Exorcising Shame

Luke 8:43-48

The woman with the “issue of blood” was standard Sunday School fare when I was a kid, a basic story about some older person who had “women issues”. We kids came away with the impression of an old hag who couldn’t stop bleeding, and because of the nature of the bleeding, we couldn’t ask any more questions. Whether or not it was right to call her a “hag”, we did somehow get that she was as repulsive to that crowd as the derogatory term “hag” implies.

If her hemorrhage was indeed uterine in nature, she was, according to Mosaic law, untouchable. She’d lived a hard life and Mark adds that she’d spent all her money to find a cure that could not be found, getting worse in the process. Her incurable sickness and resulting poverty left her filled with so much shame that even after she was healed, she was reticent to reveal her identity.

But she was brave enough, or at least desperate enough, to make the effort to touch the edge of Jesus’ robe or cloak. People were jammed together, bodies pressed against each other as the crowd moved through the narrow passageways between buildings. It was ludicrous to those around that Jesus was trying to find out who touched him – it could have been one of who knows how many.

And yet this was a significant touch. Jesus knew that power had gone out of him. Most people pressed around Jesus were only concerned with getting through the alleyway. People may have tried to touch Jesus because he was famous or important, much the way people do of superstars today. But such close encounters lacked what this touch definitely had – a release of healing power.

And so she was healed – immediately. No doubt about it. Why then was it important for Jesus to single her out? Surely it would only add to her shame. Let her go in peace – isn’t it enough that she is well?

Apparently, though, there was more to her healing. She realized she could not escape the glare of notice, so she came forward, as Luke notes, trembling and falling “at his feet.” Fear as well as sickness had gripped her for a dozen years. And though she was now physically well, that fear still had its hold. So full of shame she was that she could not dare tell anyone she had been healed, especially not before so many people.

When Jesus asked for her, she realized she had no choice but to come clean. The crowd that had been impenetrable suddenly gave way and a space opened for her. How agonizing that must have been. In her desperation to be healed, she would have done anything. Now, healed, it took even more effort to come forward. As she did so, suddenly all those years of agonizing shame spilled out and she told her whole story. In the presence of everyone.

As she did so, she discovered that the only way to exorcise shame is to let it out – but only with someone who will validate her personhood. Any other time, any other place, and she would have been pushed away, shunned. People (religiously zealous men especially) would have drawn up their cloaks and shrunk back from her in horror, lest they too be contaminated, unable to worship properly. The only thing stopping them from adding to her shame now was the commanding presence of Jesus.

In that presence, all such reactions were repressed. Jesus healed her personhood as well as her physical malady – he accepted her, affirmed her, and emotionally embraced her. “Daughter,” he called her – such a warm affectionate term. He esteemed her, acknowledging that it was her faith that had healed her. And he sent her off with a firm blessing, “Go in peace.” She was affirmed before everyone, the shame was no longer hers to bear.

In processing her healing with her this way, Jesus also clearly identifies for the woman and all witnesses that this healing was not mere superstition – “if I can only touch this holy man’s tassels.” Jesus clarifies that it is faith in God that has healed her, that it is the power of God which has gone out from Jesus to her. No room for superstition about talismans here.

Jesus immediately refocuses on the dying girl, his original mission. Note the contrast in healings. Whereas Jesus heals the girl in private, far away from the prying masses, he makes effort to bring the woman’s healing to light before everyone. Each person’s needs are unique. The masses would have detracted the little girl’s attention away from Jesus, while the public confession was part of the woman’s healing process. Holistic healing was a concept Jesus understood long before its present vogue.