TOUCH THE HEM: Lessons in Gynecology

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, June 30th, 2024
St. Stephen, Summerland
The Very Rev. Ken Gray

It’s something I know little about, and it’s a word I still have trouble spelling: Gynaecology, or gynecology—the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women’s diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. I have enough trouble appreciating the challenges I face as a cis-gendered male, and possess only a dim awareness of my wife’s personal medical world.

While a seminarian part of our curriculum involved Clinical Pastoral Education, a ten-week placement as a student chaplain in a jail, community agency, long-term care facility, or a hospital. In his CPE unit my former bishop (who wrote a chapter in my little book) asked for a special challenge as he already had significant experience in hospital visiting. So guess what he got? Yep, gynecology. So what does a guy say, or ask, or conclude in such pastoral conversations. I got Coronary Intensive Care, thankfully.

My sermon title today is thus: “TOUCH THE HEM: Lessons in Gynecology.” It’s not a medical lesson however. Today’s Gospel story is a lesson in love, in possibility, in bringing things considered taboo out into the open, in creativity and innovation, in determination, in community, in trust, and in the appropriate disposition of power.

“Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.”

Admittedly, humorously, I am envious; she actually has a doctor (we just lost ours), more than one in fact, but they have been ineffective. What jumps out for me in this telling is the expression of time: “Suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years.” Twelve long years, of a young woman’s life, the years of child-bearing and rearing, years of stigma given patriarchy’s fear of blood and bleeding, and of women. I suspect that by now she had memorized the words of today’s psalm:

“Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication . . . I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope . . . My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

Waiting, longing, yearning for it all to end, and for someone to care, and to help. Someone, please, reduce the distance between plight and pleasure. Someone, “touch me,” she says to herself, but appropriately. (Remember that not all touch is appropriate or welcome or helpful.)

“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.”

The text says: immediately; such a good outcome, seemingly invisible, no longer impossible; at last—at long last—now. The healing however is multivalenced. Both sender and receiver are aware of each other; they are connected:

“Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?'” He looked all around to see who had done it.”

Don’t you just love it! Amidst ordinary people doing ordinary things in ordinary time, something beneath the surface is happening. Who knows? Who knew? The (un-named) woman knows:

“The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Selections MARK 5:21-43

The Rev. Rachel Field comments on today’s Gospel reading in Salal and Cedar’s weekly lectionary commentary (to which I contribute on occasion).

“This week’s lectionary brings us up close and personal with our relationship to our bodies, and God’s relationship to our bodies. Our bodies are the first part of creation entrusted to our care. They are the cooperation of microbes and cells that allow us to interact with our surrounds.

Separating the self from the body is impossible, and we follow a God that rose from the dead with scars. Bodies are a sacred first gift from the Creator.

Love that line: “God, that rose from the dead with scars.” Christianity is an embodied religion; not just a philosophy—though philosophy and theology help us embrace and appreciate mystery. Christianity is not a legal set of rules—though boundaries are important. Living the Christ-life  is an apprenticeship in love, expressed through ourselves, our souls, and bodies (to use the traditional language).

I don’t know about you but so often I get down on my body—low vision, crappy hearing, stout and stiff, and physically out of shape. OK, I do need to take better care of myself, and there have been some recent improvements—even victories I am pleased to say. Still my body is my body; it’s what arrived sixty-six years ago, pessimism, DNA and all. Truth be told, we all waste a lot of time grumbling about our bodies. As psalm 139 reminds us: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works” (139:14). So live into that truth friends.

Again, Rachel Field: “The immediate presence of the created world is the tapestry through which God weaves acts of life and redemption.” God is active right here, and right now. Heaven continues to break into the matter of earth. An English colleague likes to speak of God, “pressing in on the life of the world.” God’s goodness and grace is all around us. Like the confident woman, seek it; demand it; for yourselves and those for whom you pray.

So let there be music, this week a great version of an old Gospel song arranged and performed by Toronto musician Ken Whitely: Touch the Hem.

Whoa, there was a woman in the Bible days
She had been sick, Sick so very long
But she heard ’bout Jesus was passin’ by
So she joined the gathering throng
And while she was pushing her way through
Someone asked her “what are you trying to do?”
She said “if I could just touch the hem of his garment
I know I’ll be made whole”

Enjoy