. If we are
honest, telling the WHOLE truth is a little too much sometimes. It can be
uncomfortable to share or to hear, and maybe we have even been told some things
are better left unsaid. Especially when it comes to our bodies- some things are
just off limits in polite conversation. No one wanted to hear about my Pop’s
constipation, for example. Even more so, no one wants to hear about girls and
women and bleeding. When I was in school, the girls were told about their
periods and warned NOT to tell the boys about what our bodies were up to. As if
no one would ever find out. What can I say? It was the ‘70’s.
And that strategy, if flawed, works pretty well when you
can comfortably hide what is happening. But not the woman who had been bleeding
for 12 years that Jesus meets. As the weeks go by and the months lengthen, each
morning, every morning comes, there it is again, a little blood and little
pain. Each day a little worse. And when do we finally cross the line to that
word “hemorrhage?” [1] And when does that word become her name, her own actual identity unstated, even
forgotten? Everyone knew when she was nearby- it was in the air on hot and
dusty days.
Because “this is something else entirely. This was
bleeding that never quite stopped. So much so that maybe she couldn’t stay at
home anymore. Bleeding that watched her sisters marry and have children. Bleeding
that consigned her to never being right for anyone’s son. It wasn’t the life
she wanted for herself.” Dr. Wil Gafney suggests that maybe she became a
midwife because no one would think twice about the blood on her skirts.
“All the money she earned, she sold or bartered away in
the hopes of healing herself. She spent all she had, walked any distance and
even farther…to do whatever it took to not only heal herself, but to save
herself, to live. [2]
“Because until this bleeding stopped, she could never
pass the inspection that allowed her to worship in temple. She had been there
as a child, and wanted to go, wanted to take her offerings and say her prayers
facing the place where the living God resided. It wasn’t required for women,
but so many wanted to do so, that there were mikvahs, baths dedicated for women
to clean themselves, there just for them.”[3] But not for her.
“She longed to be free of this terrible illness, the
weakness, the pain, the constant washing, to have new clothes that remained
unstained. She wanted to feel beauty and worth. She wanted to be able to share
the Shabbat meals rather than lighting candles alone by herself.” She hurried
after the crowd, she thought about what she would say. She followed the sound
of the commotion and saw more people than lived in her town, all pushing toward
the middle, toward him. He’s the one.
She’s heard about Jesus. What had she heard?
It must have been pretty incredible. After all there were lots of stories
swirling around these villages. Because you know how news travels-
“A great prophet has risen among us!” Luke
7:16
“Come
see a man who told me everything I’d ever done!” John 4:29
“What’s this? A new teaching and with
authority!” Mark 1:27
“What sort of man is this that even the winds
and the seas obey him?” Matthew 8:27
His fame was spreading and crowds were
gathering. Extraordinary things were happening. [4]
She pushed, not caring if someone stepped out of her path
because they could smell her coming, or if she was bleeding even more from the
exertion. She had to reach him.
Falling to her knees, reaching out, not knowing she would
do it until she did it, she touched the knotted fringe on the corners of his
clothing. She believed that this time she would be healed! If I but touch his
clothes, I shall be saved- from pain and disappointment and struggle and death
itself. And it was so. And Jesus felt the power leave him as surely and
simultaneously as she felt well. He turned to see her. She fell to the ground
and she told him THE WHOLE TRUTH. [5]
It is as if it came spilling out as the blood flowing
stopped. Everything she had been holding onto that she could not outrun or
expel.
“She didn’t just tell him the truth, she told it all, the
only person in the whole of the gospels we hear did so. That she was a woman
taken over by suffering, whose life was bleeding out of her. She was a woman
who heard what he could do, could heal her with a single touch and she believed
it, what people were saying was the truth. She had believed. She told it all on
her knees for everyone to hear. [6] Now we hear it.
And Jesus listened. He had already healed her, and he had
somewhere else to be. He’s supposed to be on his way to Jairus’ house. Why does
Jesus listen? Not for himself but for her, for those around him, and for us. To
meet us whatever our WHOLE TRUTH looks like and sounds like, in that deep place
we do not share. To bring love and healing and peace deep within us so that we,
like the woman, can know that we are in Christ’s community.
No matter what the world around us says, or what we tell
ourselves. To be seen, to be allowed to tell the whole truth, not endeavor to
put on a brave face, or a false mask because we think we have to. To hear that
we do not have to struggle alone, we do not have to hide in shame, we are not
only a label that someone has given us, and that our messy bodies and lives are
not off limits. “At the heart of the scandal of the gospel is that a woman’s
body is not an unworthy home for God. This is the incarnation. This is what God
became- God became human to touch and be touched by the broken, bleeding, dead
and dying and to transform those very things into a sacrament that robs death
and despair of their power.[7]
And so Jesus calls the woman, “Daughter,” restoring her
to her community, her family, and her sense of God. Fellow Children of God,
this is transformational truth for us too. If and where you struggle with pain,
or loss, or shame, or disillusionment that is draining the life out of you- may
you to see Jesus wanting you to be well. May you, like the woman, can “go in
peace.” And this too is for the whole community to hear. Jesus is not just
revealing this moment and then we all go backwards again like it never
happened. We are welcomed to welcome. We are healed to be healers. No
questions, no quarrels, no judgment, only love.
“Because someone somewhere is wondering what we say about
Jesus. And we never know, “we NEVER know who may listening, spent and weary,
longing to rise up. Longing to hear incredible things.”[8] To believe. May our stories help us all to believe that no matter what the
whole truth is, the God of love is here with us.
[1] A for Alabaster, Anna Carter Florence, Westminster John Knox Press, (2023), pp 141-142
[2] “The Scandalous Gospel According to the Bleeding Woman: A Re-Telling,” Dr. Wil
Gafney, Womanists Wading in the Word, July 1, 2012, www.wilgafney.com.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Florence, p. 143
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Cornel West
[8] Florence
The Gospel Text: Mark 5:21-34
21 When
Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered
around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then
one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him,
fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of
death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” 24 So
he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now
there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She
had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she
was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She
had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his
cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be
made well.” 29 Immediately
her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her
disease. 30 Immediately aware that power
had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And
his disciples said to him, “You
see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 He
looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But
the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell
down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He
said to her, “Daughter,
your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights
reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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