“THE FRINGE
OF HIS CLOAK”
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A sermon preached |
“A woman … touched the fringe of his cloak” (Mt 9:20)
God calls us to be holy saintly
people.
But how do we do that??
Notoriously the OT law encourages
the pursuit of holiness by means of quarantine.
If someone is spiritually impure, you must avoid contamination from them –
and literally keep them at arm’s length and not touch them with a barge pole –
or else you and your barge pole will have to go through
a major process of ritual cleansing and purification.
Hence – to take but one of many
example -
the unwillingness of the priest and the Levite
to tangle with a sick man on the
they would not have been able to attend worship for days
after being contaminated with the death or even the blood of a wayside victim.
Or take the woman in our NT
passage today –
she suffers from a problem with her menstrual cycle –
she has been bleeding constantly for 12 years.
Leviticus 15 makes it clear that not only must no one touch a menstruating
woman –
if anyone so much as touches the place where she has previously been sitting
they will be unclean and have ritually to wash themselves and their
clothes.
So this woman can effectively have no social life whatsoever
because she has been unclean and untouchable for 12 years.
As Christians of course we no
longer adhere
to such parts of the Jewish law,
any more than to those passages telling us to abstain from eating shellfish
or stone those who work on the Sabbath.
BUT there are still many ways in
which men and women today
seek to retain their own holiness and rightness with God
by excluding those they deem unclean or impure –
The horrendous story in the papers this week
about the little girl half killed by relatives
who believed her to be a witch
reminds us how even in modern society,
so called religious belief may be twisted and perverted
to exclude or even attack the needy and the suffering,
out of a misguided attempt to protect the integrity and safety
of the so called righteous.
Every culture is tempted to set
up its untouchable classes,
either shunned, demonised or persecuted in the name of
so called purity.
·
So the Nazis demonised and dehumanised and excluded
the Jews from the so called racially pure
·
So some modern Christians (to our shame)
still quote selectively from Leviticus to demonise and exclude
members of the gay community and others from the family of the Church
And you can exclude people
from the elect, the pure, the holy,
for all kinds of reasons –
on account of disability,
on account of race or colour,
or on account of creed and belief.
A
front page article in last week’s Methodist Recorder
concerned reported moves in the
to set up a list of doctrines and beliefs
which you had to sign up to before you could be a part of the Church.
Leslie Griffiths, the Minister at Wesley’s Chapel London is quoted in the
article,
arguing strongly against such a move.
Once you start to put limits
on who can come into a Church community, he said
“we would shut the door in the face of all kinds of people
who are seeking and searching for faith,
whose lives were in a mess
or who failed to meet the unyielding standards of those who set the rules.
Ours would become a ring fenced Church.
I couldn’t bear that, I’m afraid.
For me, we open our doors for anyone who will come in.
We ask no questions.
We offer space where people can check themselves out,
hear the preaching of good news
and encounter the living God without prejudice.”
As
Christians we follow one who was touched in the crowd
by a ritually unclean woman –
and what did he say? –
·
Did he condemn her for daring to approach the Son of God
and so much as touch the hem of his garment?
·
Did he quote the Levitical law,
did he move to the other side of the road,
·
Did he give her a theological questionnaire to complete?
No
he smiles on her and says
“Take heart daughter – your faith has made you well”
Here is a story which comes from the far east,
but can speak to us all – David Ya writes thus:
”In my neighbourhood an old woman prowls the piles of trash
which are put out for collection each night.
She has an eye for aluminium cans, plastic bottles,
cardboard boxes and old newspapers.
They have an immediate resale value at recycling depots.
When I walk past her house I see collections of electrical wire
and appliances which she collects and sells more slowly.
Once many years ago someone left a fridge on the landing outside my flat.
I wanted it out the way, so I took it to her.
She sees value in things which others have discarded.
Jesus spent his time among common people
and those whom the society of his day had thrown out as
useless –
The demoniac, the prostitute and the leper found a welcome from
him.
By his touch they were healed, cleansed and valued.
In a way they were recycled.
He still recycles people…all over the earth”
(David Ya in “Seeing
Christ in others” ed G
Duncan,
And
here is a very different piece written by Myra Brooks Welch in 1926 –
not so much a poem as a Music Hall Monologue but making a very similar point:
It was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
thought it hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
"What am I bid, good people", he cried,
"Who starts the bidding for me?"
"One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?"
"Two dollars, who makes it three?"
"Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
going for three," But, No,
From the room far back a grey bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said "What now am I bid for this old violin?"
As he held it aloft with its' bow.
"One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?"
"Two thousand, Who makes it three?"
"Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone", said he.
The audience cheered, But some of them cried,
"We just don't understand."
"What changed its' worth?" Swift came the reply.
"The Touch of the Masters Hand."
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters' Hand.
And
so we recall how long ago an outcast out-of-tune woman
was touched by just the fringe of the Lord’s robe –
And
in that touch she knew her days of rejection were over.
And
through the crowd we see coming to us
the Lord of Heaven and earth.
·
And we see that his hands are not ceremoniously clean,
but dirty with the mud of the
and every road ever travelled by the human race
·
We see that he does not keep apart from the sinners
but stops to party with them on the way
·
We see that he walks no red carpet behind police barricades
but moves freely, embracing the crowds as he goes
·
He does not guard his holiness from the infection of sin-
but quite the reverse - he positively spreads
the contagion of love and joy wherever he goes.
So,
if you feel lost, confused, unclean, unworthy –
just touch his cloak –
it need be just a touch –
he will know –
and he will stop and speak
and give you his blessing.
And
as a Church may we be known
as a place where Christ walks with his people,
and no one but no one is turned away from his presence.