Praying with icons - November 2, 2025

Touch the hem

All of us in different ways are called to to give life to others.

But often we end up wounded or we become cold, unable to give life to others.

We're no longer whole. And that limits how we can love and especially how fully we can give life.

And that's what happens in the gospel is we meet this woman who her capacity to be able to give life has been hemorrhaging away, making it impossible for her to give life to others.

What Jesus does is He gives back to her this possibility of giving life and all of us in different ways need that miracle.

By the time we're ready to give life off and something has become cold in us, lifeless.

Parts of us have died or wounded or we're hemorrhaging a spirit from our bodies, our spirit and our heart.

There are two moments in this healing. There's the initial mute touch and then there's the explicit exchange between her and Jesus that takes place later.

When she touches the hem of his garment, she is healed and then when she speaks with Jesus and tells him the whole truth, she's fully healed.

This story lays out the pattern of healing. We will find healing and wholeness by touching the body of Christ.

And as members of the body of Christ, we're called the dispense healing by touching others.

If we say and believe that God's presence exists everywhere at work, at home, on the road, we can say that these are all places where coldness and misunderstanding and divisions exist, waiting to be healed and to be reconciled, often through us.

If we simply pay attention to people, God will act through our words, our actions, our attitudes, our gestures.

And God will accomplish that healing.

We need to understand that there's always something we can do. We can continue to love and forgive and communicate that compassion to those around us.

Our touch is God's touch.

Since we are a part of the body of Christ, when we touch others, Christ is touching them.

When we love others, Christ is loving them.

When we forgive others, Christ is forgiving them because our touch is the touch of the body of Christ.

Part of the wonder of the incarnation is the astonishing truth that we can do for each other what Jesus does for us. Jesus gives us that power. We are the body of Christ.

And this body of Christ, when it touches others and forgives others, accomplishes in them the same mystery of transformation that takes place in the gospel.

Through us, the people around us touch the hem of Christ garment, our held to the body of Christ, our forgiven by God.

And this happens regardless of their relationship to the church.

So tonight we give thanks for those who have touched us, have helped us to be healed, touched to help us to touch that holy hem with or without words.

And we pray that we will be faithful to this great power that's been given to us so that we can tell others.

Jesus tells us "In truth, I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works that I do myself and will perform even greater works."

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