The Woman who Divorced (John 4:5-42) – part 1

The woman who divorced

I ran out of water the other day, and had to go back to the well to collect more. I hate having to go when the sun is at its highest; it is so much harder work to raise the water. The good thing is that when that happens, you can usually be certain that you won’t have to wait, as everyone else will have drawn enough water in the cool of the morning. So I was very surprised to find a man sitting beside the well under the shade of a tree, waiting. He wasn’t anyone I knew, but with his head covered, and his arrogant look, I knew him to be a Jew. I don’t know why they all look so arrogant. It is we Samaritans who are the true heirs of Abraham and Moses. While the Israelites were taken off to captivity in Babylon, and had their faith corrupted by their captors, we in Judah remained faithful, worshipping Yahweh on Mount Gerazim as he commanded. When the Jews came back from exile, they set up their centre of worship in Jerusalem, and now they tell us that we are not proper followers of Yahweh.

I guessed that this man wanted something and I was not wrong. He asked me for a drink of water. I was really surprised, as Jews don’t usually talk to Samaritans. Our leaders are very clear that we should not speak to Jews in case they corrupt us. I believe their leaders say the same about us. I asked the stranger what he thought that he was going to drink out of, as I had only brought a large water vessel to carry the water back in. He got a bit tetchy then; the sun must have got to him. He asked me whether I knew who he was. Well of course I didn’t. Then he said that if I had asked him for a drink, he would have given me water that would never end. I thought of all the thousands of jars of water that I have carried back to my house from the well, and got so annoyed that I asked him whether he thought that he was better than our forefather Jacob, whose well this was, and from which he himself drew water for his family and for his flocks. Jacob still had to draw water daily!
The stranger just smiled at me, and said that he knew water that would never end, and when people drank of it they would never get thirsty again. Thinking about all the hours spent at the well I asked him where I might get this living water from? His face took on a serious look, and he said ‘Go and call your husband and come back here with him.’ I paused for a moment, then told him the truth. ‘I don’t have a husband.’ He smiled at me again then ‘ You have told me the truth. You have had five husbands, but the man you are living with now is not your husband.’ It was as if someone had plunged a knife into my chest. He was right, but how did he know that, and what was I going to do about it?

He looked at me for a long while, and motioned me to sit on the edge of the well near to him. ‘You were married very young to your first husband. He died of a fever soon after your wedding. During the year he had spent building your home, you had got to know him well, and had come to love him. You were devastated when he died. Your Father wasn’t having you back at home again, so he rushed you in to marriage with a friend of his. It wasn’t a success, and he gave you a Get, a bill of divorce, after only a year. Your third husband you chose for yourself, but he could never live up to the memory of your first, dead husband, and he gave you a Get also after a few years. Your fifth husband was a lovely man, and your marriage was happy for many years. You had a child, a daughter, but when she was killed in a tragic accident, you blamed your husband, as she was with him at the time. He blamed himself, and the two of you grew apart. He presented you with a Get only a year ago.’

The woman who bled – part 2

The Woman who bled

‘We found enough money for me to see Greek Physician when we went to Jerusalem for Passover. He looked at me closely, and declared that I had an excess of black bile. So he bled me, proscribed a change of diet and a change of lifestyle, so that I would become less saturnine in disposition. That didn’t work either. One day a Physician from India who said that he practised Ayurvedic Medicine found his way to our village. He proscribed some herbs which he mixed with a small amount of rock and bits of metal which he carried with him in a small bag. He was very uncomplimentary about the Jewish laws of purity which mean that for half of a month men and women may not lie together. Someone had obviously explained our ritual laws to him. He sniffed and told me that in his country suppressing natural urges was considered unhealthy, so it was not at all surprising that I was ill. Neither Matthew nor I felt that we could argue with him. I took the medicine he left, but we kept to our laws of purity.’

At this point in my story Jesus sighed, ‘Sometimes men make laws which might seem to them to be for the good, but have all sorts of consequences. So many men find that their urges overtake them when they cannot be with their wives, that they go and use other women. The laws themselves mean that the chances of a woman becoming pregnant are higher because the end of the period of abstinence coincided with the time of greatest fertility, so they spend most of their lives pregnant.’
I just looked at Jesus in complete bewilderment. I hadn’t a clue what he was on about.
Jesus shrugged ‘Carry on’ he said

‘My illness caused me to fall into such utter despair, that I wanted to die. Of course all the other women in the village know what is happening. You can’t keep something like this a secret for very long. I have come to hate the looks of pity I see on their faces when they look at me. I have even seen some of the young unmarried women trying to make up to Matthew. I think, I believe, that so far he has resisted their lures. He has also resisted the advice of his friends to divorce me. He could just hand me a Get, and unless I refused to take it, that would be that. I would not refuse the Get, I love him so much that I just want him to be happy.’

‘Not being able to be a proper wife to Matthew has been a great strain on us both. He has been so kind and gentle with me, I really do not deserve him. He feels our separation keenly as well. As you know, the regulations in the book of Leviticus specify that a woman with blood must be separate for seven days, that any object she sits or lies on becomes a midras, and anyone who touches her midras becomes ritually impure. Any blood that flows after seven days, is the Zavah, the abnormal blood, and requires even more stringent rules to be applied – and I have been bleeding for 12 years.’ ‘The Rabbi has forbidden me all physical contact that is in an affectionate or lustful manner the law of ‘Derech Chiba v’Taavah’. More than that he has added the full weight of the law and added on extra restrictions, so that all touch including touch that is not ‘Derech Chiba v’Taavah’ is forbidden me, so that between us there can be no passing of objects even without touching, and no sleeping in the same bed. These harkhakot restrictions are to avoid the risk of leading to sexual contact. The whole village knows about them, and no one will touch me for fear of becoming ritually impure.’

‘I have been Niddah, ritually impure, so it seems, since the beginning of time. I cannot remember what human contact feels like. Your hand when you held it out to me to raise me up is the first time I have had contact with another human skin in – too long. I should not have touched you, I know what I am, you did not, but since I touched your robe, I no longer feel unwell, I think, I believe, I hope, that I am cured. Am I cured?’

Jesus smiled at me ‘Go on your way back to your village. Perform the Hefsek Taharah. In seven days you will be able to enter the waters of the Mikvah, and then your love and loyalty to your husband, and his to you, will be rewarded. Go in peace. You have been healed by the grace of God.’

The woman who bled – part 1

(Mark 5:21-34)

The Woman who bled

I saw him coming down the road. The sun was behind his head, so that his face was in shadow and it looked as if he had a halo. His brown sandal clad feet scuffed the dry, white road as he walked, raising a cloud of white dust so that it looked as if he was walking on a cloud. There must have been other people around him to have been raising such a cloud of dust, but I could not have told you whether there were 2 or 200. All I saw was him, the man I most sincerely hoped would be my saviour. I had planned this moment for weeks, after I had begun to hear stories about the miraculous healings he had performed. I knew that after all this time, I needed a miracle, and I hoped, with what little capacity for hope I had left, that this time the stories would be true, and I could be healed. I had walked for several hours to be here, to wait, to hope. As he came closer I put out my hand to stop him, but I was swept aside by the mass of bodies around him. When I regained my balance, I stood rooted to the spot, staring down the road at the crowd now hiding him from view.

Despair threatened to overcome me, but suddenly anger took its place. I had come here to be healed, and I was not going to be swept away again like a nobody, I am somebody. I began to run, and to push my way forward through the crowd. I used my elbows, my hands, anything to get people to move. I got sworn at several times, and pushed back again, but anger held me upright and pushed me forward. Then there he was again; just his back this time. I put my hand out again and touched the back of his robe, meaning to get him to turn around and look at me, but when my hand touched his robe, it was as if a bolt of lightening had hit me. I stumbled and would have fallen if the crowd, pressed close against me, had not held me upright. As it was shock rooted me to the spot, and the crowd passed around me like the sea around a rock. When I emerged from the back of the crowd, I finally sank to my knees in the middle of the road too overcome to do anything else.

As I knelt in the middle of the road, settling dust beginning to cover me from tip to toe, I closed my eyes and my mind emptied. Gradually I began to be filled again, with the sound of insects chirruping in the bushes just off the road, the singing of birds in the trees. I could hear a donkey neighing and camels grumbling to each other. There was the sound of people talking in the distance, and the bangs and clatters of village life, which seemed so near that I could have reached out and touched them. I felt the dust settle on my hands and face, and the sun beat down, hot on the back of my robes. A donkey must have wondered up, because it started to make some exploratory nibbles of my headdress. I opened my eyes and looked up into a pair of patient brown eyes, ringed with impossibly long lashes. We eyed each other for a long minute, then the donkey tossed his head and began to wonder off. I looked around me, at the bright, vivid colours of the trees against the sky, the exotic flowers nestled in the nearby bushes, the white of the road, and for the first time in many years I rejoiced that I was alive and that I was healthy.

That I was healthy? Why had that come into my mind? I hadn’t been healthy for years! Before I had time to examine those thoughts, I became aware that some of the crowd who had moved off down the road, were now returning, and with a sound like an angry swarm of bees. Before I had time to do more than get myself to my feet they were upon me. ‘The Master wants to speak to you.’ ‘Come.’ Rough hands grabbed me, and began to drag me down the road to where the rest of the crowd had turned and were watching what was happening to me. Just as I got to the front of the crowd, it parted to reveal The Master, Jesus of Nazareth, I had only a moment to register that he looked absolutely exhausted, when the men holding me threw me at his feet.

As I tilted my face to look up at him in some bewilderment, I saw a look of anger cross his face. He crouched down in front of me and held out his hand. As he stood up, he pulled me to my feet. Ignoring everyone else, he led me to a nearby tree, where he sat down in the shade with his back against the trunk, and gestured to me to come and sit next to him. The crowd looked at him like a flock of lost sheep. He smiled gently at them now, and asked whether someone could get us water. He then asked the crowd to make the most of the other trees nearby, while water was being fetched. Then he turned to me.
‘Well?’ he said.
I just looked at him. I had no idea what he wanted me to say.
‘You touched me, and power went from me. What is the problem with you?’
I looked at him horrified, it was such a delicate problem, I couldn’t talk to him about it, but he just kept looking seriously at me.
‘You wanted my help, so start at the beginning’ he suggested.
I quickly made up my mind, marshalled my thoughts and began.

‘When I became a woman soon after my 12th birthday, my parents were delighted. My father already had his eye on Matthew, a potter in our village. The arrangements were made, and a year later we were married. I think it was the happiest day of my life. For several years things went well, but I did not get pregnant. I got a bit worried, but Matthew didn’t seem to mind, he said we had plenty of time ahead of us. As time passed my monthly bleeding became longer and longer, and every time I performed the Hefsek Taharah, the bedikah cloth I used to check whether there was still blood, always showed some. I could no longer begin to count the seven clean days before I could go to the Mikvah to undertake the ceremony of ritual purification before my husband could come to me again. We went to the Rabbi to check that we were doing things right, but we were, so for several years now Matthew has been my husband in name only. We have tried everything. I went to the wise woman in the village who gave me some foul tasting liquid made from crushed leaves of some sort, to drink. The Physicians in the towns are fine if you have a cut or a broken limb, which they can bind up and sooth with healing herbs, but if anything goes wrong with the body or the mind, then they shrug their shoulders, and say it is God’s will whether you will be healed or not.’

Margery Kempe – Mystic or Mad? – part 3

Margery Kempe

I needed to know more about Our Lord, so I sought out Confessors who not only would shrive me, but would also teach me. Over the years they read to me, not only from the Bible, but also from the writings of various mystics. I remember hearing ‘The Scale of Perfection’, by Walter Hilton, ‘The Incendium Amoris’ by Richard Rolle of Hampole, the ‘Stimulus Amoris’, which I believe is by St Bonaventura and the ‘Revelations’ of St Bridget of Sweden. These books, which my Confessors helped me to memorise, were sources of great inspiration and solace. Many things which I felt and did, were similar to the experiences that these writers had been through, and they helped me to understand the path which Our Lord wished me to take. One of my Confessors also arranged with the Bishop for me to be able to receive the Sacrament daily, as I found that receiving just on Holy days was not enough for me.

I spent as much time as I could in meditation on the life of Our Lord. I would enter into the stories in my mind, and see for myself what Our Lord went though for me a poor sinner. At times I would be so overcome by the emotion of it all that I would have great weepings and roarings. Sometimes even the reading of the Gospel in Church would cause me to weep and roar. Some people thought I was a very holy woman to be so overcome by the words of the gospel, but others just got really annoyed and asked the Priest to have me removed. They changed their minds on 23rd January 1431 when there was a great fire in Lynn, which burnt down the Guildhall of the Holy Trinity, right near to St Margaret’s Church. Then they asked me to pray that the church be saved. I asked to priest to take the Sacrament to the door of the church, and he held it there as long as he could. I had a great vision sent to me from Our Lord in which the church was saved by a fall of snow. The people scoffed at the vision, as the sky was clear and blue, but it came to pass as I had foreseen and the church was saved.

I so wanted to share what I came to know of Our Lord, through the books and through my meditations, that I was very zealous in talking about Our Lord. When I was on Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, all I wanted to do was talk about the life of Our Lord, and what it would mean for us to be able to see the places where he himself had lived and walked. I could not understand why others in my group did not want to talk similarly. Surely that is what we were on Pilgrimage for. Some asked me to cease my talking, but for the love of Our Lord I could not be silenced. On more than one occasion they got up early in the morning and left me behind. I often had great difficulty in finding them again. Sometimes, when I was in a new place, and had spoken of Our Lord to the local Priest, he would find the group and rebuke them for leaving behind such a holy woman as I. Back at home in England I also would talk about Our Lord to anyone who would listen, and I found myself arrested for this on numerous occasions. I was told that as a woman I should not speak of Our Lord, that was for the clergy to do. I was even accused of being a Lollard, an heretical preacher. I was distraught that anyone could think I was an heretic. In my lifetime I have spoken to many Priests, Abbots and Bishops. I have even spoken to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and after he had heard me speak about Our Lord, I even rebuked him for the lewdness and language of his household staff. All of them confirmed that my faith is genuine and orthodox, even if I am very un-orthodox in wanting to speak about it and share it with others.

I have never been able to understand why some in the church want to stop me talking. Many of the holy women I learnt about in books or by stories told me, or on my pilgrimages, were women who had not been afraid to speak about about Our Lord. I heard about St Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Elizabeth of Shonau; of Mary of Oignes and St Catherine of Sienna. There was Blessed Angela of Foligno and Blessed Dorothea of Montau and of course Dame Julian of Norwich whom I went to visit, and had much holy conversation with.

The book of my life, which I caused to be written some years ago, has now been translated into English from what I am told was neither good English nor good German – the scribe who wrote it for me deceived me terribly. The man I eventually found to translate it for me, has also added a second book, at my dictation, continuing my story after the death of my husband and son. In my books I also remember and give thanks for those men and women who have supported me, and given me money so that I could undertake the pilgrimages. I pray daily for them to this day, in gratitude for what they have done. I have also recorded where I was reviled and horribly treated; where people have not believed in my stories of Our Lord, or have not recognised that in my whoopings and roarings, I was engaged in the work of Our Lord, and not just, as they saw it, being a nuisance. Today is the 13th April 1438, and this morning I was admitted to the Guild of the Trinity in Lynn, as my father had been before me. This is in thanks for saving St Margaret’s church all those years ago. It seems to me that my life has come full circle back to the town where I was born, and walking in the footsteps of my father.

Footnote
In an age when the average life span was round about 30 years, the last record of Margery Kempe is in the records of the Guild for 22nd May 1439, when she would have been about 65 years old.

Margery Kempe – Mystic or Mad? – part 2

Margery Kempe

In that same year of 1417, I went on a visit to Leicester, and was there detained by the Mayor who handed me over to the Steward of the city, who treated me in a most lewd manner, and wanted me to forget my vows to my husband. When he did not succeed, he handed me back to the Mayor to hold me in prison. The Mayor then convened a council of Abbots and Priests from the city, and they questioned me as to my faith. I answered their questions as my Lord gave me strength and wit. At the end of my questioning the Mayor, who would much rather have had me burnt for heresy, was told by the Abbot that I spoke the truth about Our Lord, and I was not going to lead the citizens of the city into lewd behaviour. The Mayor then charged me to go to the Bishop of Lincoln, and get a letter from him to discharge the Mayor of all responsibility for me.

This I set off to do most willingly, but even with the letter, the Mayor detained me for a further three weeks before he allowed me to set off to York, to visit an Anchoress there, whom I had known before going to the Holy Land. In York I was arrested again and brought before the Archbishop who examined me on the Articles of our faith, which I answered with Our Lord’s help, but some of the Priests and Monks did not want me to go free, for fear that I would corrupt the people of the city. In the end the Archbishop paid one of his servants to escort me from the city. I had many occasions, like St Paul, when I was arrested and accused of heresy, but always my Lord gave me the words and the actions to prove my faith and belief. In the end I had to go to London and get a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which I could show every time I am arrested.

In 1431 my husband and last remaining son died. My son had returned from his travels with a child, and a wife whom he had met and married in Germany. After a period of mourning, she told me that she wished to return to her own land to live. I agreed to escort her there. We sailed from Lynn, and made a stop in Norway when the winds carried us there. Soon afterwards we landed in Germany, and then travelled to my daughter-in-law’s home town of Danzig. I remained there with her for five or six weeks, then began my journey back to Lynn. I was offered the chance to make a pilgrimage to Wilsnack, and then Aachen. In Aachen I joined company with a widow of London, and travelled with her and a number of other pilgrims, back to England. At Calais I found a ship back to Dover, from there I travelled to Canterbury, then London, before returning to Lynn.

But these are only the facts of my life, the ephemeral things. It is the things eternal which matter to me most, the things of Our Lord by which my immortal soul will be saved. It is because of these things that I found a scribe to write down my story, so that Our Lord might be glorified through stories of his mercy to me, a sinner, in giving me such glorious visions of his work, that I might share with all mankind. So back to the beginning again. After the birth of my first child I fell into a deep depression, and for many weeks could do nothing, not even look after my child. Eventually I prayed to Our Lord to rescue me. I promised that would dedicate my life to him if he healed me, which he in his mercy did. But I forgot my promise, until a business venture which I had, failed, and nearly left my family destitute. I remembered then my promise to Our Lord, and I was resolved to do what I had vowed, live my life for him. This proved to be really difficult. I wanted to take a vow of chastity, as the church teaches that the only good woman is a virgin. I was no longer a virgin, and so could not offer that to Our Lord, but I would have ceased relations with my husband, but he would not agree. It was only after a further 13 children, over the next 20 years of married life, that I managed to wear him down with my arguments. I straight way took him before the Priest where we made our vows to live as brother and sister. At last I was able to wear the white robes of the chaste woman. I did not want to put temptation in his way, so we lived in separate houses, until he became ill unto death, when I returned to nurse him until he passed into Our Lord’s hands.

Margery Kempe – Mystic or Mad? – part 1

The ‘Book of Margery Kempe’ is the earliest English biography. In it Margery reveals herself through her dictated story to be a complex and difficult woman. She did however travel and meet a wide range of identifiable people, in an age when travel was difficult and dangerous. This and the next two blogs are a distillation of her book.

Margery Kempe

When my first son was born, I had thought that my life would be complete, but it was not to be so. I had made a good marriage to John Kempe, even though he was nothing like the man my father was. The record of the deeds of John Brunham can be found in the archives of our town of Bishop’s Lynn. If you read the record you will see that he was a Burgess of the town; was five times Mayor; was five times a Member of Parliament for the town, as well as being an Alderman of the Trinity Guild, Coroner for the town, a Justice of the Peace and Chamberlain. John Kempe came from a good Lynn family, but he never lived up to his family’s reputation, and was most unsuccessful as a business man. But enough about him for the moment.

I was born in Bishop’s Lynn around the year 1373. I have never learnt to read or write, so I could not read any record of my birth even if I thought that there was one. I was married to John Kempe when I was about 20 years of age. When I was about 40 years of age, in 1413, I became free of the duty of providing my husband with children, and following the death of my father, I was able to embark on a series of journeys I had long wanted to undertake. My first journey was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Many of my friends counselled me not to make such a dangerous journey, but I knew that I must make it or die in the attempt. As is the custom, I announced my intention in St Margaret’s Church. Those who claimed debts of me, had them settled. I made my will, and on the day I departed I went into church garbed as a pilgrim with a cloak, hat, staff and a scrip to carry my knife to eat with. I sailed first from Yarmouth to Holland, there I joined a band of pilgrims and travelled with them to Constance. From there we travelled to Venice where we stayed 13 weeks. From there we took a galley to the Holy Land, and at last after many trials and tribulations I came to Jerusalem where I visited many holy sites. I travelled much in the Holy land before taking a galley back to Venice. I then travelled with a group of pilgrims to Assisi, which I reached on 1st August 1414. There I worshipped at the shrine of St Francis. Then I went on to Rome, which I reached in October of the same year. I spent many months in Rome worshipping in many of the churches, and waiting for favourable weather and a suitable boat to carry me over the seas back to England. I arrived back in Norwich around 21st May 1415. I had been away from home nearly two years.

My family were glad to see me again, and the towns people were astonished by the tales I had to tell of my travels. After I had rested for a few weeks, I would have liked to have gone on my travels again, for life is too short to fit in all Our Lord wants me to do, but just four months after my return to England, news of a great battle between the English and the French fought at a place called Agincourt, in France, became the talk of the town. Sailors and merchants brought back so many tales of the difficulties they were having trading with France, that I agreed to wait for a while. In the end it was nearly 2 years before I set off to travel to Bristol and from there to take a ship to travel to the shrine of St James at Compostella. I had to wait in Bristol six weeks until a ship could be found that would take me and the group of pilgrims I had joined, as all the ships had been requisitioned by the king for his war in France.

While I was in Bristol, the Bishop of Worcester, the Bishop of the Diocese, heard about me, and commanded me to attend him and eat a meal with him. When I arrived, I was so shocked to see his attendants wearing such fashionably cut clothes, that after they had rebuked me for crossing myself at the sight of them, they listened to me meekly as I spoke to them seriously about sin and misconduct. At the end of the meal with the Bishop I was shriven by him. Soon after I was able to find a ship to take me to Compostella. After seven days at sea we finally reached the place and spent fourteen days there before returning to Bristol, and journeying back to Lynn after visiting Hailes Abbey on the way.