“I’m sorry” or “excuse me” is a phrase we use almost every day. We repeat it endlessly when we’re in a crowded event as we brush someone or simply pass uncomfortably close to them.
Honestly, unless I’ve physically hurt someone, I don’t usually apologize for this social faux pas.
Wait, wait, though. Don’t count me out as rude.
This column isn’t a rant against good manners. I just think it’s sad when we have to say we’re sorry for giving someone a human touch, accidental or otherwise.
Our apology might be better saved for those moments when we fail to give people a caring touch. I think our failure to touch each other can sometimes be more harmful than an accidental encounter.
For the most part I try to avoid sermonizing in this column but I think it’s worth retelling a story recorded in the Christian Gospels about a woman who spent 12 years seeking a healing touch. She was sick with a bleeding disorder and spent her savings on doctors who proved unable to help her.
In desperation, she used crowd cover to surreptitiously touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. The biblical record claims that this brush with the divine miraculously healed her and her hemorrhaging stopped.
Interestingly enough, instead of saying, “Pardon me, ma’am,” Jesus asked, “Who touched me?”
The dumbfounded disciples responded with: “Didn’t you notice that you’re in a crowd?” Their question implies they were annoyed with Jesus’ expectation that they should be able to identify any specific individual in such a large crowd.
Anyone who has experienced a pressing Independence Day crowd or the bustle of holiday shoppers knows the impossibility of Jesus’ question.
The truth is that touching someone or seeking the touch of another is always a risky thing. If, like this woman, you touch someone seeking help, you risk the humiliation of rejection. Maybe that’s why Jesus’ question made this woman duck in shame.
Perhaps she thought, “Who am I to approach such a masterful teacher for healing? What makes me think I’m that important?”
That’s what shame does to us. It makes us question ourselves to the point of diminishing our worth. It causes us to distance ourselves from those who would help us.
According to Luke 8 in The Message version of the Bible, “Jesus insisted, ‘Someone touched me. I felt power discharging from me.’ Immediately the woman blurted out her story — why she touched him and how at that same moment she was healed.”
However, it was what Jesus said next that interests me most. “Daughter, you took a risk trusting me, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed!” At the end of the day, faith always is about risk. It’s risking something you have to receive something of higher value — your personal healing.
In reading the story, you might ask: “This woman had nothing to lose, so why wouldn’t she risk touching Jesus?” I suspect she had a great deal to lose. After all, she had somehow managed a precarious existence for 12 years, and with that single touch, she risked losing everything.
When I consider how she risked her status quo for a touch from God, I have to ask myself, where is my faith? What do I risk? My prayer for us today is that we take that risk. Seek a touch and seek to be touched.
Live well, live blessed.
Syndicated columnist Chaplain Norris Burkes began his chaplain career with both the active-duty Air Force and the Air National Guard until his retirement in 2014. He later served as a board-certified healthcare chaplain at Sutter Memorial, Kaiser, Methodist and Mather VA hospitals and continues to work with area Hospice. His column is syndicated to more than 35 accredited news outlets. Read past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net. Leave recorded comments at (843) 608-9715.
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