Proper 8 Year B

Proper 8

Mark 5: 21-43

Gaze on a crowd in a big city. Picture the platform at the tube station, where everyone is determined to catch the next train home and they all push and shove. Once on, they stand squashed together unable to breathe, and cannot avoid clinging to each other’s coats, smelling each other’s bodies, and overhearing private conversations. Their thighs press against each other’s and they long to escape. For this sort of touch is not respectful or caring; neither hopeful nor helpful. Crowds are not usually places where much loving goes on. Now gaze on the woman in this story, pressing through the crowd; she is timid but determined. The people are getting annoyed with her, looking askance, cross that she seems so insistent. Many there will know her, and her story. Why doesn’t she stay out of the way, where she belongs?...

Taken from Gazing on the Gospels Year B by Judith Dimond