She was a woman who lived at a time when the Levitical laws were in existence. During this time it was important for a woman not only to be identified by family connections but also to function within the context that had been created for the women of this society. Most women did their chores and activities along with a group of other women. But this woman had no connection to her family or her peers. In fact, these Levitical laws by which she had to live considered her an unclean woman, which meant that wherever she went, no one else was, by law, able to associate with her. She had to do everything independently and alone.

Imagine, if you will, not being able to drink out of the public drinking fountains nor hold conversations with neighborhood friends and associates. Imagine not being able to dine at the public eateries or even to use the utensils that everyone else used. Her situation was even more pronounced and demeaning than that which was described for people with leprosy. At least they lived in communes and had contact with others like themselves. But this woman had no one. She was alone and lonely. And she had been bleeding (hemorrhaging) for twelve long years. Nothing and no one could stop it. In fact, according to the Gospel of Mark, it troubled her so much that she had spent all her life's earnings and savings on physicians, trying to find a cure, but to no avail. She needed someone who would understand how she was feeling. She was neither invited, welcomed, nor included.

Well, on a particular day, she found out, through her own limited network and sources and by the prevailing discussions she overheard, that Jesus was coming to the immediate vicinity. She had heard the stories about his healing and deliverance, about his bringing relief to those who were in need, and in her desperation, which was coupled with her hope, she perceived that if she could get close enough to where he was, then maybe she stood a chance for the first time of being helped. Desperately she made her way to the shores of the Sea of Gennesaret. This was a familiar and common place where Jesus often took his disciples for retreat.

As Jesus' boat approached the shores, a large crowd, perhaps in the thousands, gathered. (As I read this story, I began wondering if it was a crowd larger than that which gathered for the historic coming of Nelson Mandela to my region.) Heroes and heroines often attract large crowds when news of their arrival spreads. And this crowd no doubt included some of the same people who had previously rejected this lonely woman -- persons who may have said some unkind words; persons who may have refused to sit where she sat; neighbors who made it clear by their body language that they would not interact with her; persons who would not and did not challenge the very laws that were created to ostracize her. They may have even, at this very moment, with Jesus so close by, still tried to block her from being healed and from receiving a blessing. Yet she persevered. And pushing through the crowd, she found a place to stand, hoping that Jesus would pass her way.

But just as this woman found a place to stand, Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, fell at Jesus' feet and begged him to come to his house to heal his twelve-year-old daughter, who lay dying. A father was in distress, and a bleeding woman in desperation. Hopeless and helpless, partners in tribulation. What do you suppose was going through the woman's head, hearing that perhaps Jesus would have to make a choice about which way to go? Maybe he would change his direction or delay his interaction with this crowd, and maybe she would not be able to get near him.

But because God is a God of life for all -- those who lay dying and also those who have been living with imposed death; those who are helpless; and those for whom hope is uttered -- Jesus demonstrated that both situations could be dealt with. On the way to Jairus's house, Jesus came to where the needs were. The woman managed to touch the hem of his garment, and in doing so, her healing came. Because she was able to connect with Jesus' power, for the first time in twelve long years her identity crisis was over -- her victory had come. She was able to be made whole.

Think of the countless nights that the woman had probably cried herself to sleep or looked upon herself with self-hatred or self-pity. Now she had been made whole. But wholeness comes with knowing who the healer is. She had to acknowledge Jesus as the one who had been responsible for her wholeness. Jesus, the one who would become the wounded healer, was used to heal the wounded.

As I read and reread the woman's story, I certainly could not but help placing myself in her story, trying to remember the circumstances in which I felt left out in my own life. I recalled the times in a private, exclusive prep school when I was one of only two black students in an entire grade, when because of my skin color and the other students' lack of cultural sensitivity, I was often rejected, despite the numerous organizations in which I participated. I began to think of the many ways I dealt with the stress and the stress-related illnesses that would begin to creep up into the lives of minority students and how often we would not have channels by which to vent our stress because there were some unwritten laws that prevented others from associating with us.

In dealing with my own pain, which had probably been buried for as long as this biblical woman had been bleeding, I was able to identify ways in which the organized church and I, as a minister of the gospel, must be sensitive to the needs of others within our midst to whom we minister. Churches of Christ must be places of wholeness so that their people will be able to touch Jesus in the center of our crowds, otherwise known as the community of believers of the faith. This is particularly true with our modern-day issues of blood, more commonly known as AIDS. How many victims of this fatal and tragic disease have tried to break through the crowds? The written and the unwritten laws that society has placed on them subtly suggest that they are "unclean."

As I came into my own wholeness, God made me aware of this illness in a personal way just a few years ago. I was on my way to a Bible study class that I conducted at Mariners' Temple Baptist Church when I received a telephone call from a musician whom I had known in the past. He had played an instrument at a church where I ministered, and through that encounter we had become relatively close. He said that he was in the hospital for a routine checkup, but he asked if I would bring and serve him Communion. Certainly this was not a bizarre request to make of a minister of the gospel, but it was not the type of request he had ever made of me before. And so I consented to go.

As I arrived at the ward where he was, I began to see the familiar sign that many hospitals post to indicate that there is an infectious disease with which we should exercise serious caution. As I approached his bed and saw a man who did not appear to be the same man I once knew, I awkwardly tried to minister to him. Just then a nurse came in to take his temperature, which allowed me a chance to excuse myself. I found the nurses' station and inquired whether or not my friend's malady was the disease I suspected it was. A nurse confirmed that it was AIDS and instructed me on the necessary precautions to take. Well, I was so dumbfounded, because of the stories I had heard about the disease, that although I returned and sat by his bedside and listened to his stories about rejection from friends and family and about dying, I never did serve him Communion because I was paralyzed with fear.

When I left the hospital, I wrestled with the idea that I had not fulfilled his request. I tried to call hospital chaplains and others to take him Communion for me, but for whatever reason, I was not making the necessary connections. I was able to share my own uneasiness with my Bible class that evening, and they were able to be a crowd that ministered to me and propelled me to go back and try again. I did go back, and I was able to serve him Communion. He wept and said that for the first time in a long time, he finally felt whole. I imagine that was how the woman with a blood issue felt -- that someone for the first time in a long time was able not only to hear and feel her pain but also to participate in her new joy. My Bible class was indeed the Christ presence I needed on that evening.

My friend died the next day. Despite my grief, I was thankful that

God had given me another chance to deal with this modern-day issue of blood, reminding me of my own inadequacies, but also reminding me of how it felt when I was rejected in my own life and how sensitive I must be not to consciously reject others. The experience also reminded me of one more important lesson -- that neither my wholeness nor your wholeness is dependent on the approval of crowds of others whom we deem to be the dominant voices in society. But best of all, our wholeness comes from a divine/human combination -- our working in connection with God, who can penetrate even the thickest crowd and see about our own needs. For it is in our healing that we become the agents for change and wholeness for the very crowds that may have rejected us. What happens at the end of this story is also critical for this text. The woman with the blood issue no longer had gloom to report.

Instead she had a testimony of healed life, a testimony about one who can stop a burdensome situation and replace it with a testimony of good news.

Because of maturity and spiritual breakthrough, I have now forgiven those from that prep school and learned how to help them be more sensitive for this new generation that will enter their school. Already I have been invited to be a speaker at a career day and Martin Luther King Day and have been asked to work with recruitment and with the alumni association. In my own way, with Christ's help, healing has come for both them and myself.

Because of the close encounter with my friend who died of AIDS, I was able to minister effectively to a family in my congregation who lost a loved one to the same disease. And God was able to use my eulogy of this person as a way to help my congregation and community deal with this modern-day issue of blood.

From a woman who was identified only by an illness, a woman with an issue of blood, she became a whole creature, named and identified with Jesus -- from doomed to delivered disciple. What a wonderful change in her life had been wrought.

Thanks be to God for God's speakable and unspeakable gifts.

David Hardin: In your experience, why is it that people want to isolate others? What is there in us?

Suzan Johnson Cook: I think we grow up with a lot of fear. I've learned that prejudice and isolation really are results of fears and insecurities of others, because they don't know how to celebrate difference. It is more comfortable to be with people who are your own; your own tribalism.

I lived in Boston when I went to school. It was perhaps the most racist experience I ever had because people lived in communities that were very isolated. In that experience, I began to understand more about human nature. People are really quite myopic. They prefer to live within a small radius rather than venture out because you don't know what is on the other side. In my experience as a pastor, I have learned that you have to help people; you have to be intentional about helping people to move outside of their own realm and venture out into the community that is larger than themselves.

Hardin:  One of our thoughts is that we would like people to celebrate differences, as you said. It would be good to have a Baptist see a Catholic mass and say, "What a wonderful way to do this," and vice versa. We have trouble with that.

In the broader sense, I think this applies to so many divisive forces like the issue of racism, the issue of sexism, where people are saying, "This my group; it's not your group." How do you try to counter that?

Cook:  As an African-American woman in a Baptist Church in Chinatown of New York, I certainly had to overcome this issue.

One of the things we did was to start working with children. We saw that adults are pretty much where they are. With children, all of their ideas have not yet been developed, formed or shaped. We began in a multi-ethnic center with African-Americans, Italians, Asians, and Whites. We were able to bring together children of school age in an after-school program who played together, who wrestled together with the issues of life, who did their homework together.

As a result, for the first time in this community which had been so polarized and had a history of isolation, parents have to come and pick their children up. They see their children holding hands and they see their children playing together. For the first time, we have a parents league that is inter-ethnic, inter-racial. Some cannot speak English; some don't speak Chinese, but they are trying to understand each other through their children. Jesus' text that a little child shall lead them really comes alive.

Hardin:  Yes, isn't that true. You have taken a church with less than 160 members and it is now a thousand or more. What brought these people to this church? What happened? What did you try to make happen?

Cook:  Well, in New York we went door to door. We used a personal approach. First of all, I think people want to know the person who is at the leadership before they come to church. Many people are believers for the first time. They did not grow up with the faith tradition as many of us did through Sunday school and our parents. You have an adult who doesn't know anything about Jesus, so you can't go in their door and start trying to evangelize.

We went door-to-door in the housing projects that were near the church and merely invited them to church. "I'm Reverend Johnson. We're the church in the neighborhood. Would you please come?"

As they began to come, because of that personal approach, then we determined what their needs were. We had to do different things for different groups. You can reach some people on the basketball court; you reach some people in a more liturgical setting. Some kids you reach in a Girl Scout troop that you will never reach in a Sunday school class.

In this generation there has to be, I think, multi-approaches to ministry. We can't stay on one fixed tradition because it is a new world that none of us has ever experienced before.

Hardin:  I think that is a great way to look at it. Let me switch over to one of your other careers as a police chaplain. I see the police as a very isolated group. What do you see as your role as a police chaplain?

Cook:  That grew out of the ministry because we are a block away from police headquarters. I work for the whole police department, which is civilians as well as officers. There is a lot of stress in that profession. They cannot interact very well with others because of the various roles that they have to play. I think the main need is that people want someone to listen to them so that they can vent their frustrations.

One of the things that has been helpful is to bring together the community to interpret their needs to the police department, as well as to determine and interpret the needs of the police department to the community. That way both groups don't fear each other. They have to learn to work in partnership because we are really talking about the same streets. One group happens to live on them; one group happens to protect them, so we are still talking about the same streets and human beings.

Hardin: The other day I walked by a policeman who was writing some parking ticket in the area. I went up to him and said, "I see you are working very hard for us." He looked at me and said, "You are the first person who hasn't sworn at me this morning." That is part of the problem. They have got to feel some acceptance from us.

Cook:  Very much so.

Hardin:  The hostility is there, isn't it?

Cook:  There is quite a bit of hostility, but I think that communities are now starting to work with police departments where there is an openness to do so. I think that takes time. It is a structural thing.

I think there have been some repercussions in the past, but I think people are open now to change. We have police commissioners sitting down with pastors now. We have police commissioners sitting down with other local leaders.

I think for the first time we are trying to hear each other, because we are looking at the same problems and are all affected by crime. We are all affected by the issues of today. Unless we work in partnership, which I believe is really the ministry of the nineties and beyond, then all of us will not make it. We must make it together.

Hardin:  That is really wonderful. I think there are things we know we have got to do. It is just a matter of getting about it. Thank you very much for being with us. It's been a great pleasure.