Going to the Mat: Risk of Connection

``For many of us, the story that Valerie just read from the gospel of Mark might be pretty familiar. Jesus gets out of a boat and is pretty quickly surrounded by people looking for healing, looking for help. And one of them is the leader of the synagogue, Jairus, whose daughter is sick. And there Jesus is summoned to the bedside of this this young girl. And on the way, he encounters this woman who has been bleeding for for twelve years is what the gospel tells us. And she tells herself that if she can just touch the cloak of Jesus, she'll be healed. [00:23:10] (45 seconds)  #HemOfHope

And she does. And Jesus feels this power grow out from him and like stops everybody and says, who has touched me? And the disciples are just confused because they they're in a crowd. Like, a lot of people have been touching you, Jesus. Like, what do you mean? How are we supposed to figure out who this one person was? But the woman comes forward and and confesses, and Jesus sends her on her way. Your faith has made you well. [00:23:55] (32 seconds)  #FaithMadeWell

Biblical scholar, New Testament scholar, Amy Jo Levine, says that, that's not what the story is about at all. Most people in the ancient Near East were walking around in some form of ritual impurity most of the time. Like, you only cared about ritual purity if you were going to the temple. And most people didn't do that very often, if if at all, if ever. So like it wasn't a thing that most people would worry about, like it was just something that happened. [00:24:58] (33 seconds)  #RitualVsReality

Mark actually tells us the problem this woman is having. She is bleeding, and she doesn't know why. She's gone to all of these physicians, and she spent everything she had. She has become destitute, trying to find the answer to her medical problem, and she has nothing left. [00:25:30] (25 seconds)  #SearchedAndSpent

And she takes a risk. She snakes through the crowd, and she reaches out not to touch him, but just to touch his cloak, just to touch the edge of the garment that he's wearing. And in that moment, in that risk, she is healed. She is made well. [00:27:32] (30 seconds)  #RiskForHealing

No. She is made well. She has the answer that she's been looking for. She's encountered the one who can actually save her, and she's encountered the one who can actually save her because she took this risk, because she was vulnerable to making a connection. [00:28:25] (24 seconds)  #VulnerabilityHeals

It's those relationships and the connections that can heal us, that can hold us together when we're at our lowest, when we've spent everything we've had, when everything else is out the door. Those connections can hold us together and can restore us to wholeness, as the woman in Mark shows us today. [00:29:53] (28 seconds)  #ConnectionHeals

A fear that I think I think is fairly common is a fear of rejection that that we might somehow be rejected, that we might somehow not measure up. You look at the story in Mark, and this woman, she comes in secret. She doesn't place herself in the path of Jesus. She doesn't ask Jesus anything. She just reaches out to touch the hem of his garment. [00:30:43] (29 seconds)  #FearOfRejection