The unclean, boundaries, and restoration
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Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
Today's
Psalm 5, 6 (morning) // 10, 11 (evening)
Jonah 1:1-17a
Acts 26:24 - 27:8
Luke 8:40-56
Today Jesus restores community and fecundity, but he must cross some unclean borders to do so. Today Jonah is called to the unclean enemy, and he flees trying to cross some border to escape God.
While Jesus is on the way to the home of Jarius, a synagogue leader, a woman with a hemorrhage touches the fringe of his clothes. She has been bleeding chronically for twelve years. Such bleeding would make her ritually unclean. According to the law (Lev. 15) she would be prohibited from touching anyone and from joining the congregation in worship. Her illness probably rendered her infertile, unable to bear children. When she touches Jesus, she is breaking the Biblical law.
Jesus feels the power of healing go out of him at her touch. When he asks, "Who touched me," the disciples are confused because many in the crowd had touched him. The woman tried to hide. She would face punishment (stoning?). When she realizes she cannot remain hidden, she confesses. Instead of punishment, Jesus commends her faith and confirms her healing. Now she is clean, she can re-enter the community. Now she can be a complete woman, and bear children. (Interpreting from the point of view of that time.)
Then Jesus arrives too late at the home of Jarius. The little girl is dead. In violation of the Biblical law prohibiting the touching of a corpse, Jesus took her by the hand and revived her. She is restored to life, to her family and community, and to her own potential to become a mother. Nothing is said of Jesus' violations of the ritual laws of purity -- his touch of a corpse and a hemorrhaging woman. Instead, he has crossed boundaries to restore community, fecundity and life.
Jonah is trying to cross some borders too. God has called him to preach to
As you read Jonah, you might try substituting
It is impossible for him to flee God, however. And going in the opposite direction of
Another way to escape, when you have gone beyond your means to control things, is to take your own life. Suicide is the ultimate act of control. Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. Maybe his death will appease the God of the storm. Jonah will finally have escaped even God and God's despised call.
Jonah's journey takes him to the depths -- the depths of existence and his own depths. His suicide turns into surrender. In the helplessness of surrender he will find deliverance. He will find what he needs to go to
But note the shared themes today -- crossing borders to bring healing and community to the unclean other.
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posted by Lowell @ 7:50 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Dear Lowell: I sure do enjoy reading your morning reflections each day and wanted to say a warm hello from Oklahoma City, where I attend St. Paul's Cathedral. I attended your parish last fall for about 4 weeks while visiting family in Fayetteville, and have been reading your morning reflections since then.
Could you expound on the customs at the time? this woman was an outcast because of bleeding? I wonder, too, if you could comment on the number of times Jesus praised a person's faith. I believe she was one of very few compared to the more common address, 'ye, of little faith.'
I wonder if your comparison of al Qaeda and others to Ninevah is meant to stimulate questions about personal choice or about our nation's actions in Iraq? Do you mean to say (or question) without going into enemy territory individual Christians are failing to follow Him? or that our military should teach love instead of shooting?
I find it increasingly difficult to reconcile being American and being Christian as I read and hear about torture and abduction conducted by our law enforcement agencies in the Middle East which is apparently condoned by our president, paid for by taxpayers, and somehow performed for the sake of our freedom.
So, who is Jonah in this comparison? Bill Clinton for basically ignoring the USS Cole attack, or all of us for going to the mall instead of writing letters to our Congress people?
I look forward to reading more morning reflections and to read your response. Thank you kindly for all you do in Fayetteville.
Dear Aletha,
Thanks for your post and greetings from OK City. Hope you'll be back to visit Fayettville soon.
According to the Torah and Holiness Code a woman is in her menstral cycle, she is unclean. Sexual intercourse was prohibited and casual social contact proscribed until she finished her monthly period and went through a ritual of purification. The woman in the story had what scholars assume was a vaginal issue of blood for twelve years. It made her unclean and separated her from the community. Jesus crossed across the ethical boundary and accepted her touch, facilitating her healing. Other rabbis would have condemned her and would have seen it necessary to be purified themselves from her contageous touch.
My reference to Ninevah as al Qaeda etc. is simply a connection to the character of the book of Jonah in its own context. Some have called it protest literature. It was written during a time of increasing nationalism in Israel and a time of considerable suspicion toward aliens and non-Jews living in Israel. God calls Jonah to minister and preach to the enemy. Jonah didn't want to. He wanted the enemy to be judged (and defeated) by God, not talked with.
God insists that Jonah speak to these enemies and show them their evil ways. Surprise! They listen and repent (unlike Israel which seemed never to listen to the prophets). And Jonah is still so ticked that he goes and mopes under the broom tree and wishes he was dead. The closing message speaks of God's compassion for all -- even one's traditional enemies.
This was not the conventional wisdom of the writer's day. It was a time of religious piety and exclusivism, a time when foreigners were being kicked out and marginalized in Israel, a time when Israel was wishing condemnation upon its enemies, not conversation with them. This was radical, underground, counter-cultural literature.
I think it says something to us today in a country where so many call down suspicion and punishment upon aliens living among us, where our president refuses to talk to nearly any nation that doesn't agree with his policies, and where enemies are demonized. I don't think this president would like the author of Jonah any more than the authorities of his days did.
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