Episode 590: - The Hem of His Garment - Voices in my Head (the Rick Lee James Podcast)

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and today is actually a chapel service once again from the hospital at Springfield Regional Medical Center. So we're just about to get started, so enjoy. Welcome everyone who is watching from your rooms today and everyone who is here in the chapel with us this afternoon. We're glad to have you here. For our non-denominational Christian service today. We're grateful to have you here. We're gonna start today, actually, by the way, let me introduce myself. I'm Chaplain Rick. This is Jill on the piano today. And we're gonna just start with a song called "Hymn." It's H-E-M, not H-Y-M-N. And if you need lyrics to it, we actually have lyrics laying on our front seat up here. So feel free to help yourself if you'd like to sing along. It's kind of a bluegrassy song. So here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4.

I reach out and touch the throne. I cry out, "Dear Lord, have mercy on my soul." I reach out and touch his throne. I reach out and touch the hem of his garment. Reach out and touch his throne. I cry out, "Lord, by the power of the Holy Ghost, reach out and touch his throne." And I will go. Reach out and touch his move. I cry out, Lord, by the power of the Holy Ghost, reach out and touch his move.

And now we go.

An old lady in the Bible says she was sick and close to death. Well, she broke through the crowd, touched the hem of Jesus' robe, and on that day was healed, made whole. She reached out and touched the hem of his garment, reached out and touched his robe. She cried out, "Lord!" By the power of the Holy Ghost, reached out and touched his robe. Who shall touch the hem of his garment? Who shall touch his robe? I cry out though, by the power of the Holy Ghost, who shall touch his robe? And I believe God.

Right, well, thank you, Jill, for joining me today on the piano. We're so glad to have you here with us today, and we are grateful for everyone who has joined us both in the chapel and in your rooms on Channel 58 today. We're so glad to have you here with us. Again, my name is Chaplain Rick, and we want you to know that our chaplains are here to be present to all of you in this room, to all of you on your— who may be watching today. We are always more than happy to come by and spend some time with you if we can be of any support. So grace and peace to you all. And today I want to invite us all not just to hear a story, but actually to enter into one, and not just to read about Jesus, but to meet him today. So let's not rush through this time. Let's imagine our way into this story in scripture today. So first I'm gonna read from Mark chapter 5, verses 24 through 34. It's actually about what we just sang about today, touching the hem of Jesus' garment. And it says this: So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak— what we just sang about— because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around into the crowd and he asked, "Who touched my clothes?" "You see people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, she told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be free from your suffering." Well, now we're gonna hear that scripture again in a different way, and I want to invite you into something called Ignatian reflection. It's from Saint Ignatius, actually. Who started the Jesuits. He had a way of bringing reflection into prayer times, and he would use scripture to help us imagine sitting and being with God. So I want to invite all of us now in this room, in your hospital rooms, wherever you find yourself today, if you're comfortable, I just want to invite you to close your eyes, to take a breath, and let your body settle into the seat where you are sitting in. The bed that you're lying in today, and step into this story once again as you just think and use your imagination to hear God through prayer. You step into the story and you are part of the crowd. People are all around you jostling, shouting, pushing closer to Jesus, and you can barely see him in the distance ahead. His robes are flowing. His disciples are near him. People are reaching out to him from all sides. The air outside is dusty and hot. And suddenly in the midst of this chaos, you notice her. A woman. She's thin. She's worn. She's hunched over. Her eyes look tired but determined. She's not supposed to be here. You can tell. The crowd parts for a moment and she slips through with her head down, looking almost ashamed. And you hear her whisper, maybe to herself, maybe to God, "If I just touch his clothes, I'll be healed." She doesn't reach for his hand. She doesn't even ask him to stop. She just stretches out her arm, trembling, and gazes at the hem of his robe. And suddenly she stops. She stands still. And you see her eyes widen in wonder as in that same instant as she touches the hem of his robe, Jesus stops too. And he turns and looks around and he asks, "Who touched me?" The disciples laugh at Jesus. "There are dozens of people touching you, Rabbi!" But he knows. And the woman, still shaking with fear, she falls at his feet and says, "It was me." She tells him everything. The years of pain, the doctors, the shame, the emptiness. And now in this moment, this brush against the hem of his garment Jesus smiles. He doesn't rebuke her. He gently calls her "Daughter" and joyfully says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Well, if you had your eyes shut wherever you are, you can open them again. I wonder what you felt in that moment. Were you the woman in the story? Were you a bystander? Were you one of the disciples? That's the beauty of this way of Ignatian prayer. It places us inside the story where we realize that this woman's story is actually our story too. This woman had tried everything. 12 years of suffering. Empty pockets from spending all her money on cures failed treatments, isolation from her community. Under the law, her condition made her untouchable, but her faith made her bold. She doesn't demand a miracle, she just wants to be near Jesus. If I can just touch the hem of his garment, and that is enough. Just that. Jesus doesn't heal her, he just sees her. He wants to hear her story. He stops everything to meet her and to just be fully present as the healing just goes out from him. And if we're honest, we are all those same people reaching out.

All of us.

We are people grasping around in hospital rooms, in grocery store lines, in our family, in this very room. We are those people who are still reaching out for something. We never outgrow our need for Jesus. In fact, the longer we walk with Christ, the more clearly we see our need for him. We are still reaching, we are still aching for wholeness, still hoping to brush against the grace that is offered, like the woman brushing up against the hem of Jesus' garment. The followers of Jesus don't need Jesus any less than unbelievers do. Christians always need Christ. When someone says, "Well, that person needs Jesus," we can say, "And so do I, and so do you." We all are beginners when it comes to faith in Christ. We are not doctors dispensing healing. We are the sick. We are the afflicted people whom the Great Physician has found. We are not the masters of the feast. We are fellow beggars who the most generous host of all has given bread. And he continues to feed from his abundance. There is always enough for everyone, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not bringing you gospel news. Because with God there is always abundance. There is always more than enough. So let's turn quickly to Matthew 25. If you have a Bible, that's fine. If not, you can just listen in. Jesus is speaking here of his return using a parable called the sheep and the goats. He says, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my Father, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. And when the people in the parable ask, Lord, when did we see you? When did we do this for you? He says, "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did that for me." Did you catch that today? Jesus is saying, "When you saw someone poor, that was me. When you cared for the sick, that was me. When you visited the prisoner, that was me. When you loved the forgotten person, that was me. So here's the question today: What if the poor, the sick, the abused, the incarcerated— what if they are the hems of Jesus' garment? What if they are the robe of Jesus that we are called to touch? Because this woman in the story that we read, she touched Jesus' garment and was healed. She just wanted to get close to Jesus. She just wanted to be near. If she could just touch the hem of his garment. And in this parable, Jesus says, "When you come near these people, you are coming near to me." As though the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the forgotten, as though they were the hem of Jesus' robe. That if we would draw near to them, we draw near to Jesus. So the invitation today is not that others are supposed to see us and try to reach for us. But we are part of that reaching crowd today. We always need more of Christ. And Jesus says, "You will find me. If you're looking for me today and you really want to find me, here's where you find me." The edges of Christ's robe are not stitched in gold and hung on the front of the sanctuary. They are found in the margins. Jesus is found in the tired nurse who wonders if her work matters. In the immigrant whose name no one can pronounce, in the teenager in detention who just wants to go home, in the man who lost his job and his dignity. Jesus is found in the woman who, like the one in Mark 5, feels invisible and unclean. Jesus is found in the undocumented immigrant, in the refugee fleeing violence in the homeless living in tents or cars, in the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, in the mentally ill who are wandering the streets, in the addicted and the recovering. Jesus is found in the elderly who are abandoned in nursing homes. Jesus is found in the single parent who is working multiple jobs just trying to make ends meet. Jesus is found in the LGBTQ youth who are rejected by their family. Jesus is found in indigenous communities who don't have clean water, in the uninsured who are dying from presentable— preventable diseases, in the Black mother who is concerned for the safety of her son when he goes out into the world. The list could go on and on and on, but Jesus says, "If you really want to find me, look for me in those places because I will always be there." there. In our neighbors. These are the places where Jesus hides in plain sight. These people are the hem of Christ's garment, and when we touch them, we touch Jesus. And they become then the source of our own healing. They are not just the ones in need, they are where Jesus is found according to Matthew 25. They are where Christ is waiting to be touched, to be seen, to be heard, even smelled. When you reach out for them, when you love them, when you feed them, when you visit them, you are touching the hem of Jesus' robe. Moreover, according to Matthew 25, you are touching Christ himself. And in touching the lives of the one who Jesus calls the least of these, we receive our healing too. So as I close today, I invite all of us, myself included, because the messenger is never excluded from the message. I ask this question: Where am I still reaching for Jesus? Who around me is willing? Who is reaching to? And am I willing to reach back? And where might Christ be waiting today in disguise? Maybe we will find that healing comes not when we grasp so tightly to our own comfort, but when we risk something, reaching into someone else's pain. Thomas Merton once said, "The gate of heaven is everywhere." Today, even in this moment, in this hospital room, in this chapel, the whole earth is full of his glory. And right now, Jesus can be found. The question is, will we be willing to reach out to touch the hem of his garment? Will we be willing to reach out to those who are the places where Jesus said he would be found? We're going to close today with a song, and if you'd like to grab a lyric sheet and sing along with us, that's fine. If you'd like to just listen today, it's a song called "The Kingdom Is Yours." It's based on the Beatitudes. We're just gonna sing it together today.

Blessed are the ones who do not bear all the broken pieces of their heart. Blessed are the tears of all the weary, pouring like a sky of falling stars. Blessed are the wounded ones in mourning, brave enough to show the lowliest scars. Blessed are the nerves that are not hidden, open to the healing touch of God. The kingdom is yours. Kingdom is yours. Hold on a little more. This is not the end. Hope is in the Lord. Keep your eyes on Him. Blessed are the ones who walk in the darkness. Even in the face of great abuse. Blessed are the deeds that go unnoticed, serving with unguarded gratitude. Blessed are the ones who fight for justice, longing for the coming day of peace. Blessed is the soul that thirsts for righteousness. Welcoming the last, the lost, the least. The kingdom is yours. The kingdom is yours. Hold on a little more. This is not the end. Hope is in the Lord. Keep your eyes on him. And blessed are the ones who suffer by me. Still have strength to love their enemies. Blessed is the faith of those who persevere. Though they fall, they'll never know defeat. The kingdom is yours. The kingdom is yours. Is yours. Hold on a little more. This is not the end. Hope is in the Lord. Keep your eyes on him. The kingdom is yours. The kingdom is yours. Hold on a little more. This is not the end. Hope is in the Lord. Keep your eyes on him.

Well, as Jill just plays quietly for a moment, we just want to say thank you for being here to worship with us today. Before I close in prayer, and that will be our benediction, I just want to remind all of you, whether you're watching in your rooms today or even for the people in this room, our chaplains want to be present for you. We want to walk with you through whatever you're facing. We are here to be with you, to help you find meaning, purpose, connection, value, and even to meet with God himself. And so today, as we pray together, my prayer is that God will bless you richly wherever you are. Let's close in prayer today. Heavenly Father, I do pray today with gratitude in my heart for the kindness that you show each and every person on this planet, for the kindness that you give to us all, even when we are facing great difficulties, even when we are facing life-threatening illnesses, even when we are facing difficult surgeries and long recoveries. Lord, we trust that we can continue to reach out like the woman who touched the hem of your garment. I pray for your blessing today, asking that you would please bless every person, the ones within the sound of my voice and even the ones beyond that. Go into every hospital room today, for every person who may feel isolated and lonely, wondering where hope might be, for the medical staff, for the people people who work in this place who are feeling that they need your hope today. Lord, I pray that you would continue to reach out to them, surround them with your loving kindness today. And thank you for meeting with us in this room today. We bless your holy name and we pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now may the Lord bless and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you and give you his peace. Amen.

Amen.

You are dismissed. Amen. That's really pretty.

Very nice.