Leviticus 13:1–2, 44–46
1 Corinthians 10:31–11:1
Mark 1:40–45
Last Sunday when we met we found that the whole town was gathered at the door. The community had brought all who were sick or were possessed. Jesus was busy healing and exorcising. This Sunday we find out there was one category of sick that was not in that group. The reading from Leviticus makes it clear that anyone with leprosy would not be in a crowd. In fact such a person had to live apart from anyone and live outside the town. We would say they have to be in forced isolation.
The word leprosy as we find it in the first reading and the gospel has a wider meaning than what we now call Hansen’s disease. That disease was most likely not known at the time of Jesus. Our texts refer to any kind of skin disease, with its broken skin and oozing pus, contagious or not. A person with a skin disease was not just sick, they were ritually unclean. They could not touch anyone, and anyone who touched them would automatically become unclean and have to also isolate for a time. While we might not be talking Hansen’s disease, the effects were the same: social isolation that meant religious isolation. Just think of the stories of lepers being isolated well into the 20th century.…We only need to recall the stories of St. Damian de Veuster and St. Marianne Cope on an Hawaiian island, banished and isolated. And closer to home in Nebraska, we only have to recall Fr. Flanagan reaching out to the street boys of Omaha, rejected by many as beyond the pale, and he being faulted for finding good in them.…The stigma of leprosy was public; you went around crying “unclean, unclean.” In effect you had to tell people to stay away. You can imagine the shame in that.
Now this week someone with a skin disease breaks rank so to speak and approaches Jesus. He should not be approaching anyone. He does not say please cure me, heal me, restore my sight. No, he asks Jesus to make him clean. It is not just a physical cure he is asking for. In response, Jesus does not tell him to stay away. In fact, now Jesus breaks rank. Jesus breaks the law, Jesus breaks the tradition. He does not drive him away. In fact he does the opposite; he stretches out his hand towards him and touches him. And with the power of his word the man is made clean. Jesus breaks boundaries: physical, religious and social. He does so consciously and deliberately.
The leper approaches Jesus as a man of power. You are able, you have the power, to make me clean. The leper knows what Jesus can do. He appeals to what Jesus wants to do. Jesus sees the leprosy; Jesus hears the question directed not to his power but to his desire, his will. What do you want to do with your power begs the leper. What does your heart want? The answer comes quickly. We hear that Jesus is moved with pity. The hand is stretched out and it touches the unclean skin of the leper. And the words express what Jesus wants; he wants to make him clean, he wants to restore him to his community. When he makes this leper clean then he is also making the community whole again. Someone isolated is brought back into the living pulse of the community.
Jesus holds divine power. The demons already know that he is the Son of God. Jesus tells them to keep quiet. The leper knows that it is not just a physical cure he needs; he can only be cleansed by God. Only God can make him clean and restore relationships within the community. The leper appeals to what God desires. Isolated he may be but the leper begs for God to be true to himself, to be true to what his power is really for. He appeals to the God of mercy and compassion, the one slow to anger and abiding in kindness. Jesus hears that appeal. The story says he is moved with pity. It may not be the best word to describe Jesus reaction. He is not feeling sorry for the leper. The word means something like moved in his gut. It expresses a movement in the deepest part of Jesus. And we see that movement when the hand is stretched out and the leper touched. That is the compassion of God. To touch the untouchable, to say yes to the shame of another’s isolation and marginalization.
This Gospel story is divided almost evenly between the leper and Jesus. And it ends not with the leper but with Jesus. There is irony here. If Jesus touches the leper, then according to the Law, the religious system, he becomes unclean. Jesus takes on himself the shame, the isolation, the stigma of the leper. Jesus sends the leper to the priests for affirmation of his healing. But now Jesus cannot go into the towns. He has to remain outside, like the leper, in deserted places. Jesus has broken the acceptable boundaries. So he will be on the edge. He may be popular and draw a crowd but he has sent a message as to who he is and to what his Father wants.
The leper becomes an evangelist, proclaiming that God is with his people. But Jesus is not finished yet. Jesus has a journey to make and a baptism to undergo. Jesus’ identification with the outcast, with broken and sinful humanity is still in progress. It will only be completed outside the city of Jerusalem. There he will die, alone and abandoned by his followers, his close community. There he will carry our pain and suffer our infirmities to the end. There he will reach out and touch our death spreading his arms on the cross. What he began in Galilee by stretching out his hand to touch the untouchable will finally be completed. For us humans death is the untouchable, that from which we draw back. Jesus will not draw back.
We who are in Christ, what about us? We were washed clean in baptism. We share in Christ’s power to do good. The question is can we join Christ in wanting to do that. It will mean crossing boundaries. It might mean using power to benefit not a few of our choosing but the many that God is seeking to make clean and restore to communion in his family. Who are those today that others or even we treat as outcasts as unworthy, as those who do not fit it or we say should not fit in? For them Jesus is seen as moved with compassion.
At the Eucharist we recall the death of Christ, a death moved by love. He stretches out his hand to feed us with the power of that love. Dare we take it in hand so that we can stretch out our hand for the acceptance, understanding and healing of others? The power of love that moves us when Jesus touches our hand will find its expression in whom we touch.
~ Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB