Chapel Talk, November 3, 2003

James M. May

A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, 8: 42b-48

Anyone who peruses the Gospel account of St. Luke, or for that matter, any of the other three narratives about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, will come quickly to the realization that much of the three years of Jesus' public life took place surrounded by crowds of people, what the Gospels often call in English, the “multitudes.” Indeed, from the time of his first public sign at the wedding feast at Cana up through his crucifixion, Jesus was accompanied, often even hounded by large throngs of people, a motley group comprised most assuredly of all sorts, from disciples and believers to skeptics and the curious, gathering to hear his words or hanging around in hopes of witnessing one of his miracles. And much of the Gospel narrative--as our reading today--is devoted to describing Jesus' interaction with the multitude or individuals in it, or his attempts, along with the twelve, to escape the crowd and find some sort of solitude, if only for a brief time. To be sure, Jesus must have been something of a first-century celebrity, on a par with one of today's star athletes or rock stars--wherever he set foot, he was bound to draw a crowd.

All of us in this chapel, at least to some degree, have had experiences with crowds. I have had the good fortune, in fact, of being in several notable crowds: a shocked and terrified crowd at Kent State on May 4, 1970, in the aftermath of the shooting of more than a dozen classmates by the National Guard; the vast multitude of literally hundreds of thousands of pilgrims attending the Papal Mass in Iowa; the crowds of 40,000+ at the Metrodome, celebrating both Twins' World Series championships in 1987 and 1991. But perhaps just as memorable as those historical experiences, were my first, ordinary encounters with crowds in the Mediterranean world. Those of you who have traveled in those lands where Jesus, the apostles, and St. Paul worked and traveled will know that Mediterranean crowds are somehow inherently different from those generally in our country. It must have something to do with the notions of individual personal space in our culture and theirs. At any rate, I remember with great vividness and a certain sense of glee my first trolley-bus ride in Athens. I pushed onto an already full bus through the rear doors, thinking I was lucky to be probably the last person who would manage to force his way onto this bus. Oh, how wrong I was! At nearly every city block, we stopped and took on more passengers, while seeming not to drop off any at all. I marveled at how, when the doors opened, there appeared to be no space whatsoever; but inexplicably another five or ten people were able to cram their way into the crowded trolley at each stop. I could hardly believe that the driver would continue to take on more passengers; but that's exactly what he did. After five or six such stops, I found myself literally wedged between a large, heavy-set woman and one of the hand-holding poles near the rear of the bus. As I turned my cheek, which was jammed tight against the pole and tried to look up, I discovered very quickly yet another disadvantage of being 5' 5" tall: it was late July in sweltering Athens, and my head was perfectly perched at arm-pit level!

Four years later, I found myself in similar crowd, this time in Italy. During the summer before coming to teach at St. Olaf, I had the privilege of studying the topography of Rome and environs at the American Academy in Rome. One evening my wife and I decided to attend a performance of the famed open-air opera, whose stage and backdrop are set in the ruins of the ancient Baths of the Roman Emperor Caracalla. We arrived a bit early and the gates to the Baths were still locked, with a small crowd waiting there. As the time of the performance drew near, the crowd had grown considerably. People were talking, buying refreshments from the street-side vendors, and some even were singing arias from Rigoletto, the opera that was about to play. As the guard approached to open the gates, this seemingly benign, aria-singing crowd, some dressed in suits, tuxedos, and evening gowns, turned a bit crazy. The press was on, and my wife and I were almost crushed from all sides. I remember looking back at my wife, whose feet were literally off the ground as she was being swept along for 10 or 20 yards by the momentum of the crowd. If it hadn't been a bit terrifying, it would have been plenty funny. Fortunately, we all survived intact to hear the arias reprised later by the actual divas.

Whenever I read or hear today's text from St. Luke, my mind immediately returns to those experiences in those Mediterranean crowds. Somehow the scene must have been something like those occasions. Jesus had just returned to Galilee from the land of the Gerasenes, to a crowd that had been waiting for him. As he makes his way forward, Luke tells us that the people pressed in upon him. The verbs that the Evangelist employs in the Greek text to describe the action of the multitude vis-à-vis Jesus are instructive and colorful: sumpnigo, “to choke up, to throttle”; sunecho, “to encompass, oppress”; apothlibo, “to press upon, to squeeze.” Somehow in the midst of this confusion, a confusion probably not unlike that at the opening of the gates at the Baths of Caracalla, a woman manages to fight her way up behind Jesus and barely touches the hem of his garment. Then Jesus, in typical fashion, says something that absolutely flabbergasts his disciples. He asks what seems to be a rather silly question, “Who touched me?” Peter reasonably responds that the crowd has utterly engulfed them and is pressing in on him; of course he has been touched, not by someone but by everyone! But Jesus retorts, “No, someone touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me.”

What a remarkable statement; it's almost as if this poor, weak woman, who has suffered from a debilitating hemorrhage for more than a decade, has sneaked up on Jesus and stolen a bit of his power! And indeed, what else are we to conclude but that there must be more than one way to approach, more than one way to touch Jesus: there's touch, and then there's TOUCH. The sequel to the episode makes clear what it is that makes the difference. After the woman declares before the crowd what she had done and how she had been healed, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well [saved you]; go in peace.”

It seems to me that these 8 verses, couched between two more lengthy and more famous narratives in the Gospel of Luke, have extraordinary significance for us. There is not one of us in this chapel who is not in need of some sort of healing, some sort of relief from the hemorrhaging brought on by our sin, relief that only our Lord and Creator can bestow. We stand here today, at this point in our lives, as members of the crowd; and though we don't quite have the physical opportunity to reach out and touch the hem of his garment as did the long-suffering woman, we do in reality have that same opportunity to touch him, be it through our love of neighbor, our membership in his mystical body, the church, or through his sacramental presence in the Holy Eucharist. But we need to ask ourselves which type of crowd member we will be; the type whose touch is merely incidental, spurred on by curiosity or, with the interest characteristic of a detached spectator, carried on by the momentum of the rest of the crowd; or will we choose to emulate that woman’s behavior, so that, blessed with confidence in the healing power of the Master, we press on doggedly through the multitude, in spite of our weakened and debilitated state, yet firm in the conviction that by merely touching the hem of his garment, with a touch entirely founded in faith, we might be made whole.

Let us pray together today not only for that gift of faith, but also for the courage to profess it in the presence of the whole crowd, as did the woman with the hemorrhage. In doing so, we may be so bold as to expect that we (as did she) might receive a portion of our Savior's power, the only power that can grant true peace in this life and the next.