The Bleeding Woman and Her Friends

A few weeks ago at New Beginnings, the Lutheran church I help serve that meets inside the Denver Women’s Prison, we all said this call to worship written by Pastor Samm:

Come, all who are weary,

all who carry burdens too heavy to bear,

all who long for mercy, a fresh start, and a second chance.

We come to the God of New Beginnings,

who makes a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert.

Here, in this place. walls do not define us-

God’s grace does.

Chains do not name us -

Christ does.

We are God’s beloved.

We are not our past.

We are becoming something new.

Let every heart open to the Spirit.

Let every voice rise in praise.

For even now, God is doing a new thing!

Here we worship the God of freedom, forgiveness and life.

Welcome to New Beginnings.

These are powerful words to speak out loud with a roomful of incarcerated women and more often than not, I find myself leaning on their faith in God’s mercy.

In fact, New Beginnings often reminds me of the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:

Now  there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

I’ve always wondered about what happened after this story.

I like to think that maybe the bleeding woman met often with the lepers and the rich young men and prostitutes and tax collectors who also had encounters with Jesus.  I like to think that they gathered and ate great food together and sang gorgeous hymns of God’s salvation and did all of it to remind each other that they are new. 

Even when they lived in a world that wanted them to remain the identified problem. 

Even when they lived in a world that wanted to give them an identity based on something false and small and wholly insignificant to God. 

Even when they perhaps felt drawn back to being what they had been because at least it’s familiar and comfortable.

Even when all this happened, I hope they became community.  I hope that the bleeding woman had the other healed freaks over on a regular basis because it is only in this way that we remember who we really are. 

We are not our past.

We are becoming something new.

I kind of only want to be around other people who also believe this.

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