They took a survey at a library.  The survey was to learn whether those who used the library found its staff to be knowledgeable and helpful.  To conduct the survey, folks with clipboards and questionnaires stood just outside the exit.  As people left the library, they were asked to answer questions about their library experience that day.  Over the course of several weeks, hundreds of people were surveyed.  Hundreds of people reported their satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with the service they had received from the library’s staff.  But, there was something those people did not know  They did not know that it was all an experiment — an experiment about the effect of touch. 

The only library patrons included in the survey were those who had checked out one or more books.  That meant they had handed their library cards to one of the library’s clerks.  All of the clerks had been instructed that every other time they returned a card to a patron, they were to very lightly, very quickly, touch the palm of the patron’s hand.  The other times, they were to be careful not to touch the person in any way.  The folks standing outside with the clipboards and questionnaires knew which patrons had received that light, quick touch, and which ones had not, and they noted this as they recorded the responses they received.  When the researchers tallied those responses, the results were clear.  The library patrons whose hands a library clerk had touched gave much higher ratings for the service they had received than did the folks who had not received that light, fleeting touch.  Most of the participants were not even aware that the touch had taken place, and yet it had affected their whole library experience.[i]

We will be considering the effect of touch today as we continue on the journey we are taking through the Gospel of Mark, stopping to consider some of the challenging questions we hear Jesus ask along the way.  The questions that Jesus asked, and the circumstances in which he asked them, called for the people around him to focus upon just who Jesus was and what power and authority he might have.  Did he have the power and authority to forgive sin, or to eliminate or modify a commandment from God?  Did he have the power and authority to halt a storm, to control what appears to us to be utter chaos and beyond control?  This past week, we considered whether Jesus had the power and authority to liberate people from whatever might be keeping them enslaved, and today as we ponder the effect of touch we will again be addressing Jesus’ ability to set people free.

The past couple of weeks we have accompanied Jesus as he has brought his followers eastward across the Sea of Galilee, out of their home territory and into a region populated primarily by people of Greek ancestry.  As soon as Jesus set foot in that foreign area, he was met by a man whose behavior was so frightening and bizarre that folks had tried to restrain him with shackles and chains.  The question Jesus asked that day was, “What is your name?”, and he was speaking to the part of that man that was broken and in pain.  He was talking directly to the illness or deprivation or cruel life history that was holding that man back from enjoying the life for which God had created him.  Jesus liberated the man from all of those things and then told him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.”  That is where our Second Lesson begins.

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So he went with him.  And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.  She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.  Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”  And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  He looked all around to see who had done it.  But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.  He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

The deranged man Jesus encountered over on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee had spent much of his life in shackles and chains, in part to keep him from hurting himself, but primarily to keep him from hurting anyone else.  Back on the western side of the Sea of Galilee, back in his home territory, Jesus now encounters a woman who also is bound by shackles and chains.  Her shackles and chains are not visible, but they are just as real, just as enslaving as anything forged of iron.  Her shackles and chains have their origin in a set of rules that date back to the time of Moses.  The Book of Leviticus records those rules, which became the source of the shackles and chains this woman had been forced to endure.[ii]

On the day that Jesus encountered this woman, everything about her life – about any Jewish woman’s life – was predicated on the fact that she was a woman, and not a man.  She had no legal existence apart from the men to whom she might have been related by marriage or by blood.  She was entirely dependent upon her male relatives and derived her value only from being a daughter, wife, sister, or mother.  The worst thing she could do was to bring shame upon any of those men, and so she devoted much of her energy to making sure that nothing she did would reflect badly upon them.  One way she did that was by staying completely separate from any men to whom she was not related.  She would spend as much time as possible inside her home, and if a man came to visit, she would remain out of sight, in a secluded back room or in an upstairs room or attic. 

If she did have to go outside, she went early in the morning or late in the day, to reduce the risk of encountering any men, and she was very careful about what she wore.  A writing of that time declared that, “women should be so arrayed and should so deport themselves when in the street that nobody could see any part of them, neither of the face nor of the rest of the body, and that they themselves might not see anything off the road.[iii]  So, if you saw this woman on the street, the most you might see of her would be her eyes, and she would be careful not to look you in the face.  Think of the pictures you have seen of women in Afghanistan and some other Islamic countries wearing head-to-toe burqas, peering through a slit or bit of mesh in their veils.

That was the life of every Jewish woman of that day – but this particular woman had another layer of shackles and chains enslaving her.  For twelve years she had suffered a flow of blood that left her debilitated and ashamed.  I was alarmed a few years ago to learn that even today there are women who suffer this condition — a result of poverty and the absence of good medical care.  The usual cause for this condition is prolonged, obstructed labor in childbirth.  Without appropriate medical care, a woman with a narrow pelvis or other difficulty giving birth can suffer so much damage that she develops a constant hemorrhage and leakage of urine that will continue for the rest of her life, unless she can obtain corrective surgery.  This year –2008 – more than 100,000 women in Africa, alone, will incur this debilitating, humiliating, isolating condition.[iv]  Most will find themselves scorned and shunned, excluded even from their own homes and left to suffer alone.  Just like the woman Jesus encountered that day.

That woman should not have been there.  She should not have been out on the street in the middle of the day.  She should not have imposed her stench on the people of her town.  Everyone could see that this woman was cursed and despised by God.  How dare she expose other people to her disorder, how dare she risk passing her sinfulness along to anyone unlucky enough to brush up against her?[v]  And yet, she did.  She tried to keep a low profile, tried not to attract any attention.  She came up behind Jesus in the crowd and just touched his cloak.  That is all.  She just reached out her hand — perhaps only a finger — and made contact with Jesus’ clothes. 

Nobody saw her.  Nobody noticed what this woman had done, and yet the moment she reached out to Jesus, that one light, quick touch had a life-changing effect.  The writer of Mark tells us that, “Immediately her hemorrhage stopped,” and she could feel that her body was healed.  That, alone, would have been enough for her.  It was all that she had sought from this man Jesus whom she had heard so much about.  But, an unobserved cure for one woman’s affliction would not have affected the rest of the crowd.  They would have continued on, eventually returning to their homes without ever feeling the effect of that light, quick touch.  Jesus changed all that when he asked his question.  When Jesus asked who had touched him, the whole situation came to light — and the real healing began.

First, the woman responded to Jesus’ question by coming to him.  She exposed herself to ridicule and to punishment by admitting that she had violated the rules of her religion and the laws of her society to touch this man.  Then, the woman responded to Jesus’ question by telling him “the whole truth.”  You see, this woman heard — fully heard — the question that Jesus asked.  The disciples who were with him that day did not.  When Jesus asked who had touched him, the disciples thought he was talking about a mere physical touch.  They thought Jesus wanted to know who had brushed up against him or perhaps made a sort of souvenir grab at his clothes – the way people might do any celebrity they can get close enough to.  Jesus was asking a very different question.  Jesus was asking who within that crowd of people had connected with him.  He wanted to meet that person, learn more about that person, and in the process have that person — and everybody who stood around watching — learn more about him.

The woman who touched Jesus that day heard that question, and she responded by coming forward and telling Jesus “the whole truth.”  We do not know what that whole truth was.  Did the woman tell Jesus about that horrible day, twelve years before, when she had nearly died trying to give birth to a baby who finally emerged stillborn?  Did she describe for him a mother’s grief that would not end?  Did she tell him about the guilt and shame she had carried within her ever since — the guilt and shame her family, her neighbors, and the temple priests had declared were only what she deserved? 

We do not know what “the whole truth” was for this woman, only that she had faith that she could reveal her truth to Jesus and he would not scorn or reject her.  She had faith that he would not withhold from her the spiritual healing and wholeness that she had lived without for so long.  This woman’s faith told her that in the person of Jesus the old rules were being rewritten, that the relationship between God and his people was undergoing a radical revision.  She had faith that there was a place for her in the kingdom of God, even though the religious leaders told her there was not.  And Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

Did you hear what Jesus called her?  Daughter.  The first word Jesus spoke to this woman was to tell her that she was now intimately related to him, that she was now a beloved member of the family of God.  Twelve years before her relatives turned their backs on her, her community cast her aside, and the religious leaders declared that she was a curse and an abomination.  Jesus now declared her to be his daughter — the daughter of the Son of God.  Then, he declared that she was forever saved, forever made righteous and whole.  He told her to go in peace — a peace not as the world gives, but a peace that could enable her to be untroubled and unafraid.[vi]

That salvation, that peace, that inclusion in the family of God was available to everybody who was present that day, but only one among them reached out for it.  One woman reached out her hand — perhaps only a finger — and made contact with Jesus’ clothes.  Nobody saw her.  Nobody in the crowd noticed what she had done, and yet the moment she reached out to Jesus, that one light, quick touch had a life-changing effect.  That one light, quick touch set in motion a life-giving effect that would extend beyond that one woman and beyond time, all the way to today.  Salvation, peace, inclusion in the family of God — these are the things that Christ offers to you and to me this and every day.  All we have to do is reach out.  Amen.

Copyright 2008 © Leslie R. Stacks. All rights reserved.