The woman touched the fringe of his cloak, and she was healed. But this was not a magical fringe: her faith made her well.
The fringe was and is a religious artifact. In Hebrew it’s called a tzitzit. It’s a series of knotted tassels, worn to remind the wearer of the mitzvot, the commandments of God in the Torah — commandments about welcoming the stranger, about sustaining a healthy community, about living ethically and peacefully in God’s presence. A rough (a very rough) Christian equivalent might be the stole of a priest or deacon. When I wear my stole, it becomes a colorful, physical reminder of the baptismal identity we all share.
The woman summons her courage and faith, and rushes up to touch the tzitzit of a Judean rabbi. Jesus is immediately aware of her action, turns and sees her, and quickly grasps the situation. He praises her for summoning her own faith to approach him and to touch his clothing — clothing powerfully laden with religious meaning. Her healing is not only physical: her faith, and the savvy, compassionate response of Jesus, restore her spiritually and socially to her people.
Now, imagine that woman in need of healing coming into this room, among all of us, next to you, next to me. A twelve-year hemorrhage: this ambiguous ailment is meant to signify an utter outcast. Twelve years: twelve is a biblical number representing fullness, completeness: her illness is comprehensive. It has fully overtaken her life. And the hemorrhage is likely related to her female anatomy, and so, in that patriarchal culture, she is as ritually unclean as a person can be.
It might be hard for us to imagine that woman in this room, because we might not believe that anyone is an outcast here. All are welcome, remember? “All are welcome” is one of our most treasured beliefs about ourselves, about our church. But are all people really welcome? When an unhoused neighbor comes into church during one of our liturgies, we can feel tension rising. The person looks unpredictable, risky, scary. Maybe they smell terrible. Maybe they talk out of turn, and talk loudly. They might be high. (Of course if they are high, they’re not all that different from wealthier people who come here on Christmas Eve with a strong buzz from the wine at dinner.) We want to welcome these neighbors, and often enough we do offer them some amount of hospitality, but I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we will concede that we feel relieved when they walk back out the door.
Meanwhile, it took a long time for us to improve the accessibility to our buildings. Even shortening a few pews necessitated several discussions. We needed to shorten them so that people who come here by wheelchair can truly join the assembly and not be blocking aisles and walkways, as if their presence here was an afterthought. We welcome people here in defiance of the ableism that pervades our dominant culture. But we don’t have a perfect record on this. We don’t have a long history of responding to accessibility needs with urgency and skill.
Meanwhile, I hope it has not escaped your notice that St. Paul’s is whiter than the Uptown neighborhood that surrounds us. We are wealthier, too. We say we want to participate in the splendid diversity of God’s creation, but we always have more to learn about all the ways that patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy have damaged and distorted our own humanity, and sapped God’s beautiful rainbow of its vivid colors, even here in our beloved parish church.
And then there are other needs, other differences, other personal problems, other ways to “other” people, other ways to be “othering.” I have a little personal enemies list, I confess, just a handful of people in my life who have (from my perspective at least) mistreated me, disrespected me, even (in a couple of cases) emotionally abused me. Do I really welcome them here? Would I really want to walk into this room, lustily singing the entrance hymn, and see them turning to face me from the pews? I want to say yes. I want to say they’re welcome here, even by me. But is that so?
Anyone and everyone you can think of whose presence in this room might make you uncomfortable, for any reason, has as their forebear the woman with the hemorrhage who touched the tzitzit of the Judean rabbi Jesus.
Here is how it works:
Right now I am thinking of someone whose presence in this room would make me uncomfortable. I am certain you do not know this person. The person is not a member of the parish, and to my knowledge has never even been on campus. The person does not live at or near Seattle. Now, if this community is functioning the way Jesus wants it to function, it works like this: This person I know would come in here and touch my stole. The healing this person would seek is the repair of our relationship. The person would ask for and receive my forgiveness, and I would ask for theirs.
By touching my stole, the person would be reminding me of my obligations, my vocation, and my identity. “You are a baptized Christian” — that’s what the person says when they touch my stole. Meanwhile, someone else might come in here and touch your white robe, if you’re a lay altar server, or if you sing in the choir. Another person might come in here and touch your skirt, or your blue jeans, or your jacket. “You are a baptized Christian” — that’s what these unwelcome folks are saying when they touch the fringes of our garments.
If we are baptized Christians, we have obligations to one another, to our neighbor, to the stranger. Our vocation compels us to allow the outcasts of our day to come close, close enough to touch us. Our identity moves our gazes outward and away from ourselves, away from our favorite people, and toward the last people we would expect to come in here, the last people we would want to come in here.
But then, you might be that other person: not the person whose garment fringe gets touched, but one of the people who claim the woman with the hemorrhage as your companion, your patron. Maybe you are coming into this room because you need healing, physically, socially, spiritually. You have been, or you are, an outcast of one sort or another. If so, I am glad you are here. And I hope our community is even half as clever as Jesus, half as quick to perceive your need, and respond to your courageous touch.
Friends, I can think of no better news for this raging and war-torn world than this Good News of truly radical welcome, truly life-changing encounters, truly healing conversations. I can think of nothing else the world needs more than this. “Go and learn what this means,” Jesus says, and then he quotes the prophet Hosea: “God desires mercy, not sacrifice.” Mercy: a dangerous and risky vulnerability to an enemy, so that everyone can lay down their arms and bring justice back to the land. Mercy: a brave and prophetic choice to look into the eyes of people who are routinely ignored, people literally kicked to the curb. Mercy: a new yet ancient way to mend the world, one restored relationship at a time.
If the person you like the very least, or the person who startles and scares you, or the person whose needs make you anxious comes up to you and touches the fringe of your garment, will you be able to recognize their faith? Will you allow them to draw close to you, knowing how costly and painful that encounter could be? And if you are that person for some or all of us here, will you summon your courage and faith to assert for the healing you need?
I pray that God will bless us with these troubling and costly encounters. After all, if not for these terrible connections and vulnerable conversations, what in the world is any one of us even doing in this room?
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Preached on the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5A), June 7, 2026, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Hosea 5:15-6:6
Psalm 50:7-15
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26