The Woman with the Flow of Blood
Oops!
Society says that we shouldn’t put forks in light sockets, but maybe we should?
OK, that probably came out of no where, so let me back up a bit.
As you know, we’ve been reading Journey to Reality: Sacramental Life in a Secular Age by Zachary Porcu. The argument of the book, in short, is that Orthodox Christians see the world very differently than most 21st-century Americans. Our view of the world is a union of the heavenly and the earthly. It’s a view that allows us to infuse meaning into the world around us.
It starts with a proper understanding of who God is. For most of us, when we think of God, we think of a super-being, an old man in the sky, if you will. When people tell one of my seminary professors that they don’t believe in God, he quickly replies, “Which god?” And, when they described some sort of Zeus-like god, he replies, “Oh good, we’re on the same page. When it comes to that god, I’m an atheist too!”
Porcu would agree. The God that Orthodox Christians worship doesn’t look anything like the gods the world says we worship. Instead of seeing God as a super-creature, we understand him as the Arché, that is, the ultimate source of all things, the principle for both the physical and spiritual worlds. To put it another way, God is the ultimate governing principle of reality. God is existence itself.
The strength of this book is in the illustrations that the author uses. To help us understand the concept of God as the Arché, he compares God to electricity. Electricity is the life source that animates our electronic devises. And, God is very similar. He is what reality and existence is.
Ugh!
But, as Porcu describes, we live in a fallen world. What this means is that we’ve been disconnected from the Arché. Or, to use our electric example, we’ve been unplugged. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of how we’ve become disconnected from our source of life. Now, we’re a bit like laptops. Currently, we’re running on battery power, but that power will only last so long. After a time, we will die. And, I think this is what this morning’s Gospel reading is about.
In it, we hear about two females: a small girl who, before Jesus reaches her, dies, and a lady with a flow of blood.
You see, in the ancient world, blood represented life. To spill someone’s blood is to murder them. The Israelites weren’t allowed to eat blood due to its connection with life. And, blood was spilled in sacrifices to gods because the gods dealt with life and death—life was the domain of the gods, not humans.
So, if blood is life, what does it mean that this woman is hemorrhaging? I think it’s an indication of spiritual death. Life was oozing out of her. She had been unplugged and was living off what little battery power she had left.
And, I think all of us can relate to this lady. How many of us are running low on battery power? How many of us feel disconnected from God? How many of us wonder if our lives, our spiritual lives are sustainable?
We want to be plugged in, but we find that our chaotic lives leave us drained and exhausted. Our battery icon has gone from green to red.
And, we find that we’re in danger of dying.
Aha!
So, what’s the solution? How do we plug back into the source of all reality, the source of life? How do we recharge?
As Porcu goes on to discuss in his book, Christ is the answer. That is, Christ the Arché, the source of life, and he enters into our fallen state, what theologians call the Incarnation.
Put another way, by becoming human Christ gives human nature a direct connection back to life. He becomes a new power strip that we can plug into.
And, it begins with trust.
Whee!
After the woman with the flow of blood had snuck up and touches the fringe of Jesus’s garment, Jesus stopped and questioned the crowd,
“Who touched me?”
Of course, he was in a large crowd, so the question seemed silly. Peter tries to point this out,
“Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.”
But, Jesus was determined to get to the bottom of it. After pressing the question, the woman, who was now healed, confesses that she was the one who had touched Jesus. She was trembling, probably afraid that Jesus was now going to chew her out. After all, not only was it wrong for a woman to approach a man like this, it was forbidden for an unclean person to touch a clean person.
Yet, instead of getting angry. Jesus has compassion. He says,
“Daughter, your trust has made you well; go in peace.”
In other words, her trust allowed her to plug back in. She didn’t heal herself, but she trusted that by reaching out to touch Jesus, the electricity she needed would be given to her. She trusted that by coming into contact with life, that life would heal her.
And, the same thing happens with the little girl who had died. When Jesus arrives, the girls parents laugh at Jesus when he asks to see her. They lack trust. Yet Jesus reaffirms that trust is the way to plug back in,
“Do not fear. Only trust, and she will be healed.”
And, when he takes the girl by the hand, life is restored to her.
Yeah!
What we’re seeing is that trust is the start of our recharging process. Porcu says that to be plugged in is to participate in the life of God. This may start with trust, but how do we sustain it?
Well, notice what Jesus says after he raises the little girl. St. Luke tells us,
“Then Jesus directed them to give her something to eat.”
On the surface, this may sound like regular food. But, this is scripture, so it’s so much more. In this case, I think the food Jesus is talking about is spiritual food, which includes: regular scripture reading, prayer, and, mostly importantly, participation in the sacraments.
The sacraments, above all, are our participation in the Arché, in the source of life. They are the means by which electricity is infused into us. They are the means by which we are sustained and kept from burning out.
Baptism cleanses us and makes the connection flow without hindrance. The Eucharist is electricity given to us as food. It brings us life and animates our souls.
This is why church is so important. This is why we come together every Sunday. We need to be recharged and plug back in.
If we don’t care for our spiritual lives, then, we’ll be like the lady with the flow of blood: We’ll be hemorrhaging life. We’ll be in danger of our batteries dying.
But, glory to God, we have an electric source that will never die out.
Amen.