Stigmatized to Death (Mark 5:21-43)

We like these kinds of stories, when we let them stand as weird, abstract hangups from 2,000 years ago that we would definitely never worry about.

 In 2012, I attend an academic conference on religion and HIV/AIDS at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya. I played the role of dutifully listening graduate student in a room full of titans. One presentation still stands out in my mind. A pastor from South Africa spoke at length about his work has a HIV positive religious leader and what it took to be so public about having the disease and maintain his standing in a faith community. His larger argument in that presentation and his work as an activist focused on driving down the stigma that people faced for being HIV positive. Even four decades into the pandemic, HIV still confers an aurora of sexual impropriety, despite the fact that a huge percentage of new HIV infections, at this point in history, come via maternal to child transmission or from an uninfected spouse getting HIV from their HIV positive spouse, within the bounds of their marriage. Churches and religious leaders hold a lot of blame for establishing and perpetuating the stigma, and if the Church wants to play a more positive role in helping people with HIV/AIDS, the church needs to do some repenting. Stigmatization kills people because rejection and the life of a social outcast takes some of the joy out of living. In the case of HIV/AIDS, the lack of motivation to live means a lack of motivation to take the medicines that keep the disease repressed. Our research showed that positive interactions with church led folks to take their meds and live longer. However, as an HIV positive person, to have such an interaction, they would have to trust that they would not be judged, rejected, and put down because a virus had set up shop in their immune system.

As a result of that lecture, at some point during my work in a small rural, Kenyan village, I held a worship service specifically for the folks that came to our village’s clinic to get their HIV meds. I have no memory of what I said to them, and it was probably terrible. Knowing that era of myself well, I probably preached on Romans 8, that nothing can separate you from the love of God – including HIV. That God doesn’t reject you for having a disease. If I could go back now, twelve years later, and undo some of my early crimes against preaching, I would use these two healing miracles in Mark 5 because they give a much more concrete version of God loving across stigmatized social barriers.

Leviticus 15:25-27 declares:

If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, for all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness; as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. Every bed on which she lies during all the days of her discharge shall be treated as the bed of her impurity; and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her impurity. Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening. (Leviticus 15:25-27 NRSV)

Numbers 19:14 states:

This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean for seven days. (Numbers 19:14 NRSV)

Both of Christ’s interactions impart uncleanliness. The woman with the 12 year long hemorrhage touches him, and he enters the house of the dead girl. One can understand the purity laws as a way of honoring God by establishing some early public health and sanitation rules. However, by Jesus’s time, as we’ve seen again and again, following important protections had swollen to an utter rejection of anything that doesn’t fit within the precise letter of the law. Christ appears unincumbered by such concerns. When Jesus calls out, wondering who touched him, the formerly bleeding woman falls down at his feet trembling. In that moment, she seems to fear the rebuke for passing on her uncleanliness. Instead, Jesus celebrates her faith. “He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’” (Mark 5:34 NRSV) The crowd gives the father of the dead girl trouble for roping Jesus into the situation. “While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ (Mark 5:35 NRSV) Why bother passing on any additional uncleanliness because she already died? Jesus walks right in and brings her back to life.

In 21st Century America, we largely don’t share these specific concerns. We often put the dead on display at their own funerals, and our understanding of women’s ability to participate in society has blessedly changed. However, as my example from Kenya illustrates, we simply moved onto different things that impart stigma or uncleanliness. Our pain at seeing a loved one with Dementia often keeps us away depriving them of life sustaining human contact. We express profound annoyance and attempt to cordon off unruly young children or folks on the Autism spectrum that don’t conform to normal standards of behavior often cutting them and their families off from the joys of community. In 1969, Mr. Rogers made waves by airing a scene of him sharing a small wading pool with Officers Clemons, an African American police officer. This pushed back against the long standing racist assumption that African American were more likely to spread disease, and thus, the races should not share pools.

What do we think Jesus would do in these situations?

Declaring someone unclean, imparting stigma, particularly for a condition beyond their control, often makes them suffer twice. They suffer from the thing that hurts them, and they suffer rejection and isolation - a profound pain for an innately social creature. In each of the two miracles, Jesus restores their bodies and brings them and their families back into the social fold. This gives us a model for action. We reject stigma, care not for our own social purity, and seek to bring everyone away from the margins back into beloved community. We stop developing new, weird hangups and never let them stop us from welcoming people.