Here’s a dramatic reading based on the healing of the woman who touched Jesus’ robe (Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 7:42-48). It was written by William Loader.
Should I Touch Him?
A Reflection Mark 5:25-34; Matthew 9:20-22; Luke 7:42b-48
The reference to tassels draws upon Matthew's account. Wearing tassels on one's garment was a sign of devotion to the commandments (Numbers 15:37-40).
Should I touch him? The pain of stretching. Pushing my way through. Touching. Touching just his dangling tassel. No one will know. No one needs to know. No one knows. No one knows what it's like to be me. No one knows what I've been through. No one knows the shame. It's the blood. Not like the rest. Not every month or so. All the time. All the time! And you know what that means! Yes it means unclean, unclean. No big deal if its just once a month for a few days. That passes. But I'm different. I am the difference walking around; walking around bloody, unclean, unclean! I am womanhood all wrapped up into a few days and then smeared over the entire calendar. No room. No room for us at the temple. Well, at least, not on the inside. Always on the outside. The outside! That's where I am now. The outside! Why no room for me!
No I am not feeling sorry for myself. I've tried. You bet I've tried. All the best quacks of Capernaum and Tiberias and Bethsaida and Magdala and Sepphoris. Nothing! Nothing! How can I get in? There are reasons, they tell me. There are reasons! Of course there are reasons! There are always reasons! God's reasons. Go on, tell me. It is written.... Do you think I don't know? Do you think my father didn't tell me? Do you think my mother left me to grow up without knowing such things? You tell me to pray? Of course I pray. I pray! I cry! They don't hear me! I get sick of those washings. I wash and wash, but I'm never clean.
Unclean. Unclean, unclean - that's what they cry. Did you know that's what they have to cry? It is written. Unclean, unclean! I should join them: Unclean, unclean! Perhaps we should all join together, all of us, unclean. We could sing a chorus of unclean, unclean. We could do it in parts: us, those lepers, and the half wits, the handicapped….
(To see the rest of the reading, click here.)
— written by William Loader.
