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Hosea 5:15-6:6 and Psalm 50:7-15 • Romans 4:13-25 • Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Do you know who Leonard Nimoy was? Yes, he was the actor who famously played Spock, the Vulcan in the Star Trek series. I recently posted a photo of Spock playing guitar and saying: “The Miracle is this – the More we Share, the More we Have.” I know Jesus and other faith leaders said similar things, but it probably has more impact in our culture with a photo of Spock holding a guitar, right? Nimoy was Jewish, and was also creative in many other ways, including “The Shekinah Project – a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God’s presence, inspired by Kabbalah” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy. I was pleased to learn about that recently, especially during Pride Month, when we’re called to greater love for a diversity of gender identities. And this fits well with our Genesis One reading last week, with its lines about how God made humans in God’s image – male and female.
Turning to today’s gospel, I’ll remind you of a sort of cartoon I’ve seen online – showing Jesus speaking to a crowd of people and saying: ‘Now listen carefully – I don’t want four versions of this!’ Well, in one part of today’s gospel, the part about Jesus healing the bleeding woman, we have at least three versions, since it’s found in all the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark & Luke. And there are substantial differences in each of these accounts. I won’t spend much time on the differences, but there’s a good Wikipedia article called “Jesus healing the bleeding woman” that looks more closely at those differences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/.../Jesus_healing_the_bleeding.... Unlike Mark & Luke’s version, Matthew suggests that she was healed after Jesus spoke to her; and he said that her faith had made her well. But in the other versions she’s healed as soon as she touches the hem or fringe of his garment. She decides to touch just that edge of his clothing, rather than asking outright for healing, because her many years of menstrual bleeding would make her too unclean to be near him, or to be in this crowd. As William Barclay explained way back in the 1950’s she would have also been too unclean to attend any prayer services in the synagogue. And so she would have been lonely and isolated, in most of her daily existence. Luke, as a physician, would know more about her illness, and how humiliating it was – so his version has more details and is more dramatic. In that version, I love how Jesus suddenly feels some healing power going out of him when she touches the fringe or hem of his cloak. And when he does – he asks who touched him – to which the disciples point out that there was a large crowd around him, so lots of people may have briefly brushed him as they jostled by – Duh!
Anyways, one thing that all three gospels agree on is that once Jesus realizes what happened, he does the opposite of what that culture and time expected – he does not push her away as unclean, but welcomes her, and even calls her DAUGHTER!! Wow! There’s nowhere else in the whole New Testament, where Jesus calls anyone daughter! Rather than shun her, he draws her into an intimate family context by calling her Daughter! And given that Jesus died in his 30’s, this woman might have been much older, since such ‘female problems’ often tend to occur closer to menopause. This is part of why Jesus is sometimes labeled as a feminist – he definitely overturned a number of societal ‘norms’ of that time and place – that discriminated against women. In fact, here was the Holy Man on his way to heal the synagogue leader’s daughter -- and this ‘unclean’ woman dares to touch him -- making him also unclean, thereby potentially reducing his ability for healing the child! It’s a good thing Jesus calls her ‘Daughter’ or who knows if they might have stoned her for such impertinence.
Today’s gospel begins with the calling of Matthew to follow Jesus, which is a big deal since he too was ‘unclean’ in another way – having been a collector of Roman taxes – so a sinner in that context. At Bible Study on Thursday, we were thinking about the powerful depiction of Matthew and his calling -- that some of us saw on the video series called The Chosen. That depiction could be seen as potentially a gay character – we don’t know for sure, but there were significant indications. Homosexuality was well known at least 500 years before Jesus walked the earth – in the culture of Ancient Greece – not far from Palestine & Israel. But Jesus never mentions this and certainly never condemns it – contrary to what many Christians today seem to believe.
And our final gospel story is the healing, or in this case the raising from the dead of the synagogue leader’s daughter. Other gospels name the leader as Jairus and say that his daughter was about 12 years old. They say that she was dying, but not yet dead, when Jairus asked Jesus to come heal her. So, if this girl is about 12 and thus close to puberty, and if our bleeding woman might be near the age of menopause, then on this one gospel day, Jesus heals women at both ends of their ‘fertile’ lives. It’s clear that Jesus does not see anything unclean in this normal human function – a biological function crucial to the propagation and continuation of the human race. In one of the university world religions classes I taught, I was a bit embarrassed to mention that traditional Indigenous peoples, are among those that segregate menstruating women, just like in the Anita Diamant novel called The Red Tent. In fact, when I was in chaplaincy training at University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton, I was a bit shocked to hear an Indigenous leader asking that women ‘in their moon time’ please leave the hospital chapel during a special ceremony. But as an Indigenous student in that earlier world religions class made clear – this is more about the POWER of women – the biological reproductive powers being so strong that they might interfere with the other spiritual powers of various religious ceremonies.
I know it sounds like I’ve spoken too much about ‘bleeding women’ today; but as a preacher I’m partly trying to make up for lost time of centuries when this subject could not be mentioned from the pulpit. Since biology & nature are all part of God’s creation, may we grow in our awareness of Sacred Earth & all sacred living beings. May we know that to the Creator, nothing in Creation is unclean, Amen.