How are you? There’s a question that has many layers. Each time we ask it could mean something a little different. How are you!? How are you? How are you? The context to that question could be a greeting to a casual phone conversation or at the bedside of a hospice patient. The intent is certainly different just as the answers could be. The person on the phone might say “eh…I’ve had better days,” while the patient might say, “I’m at peace.”
Yes, there are as many layers to that question as to the answer. That’s because how we are — our general health — is more than just about a well-functioning, physical body. As important as that is, a well-functioning body is only the visible tip of a much deeper phenomenon of our overall health. The full picture of health includes body, soul, mind and the relationships that join us together in community. These are the layers that make up our full wholeness. The answer to, “how are you?”
There are numerous examples of Jesus offering miraculous healings in the gospels. One of the more intriguing involves a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She spots Jesus among a large crowd, and apparently had heard about his miraculous deeds. “If only I could just touch even a thread of his robe,” she thought. She fought through the crowd, a place she wasn’t supposed to be as she was deemed unclean and banned from community because of her disease. She bumped and jostled her way to get close enough to touch Jesus. To be near much less touch a man making him also unclean, was forbidden. But she persisted and was able to just brush the hem of his robe and immediately her hemorrhage stopped, and she was healed of her disease.
“Who touched my clothes?” Jesus asked. That’s when Jesus saw the woman. And I do mean he saw her, because most in the crowd hadn’t seen her at all. The woman, realizing she has been found out, drops to her knees and tells him her story. Having already been healed, Jesus blesses her saying, “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace, you have been healed of your disease.”
A woman — never named — who had spent all she had on ineffective treatments, likely divorced, outcast and impoverished, risks further ostracizing just for a touch, is healed. A woman who has essentially been without a life for twelve years is called daughter and blessed by the Savior. She was both healed and made whole again.
I would suggest that there was more than one healing in this story. What about the disciples and the crowds around Jesus who had done everything in their power and privilege to keep the unclean woman out and away. Were they healed of their judgementalism and closed mindedness? Are we healed enough to know that no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you have access to God’s healing power through Jesus Christ?
Healing and wholeness come along on more than one pathway. A physical touch, a gift of mental peace, a prayer for the soul, a social acceptance that gives someone belonging — a place in the world; all make us healthy and whole. The stories of Jesus offering healings challenge us to examine our own faith, asking how we find the strength to claim God’s promises of healing for ourselves; and how we empower others to do the same. Because there is such great opportunity when we take the time and care enough to ask, “How are you?”
— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Todd Hackman is senior pastor at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Monroe.
