To Touch the Hem

There was yelling, “Unclean, unclean.” She woke with a start. Sweating. Sitting up, she took deep breathes and waited for her pulse to slow. The dream had come again. Her nights were as interrupted as her days.  

She rose from a straw-covered floor in the animal pen. She could hear the household outside beginning to wake and knew that she should make herself scarce or the widow would not let her sleep in the pen any longer. Picking up her cloak and taking a quick drink of water from the bucket that would provide water for the animal trough, she made her way into the morning.  

Thinking of the widow’s conversation that she overheard last night, she wondered what today would hold. There was a prophet in the area, and he was healing people. Word had spread. While she was begging for charity that morning along the outskirts of the market, she heard murmurings. “I hear that he healed a blind man.” “I heard that he was baptized by John.” “I heard that he hangs out with tax collectors and sinners.” Everyone seemed to have a story to tell.

After eating a small crust of bread provided by a charitable laborer, she dreamed that maybe the prophet would come to this town. Maybe she could see what everyone was talking about. People were saying that he was holy, different.  

But, he was a Jew. And she was unclean. She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in pain. She had been in pain so long that she couldn’t remember how it started. Just that her pain and the bleeding made her an outcast. She was unclean.  She couldn’t find a home. Her family had long ago given up on her. The priests could not help. She hadn’t been to the Temple since she was child. She missed the wonder of feast days and festivals. Instead of the blessings of the priests and the splendor of the Temple, she could only hear the echoes of “unclean.” She couldn’t be part of her people. A Jew, but not a Jew. How could God be so cruel? Why wouldn’t God heal her? 

A commotion. A crowd was moving through the village. Dust everywhere. People were pushing and shoving. Instinctively, she cowered as the crowd started moving. Not knowing what was happening, she was scared to enter the fray. Terrified that someone would turn on her because she was sick. Then, she heard it. “It’s him.”

The prophet. The crowd was active and immense. Moving through the street like a river, following, listening, clamoring. Someone said, “He healed my daughter this morning.” At those words, her heart leapt. Like a cool rain at the end of the day, the word “healed” poured over her. Perhaps. 

But I am unclean. I have nothing to wear to cover my shame. This old dirty tunic.  The stains. He won’t let me near him. “The Kingdom of God is near,” someone shouted. At that proclamation, her heart pounded. She couldn’t breathe. She began to walk. Determined. Then, she starting to push into the crowd. She was touching people, fighting through the rush. “Blessed is he…,” she could only hear that voice and moved toward it. 

The crowd was rowdy. It shifted. She fell. Legs and tunics all around her. Dust and dirt from the road in her eyes. The crowd moving slower. Murmuring. “No,” the cry of her spirit.  She began to crawl. Men stepped aside at her touch. She was pushed down again by the crowd, but she continued to crawl. Then, she saw his back as he passed. He was speaking, but all she could hear was the sound of the feet around her. One more moment and he would be gone. “If only,” she thought. 

Crawling, striving, struggling, she reached out and touched the hem of his tunic. She fell into the dirt again and the crowd continued past. She lay there. Alone again. But feeling stronger, sated. 

Then, a hand. “Rise,” he said. The sun blocking out everything but the hand. Refusing the hand, “I am unclean,” she says. That voice, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” He bends down, and with two hands helps her up. Then, he disappears into the crowd again. She stands there, strong for the first time that she can remember, and she hopes for new dreams of a home, a husband, and children…no more hearing the echoes of “unclean.”