Who Touched Me

St. Bernard paraphrased Mary’s response to Gabriel’s Annunciation with the following prayer

“Let it be unto me according to your word concerning the Word. Let the Word that was in the beginning with God become flesh from my flesh. Let the word I pray, be to me, not a word spoken only to pass away… but conceived and clothed in flesh, …not in air, that it may remain with us.

Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears… but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders.

Let the Word be to me not as a word written and silent… but incarnate and living. That is not traced with dead signs upon dead parchments… bur livingly impressed upon my chaste womb; not by the tracing of a pen of lifeless reed…but by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

Let this be to me, as was never done to anyone before me, nor after me shall be done. Yes, let it be done for the sake of the whole world…but specially let it be done unto me according to your word.”Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), “A Virgin’s Prayer, In Defense of Humility,” Watch for the Light, p.41. 

Maybe it’s a stretch but for me Bernard’s visceral words strike me as an appropriate introduction to today’s Gospel. Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears… but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders. Usually, when we hear this Gospel, we focus on the woman’s healing and the little girl’s resuscitation, but for Mark, those are just the backdrop to what’s going on. Note that in his account, Mark mentions touching seven times. (Mark 5:21-43) 

Today’s Gospel is built around two subjects: a father’s request for the healing of the daughter of a synagogue official, and the healing of the woman with a chronic hemorrhage. In between the father’s request and the girl’s rising, Mark makes a distinction between "meaningless” and “healing” touch. Meaningless touch occurs when a group becomes a crowd and tries to move en masse. The crowd’s attention is focused on its goal and who bumps into whom is incidental and means nothing. That’s how the disciples saw this walk with Jesus; they were on the way to the synagogue official’s house and their intention was to remain near and see what would happen. Jostling was inconsequential as long as they could maintain a good viewing position.

 But the heart of the story focused on the woman they didn’t even notice, the one who had suffered for 12 years...symbolically, forever. Mark subtly takes us through her journey of faith. First, she had heard about Jesus. What she heard sparked her hope and sparked her faith. Like someone who approaches God based on word of mouth, second hand, rather than personal knowledge, there is a pivot point at which time believing becomes knowing. Without concern for personal safety, she pushed through the throng of men and snuck up behind Jesus... knowing that simply touching his cloak would save her. Just coming in contact with him healed her infirmity. 

Who touched me?

In our Gospel Jesus was not teaching theology or representing an invisible miracle-working deity; Jesus was bringing people into the real presence of his loving Father's kingdom by which all things were possible. 

Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears… but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders.

Jesus perceived that someone in the crowd had touched him... for who he was, to enter into personal relationship with him. By calling her “daughter,” Jesus assured her that she could go in peace, her affliction was healed by her faith. 

The bold woman Jesus called “daughter,” reminds us that if we will risk reaching out in hope, the results can be beyond our imagining just another curious onlooker in the bustling crowd. She sought him out and her faith was so strong that she believed that simply touching Jesus’ garment she would be cured.
(adapted from the “Power of Touch," Mary M. McGlone, CSJ NCR, June 15-28, 2018)

What are you afraid of?

 

What are you afraid of? Lord you have to be kidding might have been our response to Jesus if we were one of the apostles.  Consider that the apostles were skilled fishermen who find themselves caught in the storm of their lives; their boat is about to capsize, and despite their experience, they are unable to take control and naturally fear for their lives. And there's Jesus, who has done marvelous, miraculous things on behalf of others, sleeping in the bow of the boat.

In our Gospel, (Mark4: 35-41), it’s hard to imagine that Jesus’ response was not rhetorical: "Quiet! Be still! Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?"

We know that parables were used by Jesus to get his listeners and us to think beyond the literal and expand our frame of reference, and perhaps shake us up a bit. This story while not necessarily a parable, certainly fits the bill. It does shake us up a bit. How would we have behaved as characters in this story? How would we have responded to Jesus’ question? What would it be like to rely on our faith in the midst of an overwhelming crisis, and in the apostles’ case, incapacitating fear?

Have you ever felt powerless to control and take charge of a serious life-impacting situation? I can recall a number of times when I was confronted with having to make decisions that I knew would alter mine and my family’s lives forever. These were not easy and my options were very limited. In all cases, fear of the unknown resulted in feeling  powerless and helpless. There was no place to hide and no one to whom I could turn. It was on me.

Fear or suffering gets us to a place in which our nerves are raw and exposed and that place between us and the bottom is very thin. This thin place seems to activate the "semi-permeable membrane" that serves as a barrier between us and God. We find God waiting when we are  at the end of our rope. If we are open and receptive, we will eventually hear his voice or feel his prompting and finally be able to overcome our immobility, and  begin to move.  It may take minutes, days, weeks…or even years.

Jesus’ lesson for his apostles in the midst of the storm is to trust in God. You can almost hear Hammerstein's lyrics in "You'll Never Walk Alone." The storm will pass and we will “somehow” manage to make it through, albeit different from the way in which we “entered.” We will be transformed in some way, with greater insight and inner experience of God.

Albert Nolan paraphrases Augustine when he writes that “God is closer to me than I am to myself. God is one with me and with you…If God is closer to me than I am to myself and we are in some profound sense one, then I have nothing to fear. I will be cared for at all times and in all circumstances. Nothing can really harm me and whatever happens will be for the best. I am loved beyond measure because I am one with the whole mystery of life.” ( Jesus Today, A Spirituality of Radical Freedom. p 143)

The Mustard Seed

 

In one of the early scene of the musical Carousel the male lead Billy Bigelow, sings There’s a hell of a lotta stars in the sky and the sky’s so big the sea looks small; two little people you and I, we don’t count at all. Carousel was Hammerstein's adaptation of the French playwright and philosopher, Ferenc Molnár's play, Liliom. Both playwright's knew that Billy was wrong; we do count. We do make a difference in the world. Yes, two little people you and I count.

Mark makes the point in his metaphoric reference to the tiny mustard seed that despite its miniscule beginning the plant grows without force of will. The sower of the parable doesn't even water the seeds or weed around it! The sower just sows and goes about his business while the earth produces of itself, and the mustard plant organically grows and sends out its large branches. The kingdom of God, like the mustard seed, grows organically. And inevitably, as day follows night, God's hidden, mysterious work plays out in the world… and in us. Mark 4:26-34

God is in all things and the seed of His incarnation is in the universe. We are born out of love, we exist in love, and we are destined for eternal love. We continually “reinvent” ourselves through love. The love of God, as the tiniest of seeds, the mustard seed, grows beyond anything we can possibly imagine. It organically grows as it's pervasive roots invade and is all encompassing.

Our presence in the world matters because our love for one another results in the ongoing incarnation of God and renews the work began by Jesus. The Christ of the physical universe, the Christ of all humanity, the Christ of all religions is not a static figure, like a goal post with an endpoint in mind. Rather, Christ is in evolution because we, are constantly evolving, spreading and pervasively invading the Kingdom like the mustard seed. (Adapted from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, "Evolving the Universe," June 8, 2018.)

Preaching the Gospel can be Risky

Mark (Mark 3:20-35) reveals that Jesus is precisely what the religious authorities were not expecting. They didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t meet their expectations, and as is often the case, what doesn't fit our expectations, we typically label as abnormal, deviant, crazy, or possessed. These iconoclasts are cast as “outsiders.” We assume that what we know and have experienced becomes the standard by which we measure – and judge – the thoughts and actions of others.

Religion was intended to serve as a way to bring us closer to God. The root of the word itself comes from the Latin ligare, which means to bind. It provides the roots of the words "ligament" (tissue that binds together) and "obligation" (the duties to which one is bound.) Religion, is intended to provide a framework  to connect us to God by specifying actions and  behaviors we assume out of reverence to God. On one level there's something absolutely right about this. Religion gives us a way to orient our thinking about and our relationship with God. It provides the “training wheels” that enable us to express our thanks for all things in our lives. The trouble arises, however, when we don’t let go and soar on our own “power” and allow religion to become a substitute for a genuine, living relationship with God. This happens when we use to manage and control our relationship or, even worse, to attempt to “manage” and control God.

This is why Jesus was against anything that separated people from the abundant life God had intended. Jesus introduced a new vision and a new way to relate to God...and it's nothing what man could possibly have invented or designed. God knows we try. (Adapted from David Lose“Working Preacher,” 6/5/12)