Jesus Leaks

Sermon 7-1-18

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This past week, over thirty thousand ELCA youth gathered in Houston for their Youth Gathering, which happens every three years in different cities around the country. During this week, they learned together, worshiped together, and served their neighbor together. If you haven’t already, go and watch the videos of the nightly speakers, they are amazing. 

But in the days and weeks before the Youth gathering, my Facebook feed was flooded with the travel preparations questions of my pastor friends, on how to be ready for everything: from minor injuries, sunburn, dehydration, Hangry-ness, and boredom. As you can imagine, that’s a lot to stuff to try to pack in one bag. Like putting too many toppings on your sandwich… with things falling everywhere when you try to take a bite.

The gospel of Mark, which we are reading through this summer, LOVES to pack too much into his sandwiches. You may have noticed during the reading that there is a story within a story here – a story sandwich – where story A is interrupted by Story B, then we hear the end of Story A again. For a short Gospel, Mark packs a lot in his sandwiches.

I remember packing my bag the last time I went to the Youth Gathering 3 years ago in Detroit. A friend who was a Youth Gathering Novice asked us what not-obvious things she would need. My suggestion is something that you will not normally here in a sermon AND related to today’s healing story. I told here there is one thing I ALWAYS bring on a youth trip: menstrual products. Yes, I’m talking about pads and tampons.

Are you uncomfortable yet? We should be, because we pretty much avoid this topic at all costs. Even the translators shy away from it, using the euphemism “hemorrhaging.” Which is just a fancier way of saying “on the rag,” “Aunt Flow was visiting,” or, according to one study… about 5,000OTHER slang terms for saying “period” around the world. I bet you REALLY wish you had stayed in bed today.

Are we uncomfortable yet? OUR discomfort is nothing compared to what this woman was going through. And I am not just talking about the pain that must have been horrible from having a period for twelve straight years. For the Jewish people thousands of years ago, “that time of the month” wasn’t just inconvenient and awkward. There were strict rules in the Old Testament saying what you could and could not do at this time. Bear with me as we get a little “Levitical” for a moment.

Back then, when a woman is menstruating, she is considered “unclean” for seven days. Everything she touches, including people, becomes unclean too. And everyone who touches what SHE touches becomes unclean. Imagine what that does to your family life and social life. Fortunately, when that time of the month is over, she takes a ritual bath and becomes “clean” again (Lev. 15) and resume regular life. … But what do you think would happen if “that time of the month” never stopped? No one would want to be near you. No one would want to touch you. Sooner or later, you would be completely alone.

I should explain that the terms “unclean” does not equal dirty or messy. The ancient Israelites divided everything into two categories: “Holy” or “ordinary,” “Divine” or “earthly” and heaven forbid that the two should be mixed. Blood was believed to be the source of life (Lev. 17) – they didn’t have any biology classes back then – and that is one reason keeping kosher does not involve eating any blood. Blood is holy, and so you do not eat it.

But women have blood monthly - and do not die – and that does not fit nicely into these categories. So, these women during this time were “unclean” – a dangerous mix of holy and human, and the ancient Israelites dealt with this by ritual separation once a month.  

Fast forward a few thousand years, and these rules still applied. And pile on the prevailing medical ideas stated that healthy bodies were balanced, controlled, strong, and dry. And this woman, with her bleeding, was none of those things. (from the article "The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34" by Candida Moss, JBL 129, no. 3 (2010) 507-519)

Her cultured viewed her (apparently incurable) condition to be a disability. Everyone in her life up to this point seemed to fail her. Her family had abandoned her, her doctors had taken her money and left her with no cure, and her religion had no place for her. And so, cut off and alone, she came to Jesus – to what she might have thought was her last hope.

She came to him in secret, because she had no reason NOT to believe that Jesus, would fail her too, as all the other men in her life had up until that point. She had no reason NOT to think that, once she knew what she was, Jesus would reject her and cast her off too. Surely, he would not notice a small touch on his clothes. Because that’s also all she thought she was worth.

Well, Jesus DID notice…. He felt the power go out of him, in an action that he could not control. Jesus ‘s body leaked power, just as the woman’s body leaked blood. Blood that represents divine power and the gift of potential life. Jesus… power…. Blood…. Life…. Is it really a stretch to say that in this moment Jesus felt what it’s like to have a period? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all.

I honestly don’t remember a lot of sermons… my own and other people’s. But I do remember the first time I heard this idea, at a conference through an organization I’m a member of called Young Clergywomen International. An episcopal pastor who would become a friend preached a sermon on this very text and this very thought just blew me away.

Because if this is REALLY TRUE… Jesus has also experienced something that is such a central aspect to what it means to have a female body. Jesus has experienced the very thing that biological women spend at least 25 percent of their lives worrying over, preparing for, having discomfort due to, and using precious resources over. And Jesus knows what it’s like struggle with having other people have agency and power over your body.

In other words, Jesus knows what a period feels like – and that sounds totally weird to us. Because he body of Jesus is not safe – Jesus is leaking power all over the place and ruining our perfectly ordered and controlled lives. Jesus is breaking down the boundaries between earthly and holy, between sacred and ordinary. Between men and women. Between black and white and brown. Between the Haves and the Have-nots. And things GET. MESSY. When this happens. And we don’t like it AT ALL.

The ancient Israelites tried to control this boundary by shutting their women away. But WE in our technological and “egalitarian” societies are not much better. Yes, the technologies of pads and tampons are awesome to help make one quarter of the normal lives of female bodies less challenging. But we can do better. The stigma is still there, and injustices are still happening. Pennsylvania is one of ONLY 9 states in the US that DOES NOT TAX menstrual products…. Let me say that again: 41 states TAXES things like tampons, but does not tax dandruff shampoo, candy bars, and Viagra. This is called the “Pink Tax,” where products that women and biologically female bodies NEED to do normal human daily things … if TANG is not taxed, neither should be tampons.

And beyond this, some people still suffer in silence from illnesses related to menstruation and reproductive health, isolated by embarrassment, being ignored, or being taken advantage of.

So… Jesus WAS a dude. But more importantly, Jesus was a human being, who encompassed ALL of our humanity: the messy parts, the embarrassing parts, the holy parts, the parts that contribute to new life. And the truth is, Jesus’ maleness didn’t heal her… her faith, and the power of God healed her.

Jesus’ own body crossed represented the crossing of borders, the pouring out for the sake of others, and contaminating others with the love of God. In short, Jesus leaks…. He leaks God’s love all over the place, and as followers of Jesus, we are called to do the same. This includes working for justice for ALL bodies, including women’s bodies, and especially vulnerable bodies.

Youth at the gathering did this by putting together two thousand toiletry kits for women escaping human trafficking. But we don’t have to travel half way a cross the country to be with 30,000 of our closest friends to do it. Right here, right now, we can ask ourselves – how are we contributing to menstruation justice?

Like this story having too much to talk about in one sermon, there is too much do for one person. But we can do something… like work to end the pink tax or donate toward organizations to help women and girls around the world.

We are the body OF Christ. I can’t put it better than to borrow the words from the newest ELCA draft social statement on “women and justice.” In this draft, people smarter than me have written:

“As this church seeks to value the bodies of all people and recognize that we depend upon one another, we will not dominate or politicize other people but respect them, promote their health and well-being, and suffer and rejoice together as we strive for justice for all bodies.  …We must continue the task of embracing our unity and diversity so we welcome and uplift people of every sex and gender—indeed, every body—in our work together as the Body of Christ in the world.”

To that we can roll up our sleeves and say, we can do it. Thanks be to God. Amen.