For a woman I do not know by name

She brushed by me in the church foyer, then paused and turned back. My mind raced to fill in the gaps of a story I do not know. She was older, although I imagine her dance with a broken world has given her an excess of wrinkles in return for a few teeth. She looked weary, weighed down by her literal and, I imagine, emotional baggage. Souvenirs from a long, long journey, no doubt. I do not know, but I am guessing she was carrying all she owns on her back. I am quite positive she has no home, although even that I do not know for sure.

"Will you pray for me?" She mumbled in a way I nearly missed. In that moment, my soul surged. Connection. There is a space where two stories intersect, two souls pause to mingle together in a frantic, chaotic world. I don't know her story, but I imagine she does not experience much connection. Yet, in that moment she bravely asked for what she probably could not even name.

"Yes, I would love to! What is your name?" I touched her hand gently, perhaps a misstep in a moment that soon spiraled through my own fingertips before I could even grasp the threads. Panic crossed her face in a split millisecond, and before I could make sense of what was happening, she mumbled something more and dashed away into the crowd of people gathered at the entryway.

I am sad as I wonder where this sweet lady's journey has taken her to cause such fear at the mere thought of being known by name. In that moment as I watched her slip away, I was reminded of another woman who once slipped through a crowd, anonymously seeking wholeness.

***********

"A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed” (from Mark 5).

I can only imagine the tortured life she had lived. Deemed unclean, unworthy of human connection or touch because of blood she could not stem. What must it feel like to be so ostracized? To be cast out and forgotten, to know that everyone around you finds your condition disgusting and communicable? She had spent every dime she owned seeking a cure for the bleeding, not realizing that her greatest need was actually a balm for her bleeding, anonymous soul. 

She slipped through the crowd and touched him, wanting to be healed but not known. I love that, in that moment, Jesus demonstrated a truth I continue to learn: Wholeness is only complete in knowing and being known. He pursued her, not content to leave her physically whole but anonymous and broken inside. He called her out, no doubt seeking connection with this one who was connection-barren.

"30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 'You see the people crowding against you,' his disciples answered, 'and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’' 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering'" (from Mark 5). 

Ah, the healing in being fully known and yet embraced! In my mind's eye, I see him cup her face tenderly, drawing her eyes to his as he speaks those words that were a balm for her wounded soul. Daughter...Daughter. To be named daughter, even as she is fully exposed! The truth of her disease was laid bare and touched by the One who was most pure and holy and good. He did not cringe or draw back like her religious community most likely had; he pressed in and pursued. He sought to know her, to give her connection and belonging in the place of anonymity, the disease she did not even know she had. And it was in being fully known that she was fully healed.

**********

I do not know the story, or even the name, of that dear woman I encountered yesterday. I did pray for her, even as she slipped away into the crowd still clinging to her anonymity. Mostly, I prayed that she would find healing in being fully known and fully loved. I pray that for myself, too. Because we all have moments when we want the healing without the knowing, don't we? We want to be whole, but we also want to remain anonymous, our souls shrouded by whatever mask we put on in any given moment. Oh, that we would put off our anonymous selves and pursue true wholeness in being named and known! For it is in the knowing that we will be whole.

Exile...a path to prosperity?

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (From Jeremiah 29). 

I listened to a sermon on this text last Sunday and have not been able to stop thinking about it since then. You see, less than a week ago I arrived in a city I have only visited three times before. The people, the culture, the weather (and wildfires!) are all foreign to me. But this city is now my home. In the last couple days, I have pondered what the Israelites must have been thinking when they heard these words. I feel like, in some very small way, I can relate to what they might have felt living in a new place with new people and a totally foreign culture. My (self-chosen) "exile" to a "foreign land" has given me a new appreciation for what God called the Israelites to.

When I am the outsider, the "foreigner," the newbie, my tendency is to automatically turn inward. I start to wonder what people are thinking of me and focus on all the ways I am unlike those around me. My compassion loses ground to anxiety and self-consciousness. I think about the Israelites, who were forced to leave their homes, their culture, their people. They had to enter life alongside people who looked, behaved, and desired differently than they. I gladly chose my path; they were forced into a foreign life they never asked for.

Isn't it fascinating, then, what direction they are given? It is not to huddle up and cling to their own culture, ideals, or laws. It is not to choose thankfulness and abstain from whining about every little aspect of life that differs from what they are used to. It is not even an admonishment to be kind or convert those of a different faith and culture to their own with appealing rhetoric. No, instead it is a clear calling to intimately knit their lives into this place that was to be their new home. They were to plant roots, build ties with foreign people, and intentionally pursue the welfare of those who lived in this place that felt so far from home. They were to choose compassion, friendship, and purposefulness over anxiety, separation, or dismissal.

I have been reflecting on this calling placed on the Israelite nation in exile as I walk down foreign sidewalks, greet people who likely think differently than I do, and find myself longing for "easy" or "normal." Where it would be simpler to hide, I want to pursue. When it would feel better to feed my anxiety, I want to choose compassion for others. Where it feels more natural to uphold my way of thinking as the best way, I want to listen and learn. When I find myself feeling like an outsider, I want to remember that Jesus was a pursuer of the fringe-dwellers and start looking around for who else might feel weird or uncomfortable. 

I want to remember that exile may be a place but it doesn't have to be a way of life. So this week, I am asking what it looks like to "seek the peace and prosperity" of this city that is now my home. Even in moments where I crave the familiarity of all I left behind, I want to choose instead to pray blessings and shalom over these people and this place. After all, "if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:7).