NNot Just Another Face in the Crowd!

"If I but touch his clothes I will be made well!" - Mark 5:28

We live in a culture that measures the success of almost everything in terms of the numbers, “How Big?  How Much? How Many?,”  It’s easy for the church to adopt the same mentality when we apply it to Sunday School attendance, youth group size, membership statistics, stewardship results, budget numbers, giving records, and about a dozen other areas of church life.  Don’t get me wrong, numbers are important, but when it comes to the kingdom of God “bigger is not always better.” 

I am a great Star Trek fan, and in the original series the totally logical Vulcan Spock would often say, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”  In the Kingdom of God and the ministry of Jesus, it is simply not the case!

Just look at some of the stories Jesus told.  He talked about the woman who had lost one of ten coins and tore the house apart looking for it; the shepherd who had 1 lost one of a hundred sheep, but risked to go find it; the father who had two sons and one got lost, and then later on, the other one.  Jesus seemed to frequently focus on one.  Today in our gospel we see one dead daughter, and one grieving father, and one desperate woman in a crowd of many people. 

Take the woman with the hemorrhage.  I've seen her before. She's not a stranger! I've seen her in you. I've seen her in myself.

What I've seen is a spirit of DESPERATION. It's controlled desperation! It's subtle, reserved and mostly concealed, but it's DESPERATION none-the-less.

"If I but just touch his clothes, just touch... just touch… just touch..." she muttered to herself as she, with quiet determination, squeezed her way through the crowd to get at Jesus.

Twelve years had gone by, and she had been to every doctor, medicine man, faith healer, everybody and anybody who held out promise of a cure for her condition.  But nobody had an answer.  Nobody had a cure. Nobody cared anymore. She was out of money...  patience...  ideas...  control... and she was desperate!  Can you picture her in your mind's eye -- chasing after Jesus through the crowded, hot dusty street, getting bumped, pushed around and elbowed, talking to herself --pressing on, pressing on, pressing on!

I've seen her as I've watch and participated with some of you as you've battled the issues of your life -- little things and big things alike -- like this woman, run from one thing to another to try to overcome and defeat whatever issue it is that's shaking your life at the foundations: kid problems, marriage woes, work problems, financial struggles, a variety of worries, anxieties, fears, depressions, old emotional scars, new emotional wounds, failing health, regrets, guilt, etc.  I've seen the quiet desperation of this person in you and me!

But she wasn't only DESPERATE, she was also ALONE.  DESPERATION usually springs from loneliness. She was an alienated person -- because, you see, as far as the religious law of those days was concerned she was considered to be "unclean" and rendered an outcast! This was serious business! In those days a person's status with the community was a religious issue and was determined by the priests. If a person was declared unclean, the person was separated from the community.

Anybody who touched her, or came into contact with her, would also be considered unclean. Any place she visited and anything she touched would be unclean. This oppressive tradition had cut her off from her community... and it was a tradition that most likely had taught her to hate herself... to despise her very body... ...her very personhood and womanhood!

But don't kid yourself, I've seen her alienation -- in me -- and I've seen it in you. I've seen the ways that we sometimes cut each other off and out of our lives, because we don't like some aspect of somebody's personality -- or their politics – or their opinion on an issue -- or their lifestyle -- or the color of their skin -- or their ethnic background -- or a disease that might afflict them.  Oh, maybe we don't consciously and intentionally do it --maybe we just end up avoiding each other -- or being cold and indifferent instead of connecting with people and extending hospitality.

I've seen ways that we even get alienated from ourselves, denying certain aspects, characteristics, or past experiences that we don't like about ourselves, that we'd just as soon forget about. So we don’t deal with it, and it continues to simmer under the surface, insidiously exerting its influence upon us.

The woman of our Gospel was DESPERATE and was ALONE.

But it didn't stop THERE. She was also POWERLESS!

We too, can feel that same powerlessness when we find ourselves laid low by circumstances. Those times we've tried to make ourselves heard, and we wonder if anybody not only hears, but really cares. We can end up staying home -- and I don't mean just sitting in our houses -- I mean staying home -- emotionally, mentally, socially disconnected from others - - locked in a prison of powerlessness!

We look for ways to cope and endure -- but none seem to really work, they only dull the pain - dull the pain of desperation -- dull the pain of loneliness -- dull the pain of powerlessness. But they don't really work!

One wonders what this woman was doing in this crowd of people. For one thing she was taking a great risk! If anyone would have recognized her as the unclean one, they would surely have sent her on her way.  Maybe she had been invisible to them for so long they simply didn't see her any more -- they just looked right past her!

Think of the inner conflict she must have been feeling. "If I can just touch his clothes, I will be made well!”  “But if I touch his clothes, he too, will be made unclean!" To her it must have seemed like a gargantuan catch-22!   What an incredible barrier to overcome! But her desperation was such that somehow she did!  She reached out! She took the risk! She touched him.

Jesus stopped dead in his tracks! "Who touched me?” he asked. The disciples were dumbfounded! "What do you mean, Who touched you? There are people pushing and pressing in all around you, and you say who touched you? You've got to be kidding!"

But you see, it wasn't just any touch:

            - It wasn't the touch of a powerful person trying to use Jesus for personal advantage over others -- as some use Jesus.

            - It wasn't someone who touched him just for the sake of saying they did so that later on they he could brag about it -- like someone might boast about how they shook hands with the President.

            - It wasn't someone frantically clinging.

NO!  It wasn't those kinds of touches. It was,

- A TOUCH THAT CAME FROM DESPERATION

- A TOUCH THAT CAME FROM ALIENATION.

- A TOUCH THAT CAME FROM POWERLESSNESS.

You see, those are the touches that Jesus knows and responds to.

This woman was willing to risk with Jesus, and Jesus was willing to risk with her. Jesus made the matter of her healing a very public issue -- something that the entire community needed to experience. He said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well!"   The woman had been unclean as far as the religious and public world was concerned, but no more. The community could now receive her back into their midst from the hand of Jesus.

- She was no longer invisible to them, because she was visible to Jesus.

- She was no longer unimportant to them, because she was important to Jesus.

- She was no longer alienated from them, or herself, because she had been reconciled to Jesus.

When the woman reached through the foggy barrier of these realities towards Jesus she discovered a loving and life-giving presence that worked to calm her desperation, reconcile her to the community, instill within her a new inner dignity and sense of self-worth.

God is not so busy managing a complicated universe that he doesn’t know and see you.  Through Jesus, God sees past the faces in the crowd and sees your face.  Every face is unique to God. Every face is not just another face in the crowd.  The faces of the many do not obscure the face of the one - in the kingdom of God.  Every life is significant to God.  He sees your desperation, your  loneliness, your powerlessness.

The crucial question for us as the community of the church this morning is when someone reaches to us in need, in desperation, from alienation, out of powerlessness is there anybody there to grab their hand? Is there anybody there who is sensitized enough with the compassion of God to recognize even the faintest and most subtle touch of need?  If we call ourselves the body of Christ then we are called to be nothing less than Christ to each other; we are called to embody in every corner of this community the very compassion of God who, when a desperate, lonely and powerless soul touched him in a frantic crowd, he was compelled to stop, and look into that face, see the beauty that was there, and bring good news to that weary soul.  Sometimes in the kingdom of God the magic number is not big numbers, but one; one soul caring and ministering to another.  I pray God will give us the strength, sensitivity and courage.