2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; 2 Cor 8:7-15; Mk 5:21-43

About ten years ago my husband, Paul, and I were assigned to two churches in Northwest Iowa. We weren't there very long when I was called to a couple's house. When I arrived I found a woman, a little younger than me, at the door. She invited me in, and as I went towards the chair and sat down I noticed she had a black eye, a swollen jaw and many marks, some bruises, upon her arms and legs. She walked slowly to the couch as I sat in a chair.

She began to tell me her story. She told me she had been married three years. They had a daughter two and a son nine months old. Her husband drank on and off and right now he was looking for a job, then things would be better. She wanted to talk to me so I could talk to her husband, especially about the physical and verbal abuse he was giving to her.

I sat there for an hour and a half listening to her story. Hearing the pain and brokenness in her life. I remember her telling me her philosophy of life: hugs equals hurt, touch equals pain, and nearness equals death. Hugs hurt, because when her husband got angry he would hug her so it hurt. Touching meant pain, because of his hitting her so often. Nearness was like death because she was so psychologically co-dependent upon her husband to the extent that it was killing her physically and spiritually.

Our gospel lesson for today is actually a story of a miracle within a story about a miracle. The larger story is one about how Jesus was called to heal the daughter of the leader of the synagogue in the town of Genesaret. But, today, I would like to focus upon the miracle that took place as Jesus was on his way to the leader's house.

As Jesus was walking along people were pressing around him, knowing, thinking, hoping, that he was going to do something special. And in the crowd, off to the side there was a woman who had been sick for many years. Her disease was one which caused her to hemorrhage; so because of Jewish Law she was forced to remain separate from those around her. And, more than this, because life equals blood, her life was actually being drained from her physically. So, there she was, an outcast, and yet she dared to come near this crowd because she had heard that this Jesus could heal. She thought, "If only I can get near him and touch just his garment, I will be healed." And so she made her approach. She touched his garment and she felt her body being healed. At that moment Jesus felt someone touching him. It was a different touch from the other people in the crowd. He felt a healing touch going out from him. He turned to see who had touched him, and there he found the woman.

Now, you need to understand that her risking to touch a male in society was a tabu. Second, you need to understand her great faith that just touching his garment would equal healing. But not did Jesus heal her physically, he went on to speak to her and gave her the opportunity to tell her story. And so she told him her whole story, the whole truth, which meant that she held nothing back, but had faith and trust in Jesus to hear.

There is the story that we who attended Annual Conference heard during one of our worship services, a story told by the Conference preacher, Susan Henry Crow, chaplain at Emery University. She told of how a husband and a wife had gone through a divorce; and of how that divorce was especially painful and perplexing to the wife. For a long time after the divorce the woman couldn't understand what she had done wrong, of how their marriage could have failed like it did. She spent months agonizing, painfully wondering, feeling guilty over what she might have done.

Finally, after some time, her divorced husband called her on the telephone and arranged a meeting with her. He said on the telephone that he wanted to explain the whole truth. And, so, as they got together in a private place, he broke down in tears and told her something that he had always been afraid to tell her. He said, "I'm gay."

Suddenly, with the whole truth having been told, the woman's and the man's life could begin the healing that had not been allowed before. Telling the whole truth was necessary, is necessary, if healing is ever to take place.

It's hard to tell the whole truth. We often only want to tell what is convenient for us or will be supportive to our particular situation or thought. The alternative to telling the whole truth is revealed and shown in the book by M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie." When the whole truth is not given we give in to being people living with lies. This road that we take is always the wide and easy road, but it leads to destruction. To tell the whole truth is sometimes difficult. The road of truth is narrow and winding. It takes great courage to take this path through life.

Telling the whole truth very often means first facing up to and dealing with one's own prejudices and beliefs which can be a most difficult and hurtful thing to do. It takes great courage and risk-taking to do this.

The woman that I spoke about earlier, whose husband was physically and verbally abusive, wanted me to sit down and talk with her husband. So, in fact, the opportunity came for me to do that. The woman's husband and I talked at least twice about how his behavior was hurting himself and his family. As a result of our conversations a chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous was started in the basement of my church. It is there in the church, before others that this man and this woman could stand up and speak the truth about their lives. They told the whole truth and, as a result, they began the road to being healed, physically and spiritually, as well.

Now, there is something related to this that we who think of ourselves as "church people" need to think about once in a while. So often, when people think about the church, they think of it in terms of being a place that is for "good" people, only. But, of course, the church is for everyone, even for those who are "bad," and just for those who do terribly "bad" things, but for those who, like us do some of the little "bad" things, the subtle things that are sins, even though we don't like to admit it. The church, then, is for those who go five or ten miles over the speed limit. The church is for those who sometimes drink a little too much. The church is for those who get angry with their family once in a while and lose their temper and yell. The church is for those who eat too much, or smoke too much, or gossip too much, or tell half- truths too much. In other words, my friends, the church is for everyone one of us sitting here in this room, this morning. We all need to reach out and touch the garment of Jesus. We all need to take the risk in order to be healed and whole and free from those things that bind us or separate us or hinder us in life.

Amen.