It can be tempting, I think, to remain detached from biblical stories like this one. Sometimes that detachment is a necessary means of survival because of how a story like this one might puncture existing wounds. But sometimes, I think, our detachment is an excuse not to wrestle with the difficulties of our scriptures.

In Jesus’ healing of the girl and the woman, he is not only eradicating their maladies with what one scholar calls an “oozing holiness,” but he is subtly mending and renegotiating avenues of power and agency, which too often trend toward exploitation and marginalization.