THE TOUCH OF HIS CLOAK
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Glen Burnie, Maryland
June 29, 2003
Text: “She…came up…and touched his cloak.” (Mark 5:27)
First Reading: Psalm 130
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Today begins what will be an emphasis during this summer’s preaching and also will become one of the topics we’ll discuss in the fall lay academy and that is the soft underside of God. So often we’re used to singing “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Day, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.” Yet, just around the corner from that great hymn we sing about the “God of compassion, in mercy befriend us; Giver of grace for our needs all availing, Wisdom and strength for each day do Thou send us, Patience untiring and courage unfailing.” What we’re going to do for awhile is look at this God of compassion, this softer side of God rather than the Almighty God and see what difference it makes.
One difference you see already in Mark’s story. A woman has hemorrhaged for twelve years. Just as an aside she’s been sick for as long as Jairus’ daughter’s been alive. But aside from that she’s been to doctor after doctor, all of whom I’m sure have prescribed potions to assist her, which have only worsened her condition and depleted her income. So, she’s a woman in a male dominant culture. She’s an unclean woman in a religious context that prides itself on sanitation laws. She has no husband to protect her or advocate for her, which means she’s at the mercy of anyone who could take advantage of her. She’s also a penniless woman, having given whatever she had to the doctors who were unable to help her. In other words, she has four strikes against her, any one of which would have put her on the corner of Ritchie and Aquahart with a sign in her hand, “Homeless, please help. God bless you.”
The point of the story is that God does bless her. She has her faith, a faith that is strong enough to push her through the crowd surrounding Jesus and touch the fringe of his cloak. The other day Hillary Rodham Clinton was up in Towson signing her new book. There was a picture in The Sun of two women peering around the corner of a bookshelf to get a look at her. The caption was “history in the making,” the context being that these women were seeking a glimpse of someone who could possibly the first woman President of the United States.
Such was the force driving this woman to get close enough to Jesus to touch the hem of his garment. She knew that if she could do that it would make her well, such was her faith. As the story continues Jesus feels the drain on his healing power and knows that someone has touched him. However, when he asks the disciples if such is the case they just laugh at him. With such a crowd around him how could he but help to be touched? At any rate, the woman feels her body react to his power drain; she’s made well and for the first time in twelve years someone’s been able to do for her what all the doctors and the money she spent was unable to do.
That’s not the end of the story. She doesn’t just fade away into the crowd now that she’s got what she so desperately wanted. Hearing Jesus ask the disciples and their response, with fear and trembling she returns to him and tells him her whole story. She was on the corner of Ritchie and Aquahart for twelve years with her sign, “Homeless, please help. God bless you!” And God did bless her. She believed enough in Jesus that if she could just get close enough to touch his robe she would be healed. She did and she was.
But Jesus’ healing touch doesn’t end there. Now he does for her what all those doctors and the money had been unable to do. She’s no longer just a woman, Jesus calls her “daughter.” In other words, he gives her back her birthright. She is now a Jew amongst the Jews, no longer just a part of the crowd, but one blessed with dignity and status. She’s also no longer unclean, but made clean both physically and spiritually, “your faith has made you well.” Here she was a vulnerable, socially outcast woman who quietly but forcibly reached out to Jesus and was thereby healed of her affliction and empowered by God as a renewed and cleansed woman of faith.
Ella Dora Deloria in her book Waterlily tells the story about a conversation between some elders and young people of the Lakota Indian Tribe in the 1940’s. They were talking about a man who had committed adultery with the wife of another man. The family of the wronged husband in turn killed the adulterous man. In an eye-for-an-eye fashion, the family of the murdered man then killed a man in the family of the wronged husband. One of the young people asked, “How does the retaliation ever stop?” One elder replied that there had to be people who were willing and strong enough not to retaliate, but that may not be until much blood had been shed.
Another elder said that there was another way, the kindred way. The first elder replied, “I have heard of the kindred way but have never seen it.” “I saw it once long ago when I was young,” the other elder recalled. He went on to tell how after a young man had been killed, all the men and boys of his family gathered to vent their anger and grief. They talked of revenge and the need to retaliate and kill the murderer. An old man in the group, who was an uncle of the murdered man, listened emphatically until all had spoken. After a moment of silence, the old man agreed that the loss of his nephew was an unjust tragedy, that his pain over this loss was as strong as theirs and that action did seem necessary and appropriate. But, then slowly the old man began to talk about another way, a way that required strong men who are stronger than all others.
He asked each of them to go home and return with their most prized possession. When they returned, some brought with them a horse as their most prized possession. For others, it was a weapon, for others an item of beauty they had crafted. The old man repeated that only the strongest of men could give their finest possessions to a person who had killed one of their family.
Later, the murderer was apprehended. He was brought before the tribal council and was trembling with fear. The old man spoke of the loss of his nephew—who had been a son, a brother, and a cousin to others in the family. He described how fine a young man he had been and how each of the men in the family longed for him to come back. Then he offered his nephew’s murderer all of the finest possessions that the men had brought. He said, “You can always walk among us without fear.”
The old man went on to say that the family would accept the murderer as their nephew, their son, their brother, and their cousin, to replace the one who was gone. They would treat this man just as they would have treated the one whom he had taken from them. In so doing they then made him a part of their family. “This was the kindred way,” said the other elder. (Quoted by John Detterick in his June 20, 2003 letter to the General Assembly Council.)
What Jesus did with the woman was also the “kindred way.” He made her a part of the family; the same way God makes all of us a part of the family. Jesus tells her to “go in peace” and bestows upon her his heavenly benediction, “and be healed of your disease.”
We don’t know what happened to the woman; we hear nothing more about her. But we do know that there are still very vulnerable people wanting to touch the hem of the cloak and be healed of their infirmities. Whoever you are know that in your vulnerability God will meet you with Christ’s vulnerability, allowing Christ to be drained of his healing power and in so doing will fill you with the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
In the meantime, we will continue to sing, “God of compassion in mercy befriend us; Giver of grace for our needs all availing, Wisdom and strength for each day do Thou send us, Patience untiring and courage unfailing.”
Thanks be to God,
Amen
.