“A leper came to him (and kneeling down) begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. Then he said to him, "See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them." The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.”
The Gospel reading this morning is kind of tricky and a little difficult, not in terms of story telling– it seems pretty straight forward. Some guy who suffers from leprosy goes to Jesus and is cured. So what’s so tricky about it, and what’s so difficult? It’s a tricky passage to translate. There is a lot in the original Greek that is difficult to render in English, and as a result, has not been translated in a manner that captures what is really happening in the story. Also, the story’s translatability (if that is a real word) is rather difficult. The culture and presuppositions of first century, Roman occupied Palestine are not those of our own twenty-first century, American, non-occupied setting. So the story is hard to apply to our context, at least seemingly so, other than the superficial aspect that mentions an illness and a cure.
But before I discuss the relevance of the Gospel reading for our own place in history, I want to comment on the passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. I won’t get into the historical context and the particular problems, both theological and interpersonal, that Paul had with that particular congregation that he established. I just want to point out one thing that Paul said to them in today’s reading. Paul states something clearly and definitively to the Corinthians that is so universally accepted by Christians that it is often taken for granted and is usually ignored. Paul declared that Christians are to be like Jesus Christ. Let me say that again in case you missed it. It’s an important concept and it came pretty fast. So here it is again. Paul states in this letter to the Corinthians that Christians are to be like Jesus Christ.
Okay, I can hear the collective, “Duh!” from everyone. Of course Christians are to be like Jesus, who doesn’t know that? Well unfortunately, if actions really do speak louder than words, most Christians don’t seem to know that. And it’s a shame because it’s pretty basic stuff. Reminding Christians that they are supposed to be like Jesus Christ seems to be as silly as reminding them to breathe. “Be like Christ,” Paul said to the Corinthians, not just the leadership and the clergy, but the whole congregation.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard members of a congregation complain to their minister, “That’s what we pay you for,” whenever their minister tries to get them involved in some act of ministry or religious service. It seems that most Christians have come to accept some unspoken rule that it is the job of the ordained clergy to be like Jesus on their behalf. They seem to accept that they are somehow excused from Christian ministry because they are just common folk sitting in a pew. “It’s the minister’s job to visit the sick,” “It’s the minister’s job to provide pastoral care,” “It’s the minister’s job to be visible and to be beyond reproach,” No it’s not! It’s the church’s job. That means it’s everyone’s job. I’ve never heard anybody in a church say, “We don’t have to breathe. That’s what we pay the pastor for”; or, “We don’t have to eat, that’s the minister’s job.”Why? Because we all know that nobody can breathe for us; we have to do it ourselves. Nobody can eat for us; we have to do it ourselves. Nobody can do ministry for us; we have to do it ourselves. If you really believe that it’s the job of ordained clergy to perform ministry so that you don’t have to, then what your really saying is, “I don’t have to be Christian; that’s the minister’s job.”
Paul said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” which simply means, “Be imitators of Christ.” Of course it is the job of the ordained clergy to be like Jesus Christ, but not to the exclusion of the rest of the church, and not because the clergy is paid to do so, or because the clergy is in some way closer to Christ, or even because the clergy is educated and trained in these matters, but simply because the clergy are Christians. And it is every Christian’s job to be like Jesus Christ. It is every Christian’s privilege. It is every Christian’s mission. “Be like Christ!” That, says Paul, is what all Christians are supposed to be doing.
“Okay,” you say, “I get that I’m supposed to be like Christ. But what was he like?” That’s a valid question. And Paul offers a piece of who Jesus is by saying, “I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit, but that of the many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”
Paul says that we are to be like Christ and the way to be like Christ is to be concerned with what is good for everyone, and not just be focused on what is good for us. God wants us, all of us, to be imitators of his Son. One of the ways we do that is to focus on what is good for the most people, not on what is good for me. God is concerned for everyone, and we are to be like Christ, the clearest example of who God is; therefore, our concern must also be for everyone, and we must allow our lives to become clear examples of who God is.
So armed with Paul’s counsel to “Be like Christ,” let’s look at the Gospel reading and see if we can learn something of what we are to be like.
“A leper came to Jesus (and kneeling down) begged him and said, "If it’s what you want, you can make me clean."
We hear this as a sick guy who came up to Jesus and asked to be cured. But there is a lot more happening than that. We live in a world where illness doesn’t necessarily carry spiritual or religious or social baggage with it. An illness for us is something that is plainly biological. It’s the result of a virus, or a bacteria, or cellular mutation and we treat the condition objectively with medicine or procedures and we don’t usually hold a person responsible for being sick. We may sometimes blame someone who suffers from the illness of alcoholism for being a drunk, or someone who smokes for having lung cancer, but generally we don’t blame someone for being ill. We may blame a condition, but not a person. And illness is something that we are afraid of in our time.
And we want this story to be merely about the curing of an illness because that is what frightens us in our world. We have learned so much, conquered so much, tamed so much of nature, but we are still at the mercy of infectious critters that we can’t even see. Illness terrifies us. Watch the news! Illness is all over the broadcasts. There’s Avian Flu, Anthrax, Small Pox, flesh eating bacteria. When I was a kid, AIDS was all over the news. I even remember a panic over something called Swine Flu when I was really young. The leading cause of death in the United States is Heart Disease, an illness. The second is Cancer, a variety of illnesses. The third is stroke and cerebral events. The fourth is Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases. The fifth leading cause of death for Americans are Unintentional Injuries caused by Accidents. So out of the top five leading causes of death for Americans, four of them are illness or medical conditions. In fact, out of the top ten leading causes of death for Americans, nine are illness or medical conditions. And even the exception, Accidents, result in medical conditions that cause death. Illness is a very real and a very present threat to us and we know it. So when we hear the story of a leper coming to Jesus, we think that it is merely a story about a cure and we move on. That’s what we want it to be about because that’s what scares us. So we apply the story to our lives by saying something like, “Isn’t it great that Jesus has power over illness; maybe if I get sick, he’ll heal me too.” Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. The healing isn’t really the point of this story.
This is a story about a leper. This is a man who lived in forced isolation. This is a story about a man who was cut off from society and who is reintegrated into it. This is a story about overcoming the gulfs that divide us from one another. If we merely understand this as the healing of a physiological condition, then we miss the point. This story is about healing and overcoming the social and economic barriers that forcibly keep some people in a state of destitution and despair.
The man is a leper! This morning’s reading from the Book of Leviticus relays the tragic existence that awaited anybody pronounced with having that condition.
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch which appears to be the sore of leprosy, he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants,...the man is leprous and unclean, and the priest shall declare him unclean by reason of the sore on his head.
"The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!' As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp".
Incidentally, this isn’t what we think of when we hear the word “leprosy.” We think in terms of Hansen’s disease, the highly contagious illness where the flesh just seems to rot away. The term leprosy in ancient Israel referred to a variety of skin conditions ranging from a rash to something more malignant, such as skin cancer. Most of the conditions termed “leprosy” were not contagious. Nevertheless, the person with the skin condition, regardless of not being contagious, was considered unclean. If an unclean person touched a clean person, the clean person would also become unclean. Everybody that he touched would be unclean. And so on. And so on. Anything that an unclean person touched, like a chair or a pencil, would also be unclean and anybody who sat on that chair or used that pencil would become unclean. The state of being unclean was highly contagious. One unclean person could affect the ritual purity of an entire population, effectively shutting down industry, social institutions, and religious obligations. So, the most practical thing to do was to remove an unclean person from society as quickly as possible.
The result was that lepers were required to live alone and to maintain a distance of fifty paces from all other people. If the leper touched another person, that person was unclean until examined by a priest who would declare him clean. The leper was unable to work, was forced to wear torn clothes, was forced to beg for food and the most basic needs for survival. He was feared because of his condition. He could not attend any form of worship service. He could not attend any type of community function. He had to yell out, “Unclean! Unclean!” as he walked, so that nobody would get close enough to him to be contaminated. The leper was cut off from everything and everyone.
So, A leper came up to Jesus [on his knees], begging him, saying things like, “You can make me clean if it’s what you want.
Notice that the leper doesn’t say to Jesus, “You can heal me,” but, “You can make me clean.” The leper is not focused on getting well. The leper is focused on getting clean. The leper wants to be restored to normal life. The leper wants to get a job, provide for his family, stop begging, put on some nice clothes, and go to church, maybe even go to a company picnic or see a ball game. Of course this means that the illness must be cured for this to occur, but the leper is focused on quality of life, not mere existence. He’s not asking Jesus for a cure; he’s asking Jesus for a life. In John’s Gospel Jesus declares, “I have come so that they may have life, and life more abundant.” That is exactly what this man is seeking from Jesus.
How does Jesus respond? Well, surprisingly, it’s a little ambiguous. The reading states that “Jesus was moved with compassion,” but other reliable manuscripts state that “Jesus became angry.” Traditionally, the compassionate Jesus is the one that makes the translations, not because of anything inherent in the text (actually, the version describing Jesus as angry is the better reading), but simply because we like a compassionate Jesus rather than an angry Jesus. So let’s examine what both reading could mean.
The common reading is that Jesus “was filled with compassion.” A compassionate response, rather than an angry one, does seem to make sense in this setting. But what does it mean to have compassion. For us compassion is a strong feeling of acknowledging someone’s pain. One is compassionate by being sympathetic. We confuse sympathy and compassion with empathy–understanding someone’s pain. But both compassion and sympathy mean the same thing, to suffer with someone. Passion means “suffering,” com means “with.” compassion, then, is to enter into someone else’s state of suffering. Jesus doesn’t merely feel sorry for the guy, or simply understand how bad it must be to be a leper; he shares his suffering. He feels the man’s pain and isolation, just as the man does--and if he doesn't feel it here, he will certainly feel it on the cross. This is what it means to have compassion.
So how do we “Be like Christ”? We have to be people of compassion. We have to freely take on the suffering of others. We don’t just stand off on the sidelines and say, “Man, that’s tough.” We jump into the condition of their suffering and we suffer with them. We suffer too! We end our suffering by ending theirs. The best motivation to end the suffering of others is to share in it. Jesus took on the suffering of the world on the cross and demands for us to take up our own crosses. We are like Jesus when we share in his ministry, and we share in his ministry when we share in the conditions of suffering that afflict so many people in the world.
A man was walking along and he fell into a pit. He tried to climb his way out of it, but the sides were too steep and there was no place to grab or get a good foothold. So he stayed in the pit and waited for someone to come along and help him out.
A doctor came by and the man said, “Hey, I’ve fallen into this pit and I can’t get out. Can you help me?” The doctor said, “Sure I’ll help.” He wrote out a prescription and dropped it into the pit and walked on.
A little while later, a priest came by. The man said, “Hey, I’ve fallen into this pit and I can’t get out. Can you help me?” The Priest said, “Sure, I’ll help.” He wrote out a prayer and a blessing and tossed it down into the pit and walked on.
A while after that, one of the man’s friends walked by. The man said, “Hey, I’ve fallen into this pit and I can’t get out. Can you help me?” The friend said, “Sure, I’ll help.” He jumped into the pit with the man. The man said, “What are you doing? Now we’re both stuck down here!” The friend replied, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”
If we truly want to be like Christ, and if we truly want to be people of compassion, then we have to throw ourselves into the pit with those who have fallen into it and can’t find their way out. The world is filled with people wallowing in a lot of pits. People look at the suffering and the world and ask what kind of God would allow it? God doesn’t allow it, we do! God showed us what to do. God showed us how to be like Christ. God showed us what compassion looks like. Why is there so much suffering in the world? Because Christians allow it. Because Christians want to stand off at a safe distance and feel sorry for people, rather than engage them in their suffering. They want to empathize with their pain, but not share in it. So the suffering continues, and people, even Christians, complain to God about it. But God has shown us through Jesus Christ that the best way to alleviate the suffering of others is to share in it. And we are told that we are to “Be like Christ.”
But what if the variant reading is the original? What if Jesus was not compassionate, but angry? What does that mean for us? The first question would be to ask why was Jesus angry in the first place. Many commentators have devoted themselves to asking that question and have proposed a variety of answers, some of which are pretty complicated. Typically, they conclude that Jesus was not angry at the man, but was angry that he was sick, or they conclude that Jesus was angry at the whole system that forced and kept this man in a state of isolation and poverty. Quite frankly, I’ve never been convinced of those explanations. They are just attempts to gloss over Jesus’ anger. Why couldn’t he just have been angry? We focus on the divine aspect of Jesus so much that we sometimes forget that he was human, and human beings do get cranky. Mark’s Gospel presents Jesus as getting cranky a few times, not just with adversaries and the religious leaders, but with people asking him questions or looking for help. So if Jesus is in fact angry, let’s let him be angry. After all, Jesus had been engaged in a nonstop tour of preaching and teaching and proclaiming the Good News. He’s been healing people left, right, and center. I’m sure that there were times when Jesus may have just wanted to be left alone. How many times have you been at work and have been tempted to say, “I’d like to help you out, but I’m off the clock”? How many times has someone come to you for help, either at work or in your personal life, and you just didn’t want to deal with that person or the situation? Maybe Jesus just didn’t want to have to deal with a leper or anyone else at that particular moment. Christians claim to believe that Jesus is fully human and fully divine, so let’s allow Jesus to be human in this situation.
So if Jesus is angry and just doesn’t want to deal with a problem, what is there for us to learn from this situation so that we can “Be like Christ”? Is this license to be indiscriminately angry and not deal with other people and their problems? Not at all! There’s enough angry Christians out there and they don’t seem to be doing anybody and good, so we don’t need any more of that. What we learn is that even if Jesus doesn’t want to deal with this situation, he does. How can we “Be like Christ”? We can do the right thing even when we don’t feel like it. We can help others even when we don’t want to. We can help when what we really want to do is ignore.
Regardless of whether Jesus was moved with compassion or became angry, the point is he responded. “ . . .he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.’ The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.” Jesus literally reached out to the man. He touched him.
Here is where the church really needs to learn to be more like Christ. He did what nobody had done for a long time. He touched the leper. Jesus put himself in a position of becoming unclean. There are a lot of people in this world who haven’t been touched for a very long time, some literally, some metaphorically. When I was serving as a chaplain on the oncology ward of University of Louisville Hospital, I met a young man with full blown AIDS. When the nurse introduced him to me, I instinctively shook his hand, as I had done countless times with countless people. When I had finished talking with him, the nurse came up to me and said, “Do you realize what you’ve just done?” I was worried because I thought that I had violated some hospital protocol or insulted the patient in some way. She said, “You touched him! It’s been months since anyone was brave enough to touch him without hiding behind latex gloves and masks. You have no idea how much that meant to him.” My touching that AIDS patient did not cure him, but for a brief moment, for the first time in a long time, that patient felt clean.
Metaphorically, our society is filled with lepers, not sick people per se, but people who have been cut off and feel isolated, alone, spiritually and emotionally impoverished. Elderly people sit in nursing homes begging for someone to visit them. Homeless people lie in train stations and on street corners begging for someone to acknowledge them as human beings, and not just as “bum.” People with a variety of mental illnesses are shuffled off where the rest of us don’t have to look at them. The world is filled with people who are crying out for help, but don’t know how to ask for it: The alcoholic who wants to stop drinking but doesn’t know how; the convict who wants to go straight but doesn’t know how to survive by playing by the rules, and for that matter, doesn’t even know what the rules are; the chronically depressed who want to live a normal, happy life, but who doesn’t even know how to find the strength to get out of bed. There are lepers all around us. We are surrounded by people who are cut off, who are isolated, who are alone. How do we “Be like Christ”? We reach out to them. We find ways to touch their lives. We stop worrying about maintaining our own cleanliness and put ourselves in a position where we may get dirty.
All too often the people in the church are focused on maintaining their purity. They pronounce judgements on who is clean and who is not. They stand aloof whenever they encounter the “unclean” people of the world. They murmur when these people dare to show up in their churches. But Jesus doesn’t pronounce who is clean and who is unclean. He reaches out to those whom others have deemed unclean and he makes them clean. Their uncleanliness was thought to be contagious, but it is Jesus’ cleanliness that proves to be more contagious. The priests, who are often hostile to Jesus, determine who is clean and who is unclean, but Jesus makes no such determinations! He reaches out and touches, and makes all people clean, regardless of who they are and regardless of what they have.
I have often heard that bad company corrupts good morals. But I don’t believe it. And I see no evidence that Jesus believed it either. That’s just saying that being “unclean” is more powerful than being “clean.” I’d wager that those with good morals who are corrupted were looking to be corrupted in the first place. It’s Jesus’ cleanliness that is contagious, not the lepers uncleanliness. So if we want to be like Christ, we need to change that old chestnut of wisdom around: Good company cleans up unclean people.
So be like Christ and reach out to the unclean in your own community! Touch their lives! Don’t be concerned that you will somehow become sullied by their company or proximity. But rest assured that they will be cleansed by your company, by your attempt to reach out to them. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” I’ve heard. This is never more true than when the clean reach out to the unclean and contaminate them with their cleanliness. That’s how they are like Christ.
“You can make me clean if it’s what you want,” says the leper to Christ. Christ says back to him, “It’s what I want. Be clean!”
Brothers and sister, be like Christ!
Amen.
