Unclean And Impure

While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, "My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live." Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples. A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. She said to herself, "If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured." Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, "Courage, daughter!  Your faith has saved you." And from that hour the woman was cured.

When Jesus arrived at the official's house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion, he said, "Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping." And they ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose. And news of this spread throughout all that land. (Matthew 9:18-26)

What follows was written by Kevin Considine and published in 2022 in U.S. Catholic Magazine.  His article is entitled: “God does not abandon us, but sometimes (God’s) people do – The story of the bleeding woman in the Gospel of Mark demonstrates God’s limitless love and compassion.”

(begin) “God-forsaken.” That’s what she had been told. For 12 years, that’s what they told her. Maybe not using those exact words. But her friends and family, her own people, made it abundantly clear: “You have been abandoned by God.” She had committed no grave sin. She had done nothing to deserve this treatment. So why was she being penalized?

It was because she was bleeding. Menstrual blood, the blood of life and death. The blood often feared and greatly misunderstood by most men. The blood of “uncleanliness.” She bled without ceasing for more than a decade.

According to the law of her people, her bleeding made her “unclean.” In most religions dominated by men, this monthly bleeding symbolically renders a woman as “other” for a time. First-century Jewish law was no different. In her time and place, a woman with menstrual bleeding could not go to the Temple or be in the presence of a priest, scribe, or Pharisee. Her presence, and especially her touch, could contaminate them. Then the religious man with whom she had contact would have to quarantine and be purified.

This woman was different only in degree. Instead of being on a normal cycle, her blood flowed continually for more than a decade. No one had to tell her, because the entire society already had spoken: “You cannot enter God’s house.” “You cannot be in the presence of a holy man.” “God would heal you if you hadn’t sinned.” “God doesn’t listen to sinners.”

Such is the life of the “God-forsaken.” The phrase literally means that a person or community has been abandoned or cursed by God. Yet Jesus taught that God does not abandon God’s creatures. In our Catholic tradition, this is the foundation for a wide variety of spiritualities of presence and accompaniment, not to mention the Eucharist as “source and summit” of a life of discipleship.

Jesus himself embodies God’s presence as Emmanuel, “God with us” who chooses to “tabernacle” among us (John 1:14). In the gospels, Jesus constantly brings God’s presence to locations, individuals, and people who others have deemed “God-forsaken”: demoniacs, the mentally ill, lepers, adulterers, prostitutes, parents grieving lost children, the sick, outcasts, tax collectors, Gentiles, Roman centurions, and . . . a bleeding woman (my emphasis).

If God does not abandon God’s creatures for any reason—and especially not one as intrinsic to life as menstrual bleeding—then where does this idea come from? In short, it is because we humans often have a rather limited theological imagination.

God is not limited in God’s celebration and compassion, but we as finite creatures struggle with this truth. God’s love and generosity are limitless, which sometimes leads to human resentment and a rather convenient theological praxis: God abandons those whom we fear, don’t like, or don’t understand. Instead of honestly facing what psychologist Carl Jung and Franciscan Father Richard Rohr call our “shadow side,” we project our own fears, biases, and prejudices onto God. And then, as Father Ron Rolheiser points out, we create a religion and society that is as frightened, paranoid, and unforgiving as we are (my emphasis).

These are some of the meanings of “God-forsaken.” Not only do we convince ourselves of this but we convince those who supposedly are “forsaken” that God no longer loves them nor is with them. This is what sometimes is called the “narrative of the lie,” the ideological glue that holds together and justifies any system of dehumanization.

The phrase “God-forsaken” does not appear much in English translations of the gospels. However, the phrase encapsulates the context of many of the healing stories, such as this one in the Gospel of Mark [and Matthew]. A man, woman, or group suffers from an affliction that is not of their own making. The situation includes not only bodily affliction but also social abandonment and religious isolation… (end)

None of us are “God-forsaken” although we may think so.  Kevin Considine is correct: “God does not abandon us, but sometimes (God’s) people do.”  I’d wager God’s people do the abandoning more often than not.  Some of that abandonment involves our refusal to forgive and our making a mockery out of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Deacon David Pierce