My favorite "Jesus encounter" in the New Testament is the healing of the bleeding woman (Mark 5:25-34). She had been cast out of society, deemed ceremonially unclean, worthless, rejected, hopeless.... Through no fault of her own, she was a pariah. A product of shitty circumstance and archaic laws.
Enter Jesus...
...walking through a curious crowd, greeting, teaching, loving...attending to the inquiries of disciples and then...someone touched him.
It was her. The social leper, the audacious one. Her presence caused an uproar. How could she of all people, believe it to be proper or sanctioned as worthy to touch the Rabbi's garment? Now he too would be unclean from their encounter.
She had nothing left to lose. Twelve years of isolation and loneliness...twelve years without human contact...how thirsty she must have been for affection....for embrace. There was no certainty that touching Jesus would heal her ailment...but it was worth the risk to break the chain of damnation. She didn't even touch his skin...she touched his cloak...she believed enough in the possibility of his power, that even his clothing might carry restoration. So she reached out and touched him.
Immediately the bondage of religious laws and chronic illness were evaporated. Jesus turned to her, drew her into himself and affirmed that her faith had healed her. The first one to touch her in twelve years was her own personal Jesus.
I love her bravery. Some argue that she was a coward, choosing to discreetly touch the hem of Jesus' garment...rather than approach him directly. I disagree. She held a measure of strength and composure far greater than the whole of the crowd surrounding Jesus. She broke every lame ass purity law simply by leaving her home and walking around in public. It did not matter if her attempt to meet Jesus was successful, she just needed to try. If she could but touch a thread on his cloak, perhaps all would be well, and finally she could be free...to live, to love, to touch.
Jesus saw her bravery, understood her risk, and rebuked those who mocked her, merely by reciprocating her touch. "Jesus' compassion was never limited or confined to the purity laws. His compassion encircled those who suffered...whether at the top of the social/religious ladder or buried underneath the foothold of its injustice." Jesus violated every superstitious, fundamental, and exclusionary practice in order to love people in need.
Many times I have witnessed Christians cast out the hopeless, the powerless, the weary...all in the name of upholding some bullshit moral code. "As Christians, we are called by Jesus to be in communion with those who reach out to touch us, to care for the suffering, to hear their stories..." Screw the laws, screw politics, screw ethics, and any practice that prohibits you from loving people. You never know when a person's single act of faith will be to reach out...and touch you.
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