Sunday Homily July 1, 2012, 13th Ordinary Time
Readings:
Wisdom 1, 13-15; 2, 23-24, God formed people to be imperishable
Psalm 30, I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
2 Corinthians 8, 7-9, 13-15, As you excel in every respect, may you also excel in the gracious act.
Mark 5, 21-43, Who has touched my clothes?
Wisdom observations:
What: There are 39 official books in the Old Testament. In addition to them are 12 extra books. Wisdom comes from these 12 extra books.
Main message: God rewards those who are good.
Author: A Jewish man who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote in Greek.
Date: 50-100 years before Christ.
Our passage: observations on life & death. The devil & death are connected.
Sources: Good News Bible; New interpreter’s Study Bible, Catholic Encyclopedia on line.
Heal a Bleeding Woman? Are You Crazy!
There was an article early this week in The Dallas Morning News that was titled, Dallas-area Designers of Stylish Hijabs Bridge Culture Gap, empower Muslim Women. Along with the article were two or three pictures of women with beautiful faces. They were dressed from head to foot in, not black, but beautiful pastel colored hijabs and robes. Jewels and perhaps diamonds decorated the hems of the robes.
I had to laugh. This is the classic example of the camel’s nose under the tent. Next thing these Muslim women will not be wearing the hijab. We have to laugh, too, because that women look beautiful was certainly not the intention of the religious men who put these dress laws in place.
Sometimes you even see the real deal in Dallas, a woman all in black from head to toe with a black net covering her face. Some women wore this attire in Tanzania when I lived there.
I thought of this article with the pictures when I was putting together ideas about healing the two women.
Do you realize how radical this was, especially with the woman bleeding? Leviticus, the third book of the Bible, has a lot to say about women who bleed. For instance, a woman giving birth to a boy is ritually unclean for 7 days; a girl baby, 14 days (chapter12).
In Lev. 15 it says that during menstruation, women were ritually unclean, which meant they were considered socially dead, not allowed in the temple, not allowed in the community, could not touch anyone and no one was allowed to touch them or their clothes or they, too, were ritually unclean. So what does the lady in Mark do? What does Jesus do?
Do you realize today how historic and universal this bias was against women? Plato in The Republic says that Socrates asked, do you know of anything done by humans which is not done better by the male.
Hindus teach that a woman must immolate herself after her husband's death. Buddhists consider it bad karma to be reincarnated as a woman. Orthodox Jewish men are taught to pray, Blessed be God who has not created me a heathen, a slave, or a woman. The first book of our Bible, Genesis, blames a woman for the origin of evil in our world. Can you see the presence of men putting this story together?
More recently, in 1873 in Illinois a case was decided against a woman. She had passed the bar exam to be a lawyer, and the court would not grant her appeal to receive a law license. A judge said that the place of a woman was in the home and that women did not have the fortitude to deal with such issues as the law.
The church fathers, as they are called, had their own bias. St. Jerome says that when a woman wishes to serve God more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called a man. You do not want to know what St. Augustine thinks about women. What about the way the Vatican made nuns dress and would still like to?
So why this historic and universal bias against women by men (& women)? One reason, from my research, blood. Another is the male nervousness & weakness around women, beginning in adolescence.
So here comes Jesus along. The woman touches him. He could have had her killed by the crowd. What was she doing in the crowd anyway? And what does he do? He calls her "Daughter," and heals her. This is shocking to the people. This is scandalous in the eyes of the Jewish authorities. He will die for it. However, despite the danger, Jesus moves from bias to inclusion & acceptance.
In Galatians (Chapter 3) it says there is no male or female. Just folks. We are being called to get rid of the bias. Women do not deserve to have men tell them how they must live, or be stoned.
How is your bias barometer? Any bias against women, men, a particular race, political party, a part of town, a school?
Sources: The Sins of Scripture, Bishop (Anglican) John Shelby Spong; Catholic Encyclopedia on line.