In 2010, I wrote a couple of Mother's Day messages on Luke 8:43-48. It's the story of the woman with the unceasing blood flow who touches Jesus in a crowd and is healed. In these two messages, which I post here and in the previous post, I looked at those healed. This Sunday (January 22, 2017), I will again look at Luke 8. This time, the focus is on what we learn about God. Here is the second of those messages.
Sunday,
May 9, 2010 – Mother’s Day
Let
me encourage you to join me in looking at this text through a lens colored by
the dynamic of inclusion-exclusion. In
the school yard, a group of friends are laughing and playing on the monkey
bars. They climb, they play tag, they
just hang out and talk; it seems endless, so fun, so free. But it’s not what it seems because you pan
back just a little, see more the scene, and there’s another kid off to the
side, on the swings, alone. She longs
more than anything to be laughing with her peers on the monkey bars.
Why isn’t she?
Maybe she’s new and
shy, and she hasn’t made any friends yet.
Might she have a physical condition that prevents participation in
vigorous recess games? Since 1st
grade, the other kids ran and played, and she had to sit out. Now they’re all in 4th grade. For four years, the friendships formed. For four years, she has sat out.
Or, no, maybe she’s
not new. And, she’s pretty healthy. But, for whatever reason, she’s kind of
socially awkward. For some kids,
relationships come easily. But not her;
she has trouble picking up cues, knowing when to laugh. She was kind of odd in 1st grade,
and once that label stuck; no one dared risk befriending her. They didn’t want to called odd too. So, for four years, her friends have grown
closer and closer in those monkey bar sessions.
New kids have even come, and blended right in seamlessly. And for four years, she’s become more and
more alone. They think she wants to be
alone, but no, she’s dieing inside. She
would like for nothing more in the world than for someone to come and say,
“Join us.” But they don’t. They are all inside. She is the outsider.
Does this only happen at
recess? Of course not. Kids get excluded on little league teams, in
church youth groups, in neighborhood. Is
this inside-outside dynamic in play only with kids? It gets worse in middle school, and by high
school, the popular kids are obvious.
They strut through the hallways.
The outsiders are invisible, sometimes even teachers overlook them. As they enter adulthood, the popular kids
exude confidence. The not-so popular
kids have trouble making it.
I am generalizing
here. On occasion, the popular kid
experiences the pinnacle of his success in life while in high school and find
rather rudely that the working world did not care that he was captain of the
football team or that she was prom queen.
It’s not that rare for the awkward geeky 9th grader to
blossom and become a great success in college and beyond. The issue is people being included and others
excluded – in-crowds, and those locked out of the “in-crowds.” It is easy to spot on the playground, but
just as often it occurs in the adult world, and there, it can hurt just as
much. In fact, adult who feel alone,
left out, overlooked by the society around them might feel it much worse
because they become resigned to the idea that whatever “cool” is, it is not
them. Whatever acceptance feels like,
they don’t have it. I have talked to
adults who want more than anything for people around them to say, “Come, join
us.” But they don’t hear it.
A brief overview of
the last half of Luke chapter 8 brings to us people who were excluded, kicked
to the margins forgotten, and people who were very much the center of
attention. There is the demon-possessed
man of the region called Garasenes. With
thousands of demons living in him, the man was a wild animal. Naked, raving, he roamed among the tombs
without human contact. The people in the
nearby town tried to bind him, but he ripped the chains. He was like a dead man, no living person
wanted anything to do with him. He was
feared, rejected, and alone.
There is also in Luke
8 Jairus the synagogue leader. He would
have been a respected member of the community.
Everyone paid attention to the happenings of his life because he was
such an important man. So, when his
12-year-old daughter fell sick, and the ancient physicians determined that she
would soon die, it became a topic of community concern. When something happens to an insider,
everyone notices.
However, in the midst
of this insider’s story, we also meet an outsider – an unnamed woman. Of course she would be unnamed; why would her
name matter? She didn’t matter. She had an uncontrollable blood flow. A gynecologist from Washington University,
Lewis Wall, has written about this passage.
He believes the woman suffered from a condition where irregular and
unpredictable her menstrual periods were irregular and unpredictable. In most cases it is due to hormonal
imbalance, and if untreated for 12 years – the Bible says she had suffered from
the blood flow 12 years – then the woman would be infertile. She couldn’t have children and because of the
blood flow, she was ritualistically unclean.
She couldn’t join the community for worship.
Luke places side by
side and even in overlapping fashion the stories of an outsider (the
demon-possessed man), an insider (Jairus and his dieing daughter), and an outsider
(the bleeding woman). The outsiders had
no hope that anyone would say, “Come, join us; be part of our group; we welcome
you.” But, we find something crucial for
all of us in our summary of these stories, something that binds the insider and
the outsiders. This binds us to them and
to one another as well. All three
desperately needed a touch from Jesus.
Every one of us needs Jesus too.
The outsider needs to
know he’s included. The insider
discovers that being accepted in social circles does not ensure a person he
won’t suffer. The ultimate insider, the
synagogue leader, suffered anxiety and powerlessness and only Jesus could
help. Elsewhere in the gospel and New
Testament, religious leaders like Joseph of Arimathea (a council member) and
the Pharisee Saul (who would become the Apostle Paul) realized that being an
insider isn’t all it is cracked up to be.
Like the rejects who found their only hope in Jesus, the insiders’ only
hope for ultimate meaning and truly fellowship with God was and is in Jesus.
The outsider-insider
dynamic plays out on Mother’s Day. The
insider is the mom who has children who love her. She gets to be with them on Mother’s Day – or
if they are grown, they call and send cards and gifts. They might even bring grandchildren
over. The woman is loved by her husband
and surrounded by offspring who adore her.
It is wonderful and it is to be admired.
She’s done a great job with her family.
Today that mom should be celebrated.
There is much good about Mother’s Day, if you are an insider.
Not taking away from
that, I hope every mother in that situation can celebrate all the joys of
motherhood and at the same time come to understand that motherhood is not the
highest good. The highest good is to be
a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ and to grow in that relationship
daily through prayer, worship, Bible reading, and Christian service. A friend recently, with great seriousness,
said to me, “You cannot find your validation as a man in your wife. The only one who can validate you is Jesus
Christ.” I would turn that to all the
wonderful Moms around. It’s awesome that
you have great kids and grandkids. I am
happy that you are happy as a mom. You
cannot find your validation as a woman in the children you have raised who love
you so much. The only one who can
validate you as a woman is Jesus Christ.
That’s true for the person who’s been a mother for 1 year and for the
person who’s been a mother for 60.
That’s also true for
those who are not celebrating Mother’s Day with joy. Mother’s Day, for some, does lead to happy
nostalgia, smile-producing reminiscing.
Perhaps someone is bitter because the relationship with his mother is
soured. The relationship with her mother
is estranged. A woman is alienated from
her children. It’s the first Mother’s
Day after the divorce; after the death.
The pain of Mother’s Day is hard to capture because a woman feels
maternity deep inside her, but she’s 40, and still single. With the passing of each year, she’s more
resigned to a future that includes loneliness marked by uncertainty and
feelings that are evasive. Each person
for whom Mother’s Day produces tears not joy finds validation, meaning, and
deeper joy in the same place as all the happy moms – in Jesus. He’s inside the insider’s circle, but he
looks out at all who struggle and weep through Mother’s Day; he looks out at
those whose chin is bucked and shoulders squared, who won’t give in to the
loneliness, who bravely try to put on a smile; he opens the insider’s circle,
looks out and says, you there, you who
are in such pain, come, join us. You
belong with us because you belong to me.
The doctor I
mentioned, Lewis Wall wrote about the woman with the blood flow in an article
in Christianity Today magazine. Because the discharge of blood wise most
likely tied to irregular menstruation, she probably had no children. And this had gone on for 12 years. “A 12-year stretch without a pregnancy would
have been very unusual in ancient Galilee.
[Annual pregnancies were] commonplace.
It would have been almost unheard of to go 12 years without a
pregnancy.”[i]
The woman was unable
to obey the command of God to be fruitful and multiply. “She was thus cut off from something that
gave her life meaning and provided her acceptable social status:
motherhood. To be infertile in a culture
where motherhood was the supreme female virtue hung a cloud not only over her
current life, but also over her future prospects.” In great detail, Dr. Wall discusses how this
situation made life debilitating and without hope for her in terms of health,
in terms of social interaction, and in terms of future hope. She was no one. She knew it. Everyone knew it.
Yet, she did not stand
pat. Her status as outsider was actually
legally mandated. If one touched her
during her bloody discharge that person would become “unclean” and disqualified
from temple worship. Her rejection from
normal society and thus relationships and human touch was law. So, to force her way into a dense crowd was
to break the law. That’s what she
did. I don’t know if her move is best
described as faith, determination, or desperation. But, she covered up, forced her way in, went
unnoticed, and violating all convention touched Jesus.
And it worked! It worked because coming to Jesus is always
the very best solution to a problem.
Don’t take that simplistically!
If someone has a cancerous tumor, it is not enough to turn to
Jesus. He must also get with an
oncologist and maybe have surgery. If
someone is being sued, in addition to turning to Jesus, she should get a good
lawyer. The doctor will take care of the
tumor. The lawyer will guide us through
the case. Jesus is there to make sure it
is well with our souls on the hard days, on the good days, and on the uncertain
days. The woman turned to Jesus and was
healed.
Better still! She managed to remain anonymous. There many people and they were caught up in
the excitement of all Jesus was doing.
They had no time for her and didn’t notice. They didn’t see her violate the law. She could slip away and clean up. She would put on a new outfit, show herself
to the priest, be declared clean, and start life again.
This was perfect – but
one did notice. We are not ever out of
God’s sight. God is not, as Bette Midler
sang watching from a distance. God is up close and personal. Things didn’t slip Jesus. He noticed her. He always notices outsiders. You may feel like the biggest loser around,
someone who fails at everything, but don’t believe it. God notices you and me. God made us.
God made you unique and God wants to fill your heart with His love. As that happens, God will show you that your
life is not a failure. As we are filled
with the Spirit, we see that God will work in us and through us to accomplish
mighty things.
Jesus stopped the
procession, the phalanx of people parading to watch as he healed Jairus’
daughter, as he worked yet another miracle.
Jesus stopped in the middle and looked out and called the outsider. The woman had determinedly come and touched
Jesus’ garment when his back was turned and no one was watching her. Now, she trembled as she came and with all
eyes on her explained her shame and why she had touched Jesus and what she had
done. Famed preacher Fred Craddock
remarks “Faith is indeed personal, but it is certainly not private.”[ii] As true as it was for that woman, it is
equally so for all who trust in Jesus.
We are to tell who He is and what He has done for us and for all
sinners.
The outsider, the now
healed woman, explained herself and Jesus re-classified her on the spot. The world she lived in called her “unclean”
and relegated her to the forgotten fringes of society. Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made
you well; go in peace.” Daughter! An outsider, this lady? No, no!
The king of kings and lord of lords, God’s own son, our Savior, God in
the flesh called her “daughter.” He
called her daughter and bid her “peace.”
All this woman had heard in her life was “keep out, you’re dirty, stay
away.” Now Jesus said, “Come, join
us. You are a daughter of God. Welcome into the eternal family. Your place is at the main table.” She wasn’t just restored for human
relationships, wonderful as that was.
She was invited as a child of God.
We are too. Is Mother’s Day hard because of loss or
broken relationships or unrealized dreams?
The gentle hands of Jesus are extended to you and he says, “Come, join
us.”
Do you feel awkward,
like you can’t fit in, like everyone is laughing and you didn’t get the
joke? Jesus reaches to you in your
loneliness and says, “Come, Son, join us.”
Do you feel a pain you
are sure no one else knows or understands?
You might be right. No one else
does understand what you’re dealing with.
But Jesus does. He says, “Come,
Daugher, join us.”
Do we dare believe
him? Do we dare accept that Jesus means
it, he will truly love us? Can we let go
of our identity as the forgotten ones, the excluded ones, the losers? Can we let go of the hate that’s been building,
brick by brick, each time more person is cruel or indifferent? Can we let go and run into Jesus’ waiting
arms?
Twelve years is a long
time to bleed. A lifetime is a long time
to spend as an outsider. This is not a
call to conformity. Jesus was not a
conformist. This is an invitation to
community – communion with God and God’s family. This is God asking for relationship with you
and me because he loves us. That’s why
Jesus came. Representing God Father and
the Holy Spirit, Jesus came to say, “Come, my friend. Receive forgiveness of your sins. Receive freedom from the consequences of sin
and shame, failure and loneliness. Come to me as a beloved child of God. Come, and join us.”
AMEN
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