More Than A Woman

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ --Mark 5: 25-34

I was struck again this morning by the appropriateness of this passage coming during Morning Prayer of a week when we are praying for people with HIV and AIDS. A woman, who clearly had been failed by the medical establishment of the day, reaches that place in her struggle against the bleeding to have faith that if she could just "touch his clothes" this amazing healer would make her well. And--Shazam!--it was that act of desperation and pinning her hopes on even the slightest contact with Jesus that leads to her cure.
It is not that easy for those living with AIDS. There are no crowds pressing in on a Messiah with amazing healing powers. But if God were to come back as an incarnated man, I am sure that God would be going to those parts of the globe suffering from the widespread cases of HIV and AIDS.
Short of that miracle, we can offer our selves to that service of being the one who doesn't shrink away from the person with HIV or AIDS. We can be present and be a friend, a person who will be God's incarnated love... and a supporter of that person's faith and trust in another.
The story of the hemorraghing woman is another one of those moments in the gospels where it is a nameless person, the everyday person, who provides an opening for us to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest what God is doing. The scenes with women are especially powerful, since women in First Century Palestine were not important. So, on International Women's Day, we have this woman who takes a risk to stop the bleeding. When Jesus feels her touch him, he notices. Odd, given that there are throngs of people pressing in on him, but clearly this woman's touch was unlike the others. Hers was the authentic cry for help. She didn't just want to have a piece of Jesus' might; she had a need and the faith that her need would be met with a simple act of touch.
So, here's Jesus, looking around, asking who touched him and the disciples (that rag tag band of half-wits in Mark's gospel) think Jesus is nuts to ask that question. But the woman, who has been bleeding for twelve years (twelve is also the number of tribes of the Israelites from the OT), gets up the courage to come forward and show herself to him. In turn, Jesus makes her story part of our history by healing her for having faith in him (aka God).
In thinking on this passage today, I wonder if those of us who have been let down by "traditional" institutions (schools, churches, hospitals, governments) would have faith that if we seek to touch God, we might find the means to stop our own bleeding? How would or how do we do that, particularly if the 'institutional church' is part of the crowd that is pressing in and trying to keep us from touching God?
I don't have the answers, only the questions.