Restoring relationship

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus welcomes a tax collector into his inner circle and heals a woman of a hemorrhage and lays hands on a dead girl to raise her from the dead.

Laurel A. Dykstra has noted of this reading that Jesus heals people a faithful Jew would have considered outsiders, those who would have made Jesus ritually unclean and unable to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem:

This week’s gospel passages come from a narrative between the Sermon on the Mount and teachings on discipleship. In two chapters, Matthew 8 and 9, nine people are healed. The action concludes with the following statement: “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness” (Matthew 9:35).

Healing is one of the signs of the kingdom; Jesus is enacting the reign of God, declaring it present and begun. Who is healed tells us who this kingdom is for and about, who is at its center: women, children, servants, people with disabilities.

But in this passage, among the people with leprosy, paralysis, blindness, and bleeding, is the tax collector. What’s wrong with him? The tax collector, the bleeding woman, and the dead girl have one thing in common: They are considered unclean. Contact with them would make Jesus, or anyone else, ritually impure—separate from God in concrete practical terms.

Jesus eats with tax collectors, touches a dead body, and is touched by a bleeding woman. This healing is not fixing the defective, or endorsing a particular kind of body as holy or whole. It is restoring relationship, creating community, and transgressing boundaries that exclude people.

Brian P. Stoffregen writes, "The flow of blood is stopped. The woman is healed. The corpse comes back to life. The young girl gets out of bed. God participates in a feast with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus doesn't become unclean by contact with the unclean people. They don't bring him down to their level. Jesus' holiness transforms their uncleanness With people in situations that others said, "Ugh" to, Jesus has no ughs!! He has a hug—or at least a healing touch. Jesus' holiness transforms the people's uncleanness. Jesus raises them up to his level. Jesus makes them worthy to be in the presence of God. Jesus, as the one good, holy apple, can make all the bad apples become good."

Who are the outcasts for us? Are we open to sharing God's love with outcasts, even if it causes others to question whether our actions are of God?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor