Who Is Unclean?

Check it out! While he was still saying these things, a prominent figure about town came to Jesus and fell down on his knees in front of him, saying, “My young daughter has just died. Come and lay your hands on her so that she’ll live again!” Jesus and his students got up and followed him to his house.

And check it out! A woman, who suffered from chronic bleeding for twelve years, snuck up behind Jesus. She reached for a piece of his clothes because she said to herself, “He’s so powerful that I only have to graze my hand on his clothing to be cured.”

But Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Cheer up, kiddo! Your faith has cured you!” And from that moment the woman was cured!

When Jesus went into the prominent man’s house, he saw the musician that was hired for the funeral and the wailing crowd, so he said to them, “Go home! The girl isn’t dead! She’s just sleeping!” The crowd laughed at him. When everyone in the crowd was thrown out of the house, Jesus entered, took the girl by the hand, and she came back to life. And the news about Jesus spread throughout the entire region.

~ As Matthew Tells It
The New Peace Treaty: A New Translation of the New Testament?

Matthew tells this story differently than does Mark. For one thing, Matthew streamlines the story -- the story as Matthew tells it is much shorter. For another thing, Matthew simply tells it differently:

1) Matthew does not identify the man who comes to Jesus; Mark (and Luke) state his name as Jairus.

2) Matthew says he is a "ruler" or an "official" as in someone who holds an important secular office; Mark says he is the leader of the synagogue.

3) Matthew states that the girl is already dead when the man comes to Jesus -- that's why he goes to Jesus, to get Jesus to raise her from the dead; Mark says she is dying and Jairus goes to Jesus to cure her before she dies.

4) Matthew does not mention the large crowds; Mark mentions the crowd was so large that it was pushing against Jesus -- Mark often presents crowds as a hindrance.

5) Matthew mentions the chronic bleeding for twelve years; Mark states that she had used up all her money looking for a cure.

6) Matthew never really has the woman touching Jesus or His clothes -- she reaches for them; Mark has her touching Jesus.

7) Matthew tells it so Jesus actively effects her cure; Mark tells it in a way that Jesus is passive -- the woman touches His clothes and she is cured, causing Jesus to feel power leave Him.

8) Matthew has Jesus see the woman; Mark has Jesus stopping and demanding to know who touched Him.

Death is separation. When people die, they are cut off from the earth as it is, and from us -- or maybe we are cut off from them. Either way, we are separated from those people -- we will never encounter them again in this life as it now is. Yet, nothing can separate us from the love of God, and God is love, so nothing can separate us from God. So even though people are cut off from us in this life, they are still alive to God and in God because nothing can separate them from God. This is why the Book of Revelation refers to a Second Death -- a spiritual death that is a separation from God.

One of the critiques sometimes levied against Christians is that they do not really believe in the heaven they claim to believe in because they fear death. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go today. There is also a general misconception on the part of Christian and non-Christian alike that heaven is where we spend eternity -- that we live on this earth for a short while and then we go to heaven forever, meaning that heaven is some place apart from earth.

Yet, the Bible makes it clear that we were created to be on this earth. Earth is our home. In fact, earth is our eternal home because human beings were created to live on earth forever. Because of sin, death entered the world and we become separated from the world. The Bible also makes it clear, that a return to the world is our ultimate fate. We live in heaven forever only in the sense that heaven is where God is, and God is coming to earth.

To me, this explains why even Christians dread death. We have an instinctual drive to remain on this earth because we were designed to live here. This is where we were created to be forever, and our spirits still retain that knowledge even though our bodies can no longer endure forever.

What does any of this have to do with the two stories in the Gospel ready? I have no idea. Other than to say, death is real. When Jesus tells the crowd of mourners that the girl is only sleeping, he is neither denying her death, nor denying the reality of death -- HE IS SIMPLY DENYING THE PERMANENCE OF DEATH. The Christian metaphor for death in the Bible is sleep. Sleep is a real thing. When people are asleep, they are cut off from those of us who are awake. But when a person sleeps, she does not sleep forever. She wakes up after a period of time. So referring to death as sleep is making the point that it is temporary -- it is real, but it is not permanent. There is a spiritual alarm clock that is set to go off at some point and all the dead will rise.

But more than this being a story about a dead girl being brought back to life, it is a story about the living dead �" those who are cut off from this life while still being alive. On the way to tend to the girl, a woman approaches Jesus. The woman had some medical condition that caused her to bleed. This condition made her unclean. The fact that she was unclean meant that she would make anything and anyone she touched unclean as well. Anything and anyone who touched what she touched would become unclean. So one unclean person can spread her uncleanness through an entire population. So there were rules put in place to ensure that the unclean do not mix with the clean, so that the clean -- the ritually pure -- would not be contaminated by the ritually impure. If a priest, for instance became unclean, he would be unable to perform his duty as a priest, and would risk making other priests unclean. The sacrifices he would offer would become unclean because anything he touched would become unclean. Therefore, an unclean person around town could ultimately shut down the Temple sacrifices, keeping people in their sins.

The woman should not have been in the crowd. She was making the crowd unclean. She was making Jesus unclean. Mark’s version tells us the crowd was tightly packed and pressing against Jesus. So everyone who touched the woman in the crowd were unclean. Everyone who touched the people who touched the woman were unclean. And the unclean crowd was pressing against Jesus making Him unclean. Then the woman actively touches Jesus -- she knowingly makes Him unclean in her desire to be cured. This is why in Mark’s version of the story, she is afraid when Jesus stops and demands to know who touched Him. She should be stoned for making everyone unclean. And if Jesus’ holiness and power were tied to His ritual purity, then she was placing the girl at risk too.

Yet, Jesus does not yell at her, He does not demand that the crowd stone her, He does not say, “Well, you’ve ruined it for everybody.” He judges this risky, and frankly, self-serving behavior that places others at risk as faith. She lets nothing stop her from getting what she wants from Jesus, not even the rules that could get her killed. She was so desperate, she saw Jesus as her last hope and she was not going to let rules of ritual purity, or crowds, or anything else stop her from getting to Jesus.

I guess that is what the two stories have in common: desperation. The important official has lost his daughter and is desperate to have her back. The woman is desperate for a cure. The man was cut off from the daughter he loved; the woman was cut off from everyone. Both the girl and the woman were dead -- they were cut off from life, from people, from everything. The girl is restored to life and her family; the woman is restored to life by being cured and becoming clean so that she could once more have relationships with people again.

So I guess there are two points I get from this passage:

1) No one is unclean to Jesus! Touching the corpse of the dead girl would have made Jesus unclean. Being touched by the woman with chronic bleeding would have made Jesus unclean. Yet, Jesus remains clean. Jesus pronounces no one as unclean, but takes their uncleanness into Himself, making them clean, restoring them to life and society.

It is not our job as followers of Christ to determine who is “clean” and who is “unclean.” We are to treat everyone the same. We do not determine who is worthy and who is not, but we treat all as worthy -- because whether we may want to accept it or not, ALL ARE WORTHY.

2) Jesus healed the sick. Jesus told His followers to heal the sick. This healing may be in the form of a miracle -- they do happen from time to time. This healing may be in the form of making sure someone can get the medical treatment he needs. This healing may simply be from being a “healing presence” that adds to rather than takes away -- a presence that makes the sick feel as if they are still a part of life, rather than being cut off from life. I, of course, think that it is all of the above.

We may not be able to stop people from physically dying, but we can stop them from being dead while still being physically alive. We can make sure that we are not cutting people off from life and from relationships. We can make sure that those who have become cut off are restored to healthy relationships once more.

So our task is to ask ourselves: “Who are the people cut off from life?” Maybe it is an elderly person tucked away in an assisted living facility. Maybe it is someone alone in a hospital. Maybe it is someone in jail. Maybe it is someone who has become ostracized from the neighborhood or community. Maybe it is all of the above. Whomever they may be, we are to end their living death by restoring them to life by treating them as if they are clean.

Many churches are dying because the people in the churches are spending too much time and energy trying to attract the few who are deemed worthy, rather than the many who are deemed unworthy.

If you want to pack your church, then focus on bringing in the poor, the hungry, the needy, the sick, the lonely, down and out, the outcasts, the unpopular -- because there are more of them in the world than the respectable up and in.

Frankly, it is the difference between a social club and a Church. A social club is exclusive and seeks to limit membership to the few; A Church is inclusive and opens membership to all. A social club has gatekeepers to keep undesirables out; a Church has no gatekeepers and seeks to keep the undesirables in. A social club may be charitable, but it is from a position of being outside of those to whom charity is given; a Church ministers to the people as the people inside of the community.

Many Churches are dying because they want to be social clubs disguised as churches, and they aren't fooling anyone.

© 2013 Bishop R. Joseph Owles

My Review

Would you like to review this Story?
Login | Register

Featured Review

Coyote Poetry

"If you want to pack your church, then focus on bringing in the poor, the hungry, the needy, the sick, the lonely, down and out, the outcasts, the unpopular -- because there are more of them in the world than the respectable up and in."
I agree with the above statement. I left the church years ago because I was told. You shouldn't hang with non-christian. I like the stories. You wrote them with the ability to make a person understand the situations without understanding the bible. Thank you for sharing the knowledge and the hope in your words.
Coyote