“However, a more indirect and perhaps common form of bullying is ostracism — when people are purposefully ignored by others,” he said. Professor Abrams also explained that “online ostracism affects adults by threatening their basic needs for self-esteem, sense of belonging, sense of meaning and sense of control.

 Does it mean that we can't chose our friends? Can't we decide whom we want to associate with and whom not?

 I loved the post, but had diffuctly understanding some parts of it. I love the fact that at least someone feels like me:that we have many needs other than faith.

One will produce an hundred fold, another 60 and another 30. Starting late in life one probably can't produce as much, and God does expect us to produce. I think it results in not having such a high place in heaven.

   
Menstruation: Clean or Unclean


 2003 May McLeod

Mark 5:21 – 43

The story of the woman who touched Jesus’ garment and was instantly cured of her hemorrhage is one of the most revolutionary stories about Jesus in the Gospels! That may seem like an extravagant claim and I do admit that the story has largely been overlooked. Even in the lectionary until fairly recently included the two halves of the story of Jairus’ daughter edited to leave out this piece as if it were a distraction to the more important story. In Sunday School kids learn the story of Jesus raising Jairus’s daughter but not the rest of the story of the woman with the hemorrhage yet it appears in all 3 gospels told precisely the same way. It is as if, for the gospel writers, one story without the other does not quite make sense.
This story is loaded with significance that the church ignores at its peril.

The rules can be found in Leviticus. Chapter 15 in fact: A menstruating woman is unclean for 7 days and anyone who touches her will be unclean for the rest of the day, Anything she lies on or sits on will be unclean and anyone who touches any of these things must wash his clothes and bathe in water and will be unclean for the rest of the day. The woman bears the complete responsibility for making sure she doesn’t make anyone else unclean. Bleeding at another time of the month or prolonged bleeding makes her unclean for as long as it lasts. When her bleeding stops she must count 7 clean days and then on the 8th day she takes a sin offering to the priest who makes atonement for her with this sacrifice. (a sin offering) - In Leviticus 12 we find the rules relating to childbirth – A woman is unclean for 7 days after the birth of a son ands then must wait 33 days to be purified, If the baby is a girl she is unclean for twice as long – 14 days plus 66 days of purification. This uncleanness thing has basically nothing to do with hygiene. It has to do with a perceived spiritual purity. The whole clean/unclean thing in the Old Testament has to do with religious and social acceptance. While a woman is unclean she is forbidden to participate in any of the religious life of the community at all, and very little of the social life either – for fear of contaminating others.

There were laws of uncleanness for men too, but they are less strict and after the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD they fell out of use all together. But those effecting woman remain in force and as still observed by orthodox Jєωs today.

This woman had had menstrual bleeding for 12 years constantly. She could not go out, she could not sleep in the same bed with her husband – much less have sex with him. She was not meant even to touch or prepare food – to do so makes the food itself unclean. She could never go into the temple or the ѕуηαgσgυє.

But this woman comes out of the shadows, outcast, despairing and physically, if not emotionally weak. This venturing out in public, let alone in a crowd is the most extraordinary act on her part and goes directly against every taboo in her culture and religion. This is an action of great courage and extreme desperation. The laws of Judaism regarded her as ritually unclean – that is clear and uncompromising. It was considered the greatest shame imaginable. She risked not only being ridiculed herself, but also the breaching of her most serious social and religious responsibility to make sure she did not contaminate anyone else.

She sneaks out no doubt hoping no relative or one of her doctors (no one who knows her condition) will see her. The crowd presses around Jesus, but somehow she comes up behind him, thinking only to touch the edge of his clothes. Mark says "Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed." More than that, she was free from her suffering and her experience of exile.

Jesus stops and demands to know who touched him. The disciples are bemused by such a silly question – there were a lot of people touching Jesus at the time. Jesus refuses to let the matter go. We could have expected him to perhaps respect the anonymity of this poor woman and besides he was in a bit of a hurry. The leader of the ѕуηαgσgυє (the most important man around) needed him to heal his daughter. But instead he makes her take a terribly humiliating step – to publicly expose her actions, her shame and her extreme transgression of the law. Jesus was quite determined to make the full meaning of this healing very clear. Jesus did not mean for this sign to go unnoticed – he wanted it to reach down to every woman of every time and place – and every man. And yet it largely has gone unnoticed.

Mark says, "trembling with fear, she told Jesus the whole truth". This would have taken a little time – while the shocked and horrified crowd listened. And then Jesus says tenderly "Daughter – your faith has healed you". "Daughter" – this is the only time recorded where Jesus refers to anyone with such a loving term of close relationship.

When Jesus healed the leper (in the previous chapter) he told him to go and show himself to the priest and make a sin offering according to the Law of Moses. But when he heals this woman he gives no such instruction and he makes no attempt to purify himself either.

What Jesus did was much more a shock to the community than we can imagine. He did far more than simply heal one woman’s physical ailment. The power of the laws of Leviticus that ruled and governed women’s lives was completely broken. Something drew this woman to take such an outrageous risk. Something about him gave her the courage to do it. And he did not condemn her. In fact he blessed her for it calling her “Daughter”. He sent her on her way with a blessing of peace. For Jєωs that is a blessing of health, well-being, nothing less than all the fullness and goodness of life.

Jesus healed the abnormal flow of blood, but he did nothing to change her ordinary monthly period, or the pain and problems that went along with it. But he did remove the stigma – the curse imposed on women’s bodies and the religious and social taboos that went with it.

This woman looked to Jesus as someone who could make her whole again – Wholeness. She was healed physically and also liberated from the traditions and taboos that enslaved her. Wholeness. She was liberated to be tender, to live and love again, liberated to be a self-confident person, liberated to faith in God, faith through Jesus, the one who extends God’s wholeness and new life to all people.

The woman wanted to be a whole person and Jesus gave her that wholeness – physical, spiritual and social.

This was all a very long time ago, and we don’t hold beliefs about women’s religious uncleanness at menstruation anymore. Christian history has followed uncritically Jєωιѕн beliefs right up to the 1900’s, even if they are fairly rare now. (Not as rare as you think – I suspect – after all it is still one of the most commonly quoted reasons in some circles why women should not be allowed to preside at communion - but never-the-less.)

We can still ask ourselves the question - Who is this woman in today world?

Who are the ones who find themselves social outcasts – crippled by shame and ostracised from participating in the social or religious communities?

This woman represents people who are not fully “clean”. For us, this can be physically and literally clean – homeless people and those who don’t care for their hygiene. But it can also mean a whole variety of other “unclean”, those who swear, who don’t have good manners, people ostracised because of their race or ethnic origin, or their sɛҳuąƖ orientation, mental illness, or intellectual or physical disability. There are people who are ashamed to be honest even with their closest friends about their experiences, victims of rape, sɛҳuąƖ assaults, domestic violence, their sɛҳuąƖ orientation, or that of one of their family is gαy. They expect and very often get – ostracism and repulsion from even their church friends.

A woman who comes creeping out of the shadows today – outcast, despairing, physically weakened. He body has been debased, devalued, used and abused. She has been raped, or bashed. She is the victim of incest; she has been indecently assaulted. She has sold her body to feed her children, she is poor, watches her children starve, she is a refugee. She comes creeping out of the shadows of shame and despair. She comes creeping out of the shadows seeking liberation – freedom.

This woman is a member of our church – hiding her shame desperately.This man is a prostitute, a scrounger, a thief. This woman is outside our church feeling too dirty and unworthy to come in. This man is gαy. This woman is in the Philippines, in Korea, Ethiopia or India. This man is schizophrenic, or just odd.

This woman is bleeding and the bleeding will not stop.

This woman comes creeping out of the shadows of shame and despair.

A man comes creeping out of the shadows today just hoping for a touch of Jesus’ garment. She will be healed, made whole; he will be freed from despair and shame. Jesus will turn and call them forward and say "Daughter- Son, your faith has healed you – go in peace."

What will we as the church say to him?

What will we who are followers of Jesus say to her?