Hosea 2:16-18, 21-22, Psalm 145:2-9, Matthew 9:18-26
I may be wrong about this but I think, too often, we associate salvation and the coming of God’s Kingdom with life after death. That’s certainly how it was portrayed to me as I grew up. You lived and sacrificed in this life to earn the reward of heaven after death. I certainly believe that’s true but it can have an element of over emphasis on life after death. An over emphasis on the heavenly kingdom can lead us to believe that somehow this life is primarily a testing ground to prove ourselves worthy for heaven. As if all that’s important is getting to heaven.
Today’s readings can help us get a more balanced view. They speak of the amazing coincidence of physical and spiritual in this life. I think what is miraculous is how flesh is infused with spirit. How spirit emerges in everyday existence and how physical pains and set-backs can dampen spirit. If Jesus is God’s message to the world, then we have to take seriously our doctrine of incarnation. Because what it says is that God and human existed together in Jesus, one, unified person. If Jesus is God’s message, then God is telling us something about this world and ourselves. This world and therefore our lives are infused with the spirit of God. We just have to be open to it. We have to have what we call faith.
Having faith is the key element in the Gospel today. We have the stories of two women, one a young girl who had died and another who bleeds all the time and is therefore unclean and a pariah according to Jewish law. One story is told inside the other. This is a writing technique of the time which is meant to tell the reader that the story in the middle carries the meaning for both. The technique is called a “sandwich,” because the good stuff is in the middle between the other two halves. The story of raising the little girl to life is the frame. It’s the ultimate miracle because a person comes back from death to life. But the story of the woman reaching out to touch the tassel of Jesus cloak holds the truth that Matthew is trying to teach. This outcast has reached out because she believes to touch Jesus is to be healed. Matthew’s Jesus responds to her touch by saying what we need to know, “Your faith has saved you.”
This is the physical and spiritual coming together. Her physical outreach is the expression of her faithful spirit. Jesus responds with physical healing and his words encourage her spirit. It’s all rolled up together. The reality of this moment is so concrete that the Greek word we read as “healed” in this translation is the same word used for saved. Matthew understands this woman’s healing as her being saved. We too should to try to understand salvation as part of our lives here and now and not just after death.
The bible is full of these concrete images of God’s intimacy with human existence. The reading from Hosea is another example of that. To talk about the relationship between God and Israel, Hosea uses the description of a love affair between a man and his wife. We need to take these stories as more than metaphorical images. No doubt the physicality of these images is used because God’s presence in the here and now is so intimate that we have a hard time believing it.
How close are we willing to let God come to us? Can we let go enough to know God as present? Or will we hold on to how we think of ourselves too tightly and only guess at God’s love from afar? Many of us are married for many years. What did it take to become close, to come to know your spouse over the years? What giving up was involved, what trust in the other? But tell me, what joy is it to be that close, to have that faith. What joy is it … to be saved!
