I said Vagina in Church

Yep I did, multiple times too.  Along with the words penis, testicles, uterus and sex.  


This was in response to the gospel Mark 5:21-43.


Enjoy!

There is so much in today’s gospel.  There are crowds, religious leaders, statements about faith, people mourning a death with weeping and wailing.  And two women are healed – one who has been bleeding for 12 years as she touched Jesus’ robes and the other a dead 12 year old girl who was healed when Jesus touched her.  And I think in this entire story it boils down to two things – touch and sex.  Maybe not sex but sexuality and the taboos that goes along with it. 

There are two main points of touch in today’s gospel.  First an unwanted touch when the woman touched Jesus.  She would have been an outcast, unclean, and therefore anything and anyone she touched would also be made unclean.  The second point of touch was when Jesus took the hand of the dead girl and told her to get up.  This touch would again make Jesus unclean, ritually and socially impure.  And yet there is so much in a touch.  A touch can convey love, joy, fear, comfort, gratitude, anger, sympathy.  A touch can be welcomed, whether a formal handshake or a pat on the back from a colleague.  A touch can be awkward – most of us have probably experienced that touch of the arm that just lasted too long or the hug from some well-meaning person that you did not feel comfortable enough hugging.  And a touch can be dangerous.  It doesn’t take long to find examples of touch gone horribly bad in the news today.  Jerry Sandusky was just sentenced on 45 counts related to sexual abuse of boys. 

Most of the time when touch crosses that line from awkward to wrong, bad or dangerous is because of power.  The person offering the touch wants to be in power and control of the other.  And in many ways is a form of abuse.

Which leads me to the second thing that today’s gospel is about at the core – sex and the taboos related to sex and sexuality.  Yep I just said sex in church and guess what I’m going to say it again a few times.  There were a lot of taboos about sex in Jesus’ time, including that menstruating women were not supposed to be in public as they were considered unclean.  And so here is this woman who has been hemorrhaging from her, let’s face it, vagina for 12 years.  She had been menstruating for 12 years.  She would not just have been considered unclean but an outcast, people probably thought she was possessed or evil or even a witch.  But you probably stopped listening a few minutes ago because I just said vagina in church. 

See we have many taboos around sexuality today, including the use of the medically acceptable terms for our anatomy when it comes to our sexual organs.  It is okay to say heart, arm, lungs, even gall bladder, but words like vagina, penis, testicles and uterus are no-nos.  Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown was just barred from speaking in on state house floor because she said vagina in a debate about abortion. 

However when these taboos exist we are allowing those who want to use touch, especially bad touch, to have power and control over another to have that power because we take away the voice of the other.  When it is consider a taboo to use words like vagina, penis, testicles or uterus, those who have been sexually abused are at lost for words to report it because instead of having the clear words to describe what happen they have to rely on phrases like “she touched my hoo-hoo” .  When we do not talk about sex in ways that allow people to know what is generally socially acceptable in a relationship, women, who have been raped, especially by a spouse, boyfriend or acquaintance, feel powerless to report it, maybe it was something that she did, or it is just something in their own psyche that made them feel violated.  When we have taboos about sex and sexuality, people experiment thinking they are doing something that is rebellious.  I personally believe this is a big reason for such a high percentage of sexually active teenagers and why the Fifty Shades of Grey book series is so popular.  When we are afraid to say words like vagina, penis, testicles, uterus people who have diseases that affect those organs, whether uterine or testicular cancer, endometriosis or erectile dysfunction are not able to talk about what their disease.  I’m not saying that we need to go back to the hippie era of free love, but that we should have freedom of speech in order to bring about equality and care for others.  And we do that by breaking down those taboos.

Because  Jesus broke the taboos of his day.  He allowed an unclean woman to touch him, and then he went and touched a dead girl.  He was not going to allow the taboos of the day to keep him from doing ministry, from loving those in need, from caring for the sick. And he did this ministry through touch. 

We should not allow the taboos of our day to keep us from doing God’s ministry.  We should not allow the taboos about sexuality and sex in our society keep us from doing ministry in this world.  God’s ministry for us in this world includes educating ourselves and our children about the great gift from God we have been given in the form of our bodies including our sexual organs even if it is uncomfortable to talk about at times.  God’s ministry for us in this world includes standing up and saying that abuse is wrong in all its forms including child abuse, sexual abuse and rape.  God’s ministry for us in this world includes saying that sex is a wonderful thing but it should never make you feel violated and if you feel violate as a result of sex it is not your fault.  God’s ministry for us in this world includes saying that touch is a wonderful thing but it should never make you feel violated and if you feel violate as a result of someone’s touch it is not your fault.  Because we too are called to break down those taboos in our society, to talk openly and honestly about sexuality, our bodies and general touch so that we can love those in need, care for those who are sick, especially those who have been abused, and hopefully through being open to talking about sexuality, our bodies and touch it will prevent that abuse from happening.  So that we can give power to others, maybe not through touch, but through our words.