Without community there is no liberation

Without community there is no liberation.

- Audre Lorde

She was shunned by her village and forced to live outside of it because of her medical condition. When the outcast woman crept up to Jesus amidst a huge crowd and touched him, she was healed. But Jesus knew the healing was not complete until she was welcomed back into community.

Jesus could have let it stop at the physical healing. He had important things to do, after all, with a Synagogue chief waiting on him. But no. Jesus knew that without community there is no liberation. Listen to how Jesus gives this woman back to her community by inviting her to tell her story for all to hear and then by making sure they all hear him pronounce blessing on her.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the 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, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

• Mark 5:30-34

Marvel at Jesus and worship him today.