"Touch"

On this Sunday before we celebrate the independence and the freedom of our nation, we also acknowledge the grief and the pain that has struck too close to home with the tragic deaths of 3 local teenagers last week, as well as the unspeakably violent death of Private Thomas Tucker of Madras, Oregon.  I am thankful that it is a Communion Sunday, because there have been many tears shed, and we need the touch of God that makes us whole.  We need to touch one another with the love of God, which is what the Sacrament of Holy Communion is all about.

Our Psalm opens with heart-rending words: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.”  Then the psalmists literally weeps the words: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, more than those who wait for the morning,” and finally, thankfully, ends with a prayer of assurance, “With the Lord there is steadfast love, with God is great power to redeem.”  That’s the assurance and the confidence we’re praying for this morning.

As we turn to the Gospel, we hear the familiar story of the woman who is healed by simply touching the hem of Jesus’ robe.  It is not a story about having enough faith to cure illness.  It’s not about being virtuous enough to be healed and it’s not even about believing in the power of prayer.  It’s a story about crying out to God and about God’s responding touch.  It’s about how that touch makes all the difference in the world.  It’s about a touch that moves her, and us from a feeling of despair to the confidence of knowing we are, through the love of Christ, made one with God and each other.

Think about what being touched means to you.  Many of us take it for granted, but there are many who do not.  It’s ironic that there are times, precisely when we are in the most pain, that touch is withheld.  The miracle and the beauty of what’s happening in Madras, Oregon, is that the whole town is reaching out to touch the Tucker family.  It is comforting, and healing.  But there are less dramatic cases, for instance when people are severely depressed, when touch is sometimes withheld.  Sometimes it even works that way when a tragedy strikes - people can withdraw.  “I just don’t know what to say,” we claim.

The woman in this story was just such an untouchable, only it was even worse.  People avoided her, religiously!  She was, according to scriptural law, shut out from society.  She was, because of her hemorrhage, considered unclean and was not allowed even to go to church for fear that she would contaminate others.  She was not allowed to touch or be touched.  If anyone did touch her, even by accident, they had to go and wash their bodies and their clothes and were considered unclean themselves.  After twelve years of being an untouchable, isolated and shunned by society, this woman was filled with a sense of her own spiritual unworthiness.  She was a broken and desperate woman, crying out to be healed and made whole, to be touched, both body and soul!  At least she was crying.  It’s a miracle that she hadn’t given up.  Crying out to be touched may very well be the power of God at work within us.

The Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kansas once identified a group of crib babies who did not cry.  Babies cry because they instinctively know that this is the way to get attention.  Crying is their way of calling out.  These babies, however, had been in abusive situations.  Their parents had let them cry for hours on end and never responded.  Eventually the babies stopped crying.  They had learned that it wasn’t worth trying.

So the Menninger Institute began an experiment.  They brought in people from retirement and nursing homes, and every day these people held the babies and rocked them.  The object was to get these babies to start crying again.  And it worked.  Physical touch had made the difference. 

Perhaps you’ve seen a picture showing two babies in an incubator entitled The Rescuing Hug.  The accompanying article details the first week of life of a set of twins.  They were in their respective incubators, and one was not expected to live.  A hospital nurse fought against the hospital rules and placed the babies in one incubator.  When they were placed together, the healthier of the two threw an arm over her sister in an endearing embrace.  The smaller baby’s heart rate stabilized and her temperature rose to normal.  The article ended with the words, “Let us not forget to embrace those whom we love.”

As healing as physical touch is, however, there’s something even more important, and that’s spiritual touch.  There are common expressions we’ve all used that speak of this feeling:  “Your special music this morning really touched me.  I was so moved by the play we saw last night.  It really touched me.  I can’t read that poem without crying.  It touches me every time.”  When we use expressions like these we’re touching the fringe of something holy.  We’re talking about our need for something transcendent, something that connects us to God and makes us aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

There’s something of the wounded child, the baby deprived of nurturing touch within us all.  There’s something of the fearful and isolated woman within each of us.  So often, for a whole variety of reasons, it’s hard for us to express our vulnerability, our loneliness and the isolation we feel.  We’re ashamed of our brokenness and want to appear strong.  We both long for and fear the touch of God.  It is, in fact, a sign of God’s grace that we continue to cry out, continue to reach for the fringe of Christ’s garment, continue to offer up a prayer for the healing of our own emotional loneliness, the darkness and the brokenness we feel.  I believe that you and I are here this morning, worshipping through song and prayer, through Word and Sacrament, because we long to reach out, to touch and be touched through our connection with the Life-giving Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.  That’s what it means to be the church.  There’s no way to do the work of Jesus Christ in this world without touching.

So, as we once again share in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, as we gather with friends and loved ones to give thanks for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, ask yourself: who or what has really touched you in the past week?  Who have you touched?  Have you touched someone’s life with acceptance, with forgiveness, with love and understanding?  That’s what it means to be the Body of Christ.  We’re meant to reach out and touch the very hearts and souls of others with the love of God.