After spending some time yesterday reflecting on the story of Zacchaeus - and drawing an imagined scene (rather than drawing from life) for the first time since school (!) Miriam suggested that today I look at another story and see what links, if any, I could make with the story of Zacchaeus. As my picture had prompted me to think of a great deal of images, Miriam suggested that I try to use a time of prayer to distil or refine my reflections on the two stories.
The story of Jesus healing the bleeding woman can be found in three of the Gospels - Matthew 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34, Luke 8:43–48. This is the text from Mark :
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’
Throughout the day I spent some time thinking about both stories. Both the woman and Zacchaeus have a strong urge to meet Jesus - one does so crawling on the ground and one up a tree. Unlike Zacchaeus, the woman comes to Jesus penniless - as she has spent all her money on surgery (which has had no effect), but like Zacchaeus, she is an outcast, ostracised from the community as she is seen as unclean due to her continual bleeding. Jesus sees Zacchaeus but the woman comes up behind Jesus. He says he can’t sense who it was that touched his cloak, so he asks the disciples to identify them. She confesses to Jesus what she has done. Zacchaeus also confesses - of the sins he has committed against other Jews. In both cases the confession they made did not precipitate Jesus’s response. Zacchaeus confesses after Jesus has agreed to visit his house. In speaking directly to the woman Jesus makes clear that her faith alone has made her well - not her confession. These words made me think of a reading from Morning Prayer recently - taken from Chapter 11 of St Paul’s letter to the Hebrews:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Today I decided to use a technique of centring prayer, focussing on the phrase “Lord help me to see the unseen.”
Afterwards, I wrote these three haiku as a way of condensing my reflections on the two stories.
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Lord, help me to see the unseen
Sinner, in a tree.
You reach out, take the fig leaf
And give back my heart
Outcast and crawling,
Bleeding which no man can stop.
Touch you and I’m cured.
What power this faith!
New eyes to see the unseen.
Assurance of hopes!
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