One of the interesting things about living with a six year old is you get constant reminders of all the social taboos we live with that children are absolutely not aware of. For example, this winter (though it’s not really been cold yet) we have been eating soup some, and each time we dive in, Ken has to remind Mary Ellen that it is not polite to slurp. You know how it can be with kids, right? We head into the bathroom with the grandchild, and the next thing we know, the child is announcing to everyone in the facility the details of male and female anatomy. Or we have to remind the little two year old when it is okay to flash the belly button and when its not so appropriate. These are all the kinds of things that have become second nature to us as we conduct ourselves in day-to-day living. We know what clothes are expected for certain events, we know which fork to use when we eat salad at a formal dinner.
Then there’s all those unwritten rules about how to conduct yourself when you’re sick with something contagious. Stay home. Wash your hands regularly. Take your medicine. Don’t breathe or sneeze on anybody. Now, in our world these days, these sort of expectations are not written down anywhere in some sort of official book or law. “You must behave in this way under these circumstances.” But, in Jesus’ day they were. We think of the “Law of Moses” as the Ten Commandments, but it was much more extensive than that. And if you were a faithful Jew, the expectation was that you would follow the letter of the law; every last bit of it. There were specific instructions about how to prepare foods, everything from herbs and vegetables to various kinds of meat. The law covered the particular dress that was expected for nearly every occasion. Just about every possible situation you could imagine, there was a law that directed your behavior in that context. This included what was expected for all sorts of illnesses, and how you were (or were not) to interact with people with those inflictions; among them, leprosy.
Leprosy was one of the most feared illnesses, probably because people didn’t understand it. Leprosy in Jesus’ time included any skin abnormality; a poison ivy outbreak, rashes, chicken pox, pimples. The list could go on and on. And anyone with leprosy was deemed by the law as “unclean,” and cast out to the literal fringes of society. They could not live in the villages with their family and community. They were cast out to leper colonies away from the “clean” and “healthy” people. So you can imagine the miserable existence of a leper; sick, lonely, outcast, judged, ignored. Lepers were ostracized and they were sneered at. They were judged and avoided. Healthy people did everything possible to stay away from lepers because if they came into contact with one, they became unclean themselves. Besides, it was the law.
In this morning’s passage, Jesus and the disciples have left Capernaum and they are headed to “another village.” We don’t know what village that is, somewhere in Galilee. And as they go, it seems, they near a leper colony. This “colony” as it were, was probably out in the middle of nowhere. It would not have been in or near a village because the “clean” people would not have wanted to have any chance of being exposed to the “uncleanliness” of the lepers. Now, unlike that incident where the hemorrhaging woman quietly reached out and touched Jesus’ robe, in this case, a leper approaches Jesus. The man dropped to his knees and begged Jesus. “If you are willing,” he said to Jesus, “you can make me clean.”
Now, if a leper had approached any other passerby in that day, the person most certainly would have looked at the man, sneered, and then walked by on the other side of the road, as far away from the unclean man as possible. But that’s not what Jesus did, not even close. Our scripture says that, “filled with compassion (moved with pity), Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.” In that one little action, there is so much that happens. In Jesus’ three simple words, “I am willing,” there is so much that is said.
Jesus’ radical proclamation disrupts the social order and breaks the long-standing boundaries that were set up by the law. Jesus extends his hand and simply touches the man. He offers personal presence to this man who had been so condemned and without contact for so long. Jesus’ hand is the supreme expression of mercy that transcends the laws of the purity of religious dogma. Jesus’ touch is a sign of mercy and shared life; a sign that goes against the grain and disrupts the social order so that liberation and reconciliation can reign. Jesus’ compassion compels him to reach across the boundary of disease to touch an “untouchable,” thus violating a Jewish law. And in doing that, Jesus put himself in the leper’s place, with that touch that made the leper clean, Jesus himself became unclean. Instead of confirming the man’s exclusion by shunning him, Jesus reaches out and through his healing touch symbolically draws him in. He shatters the long-standing boundaries of purity and in the process rewrites the book on the nature of God’s beloved community.
Why would Jesus do that? Why would he risk his own health and become ritually unclean by touching this leper? The answer to that question lies in Mark’s words preceding Jesus’ action, “Filled with compassion. (Moved with pity.)” English translations cannot do justice to the word that Mark uses here to describe Jesus’ disposition upon encountering the leprous man. Some translations say that Jesus was “incensed” or “indignant.” The real translation of the word actually probably falls somewhere in between these two ideas. Jesus surely was moved by compassion (pity) for the leper. And it is perfectly human that his act of healing was also motivated partially by anger at a social system that demonized and excluded an entire group of human beings guilty of nothing more than being “different.”
We see Jesus’ total frustration with the social system when, after healing the leper, he doesn’t jump with joy, but rather says to him, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Some translations say, “as a witness against them.” Jesus, literally “snorting with anger,” sends the man back to the priests. The cleansed leper’s task is not to publicize a miracle but to help confront an ideological system. Jesus is willing to touch this leper because he wants healing not only for this man, but for the whole society.
I had the privilege this week of hearing at the annual Holston Clergy Convocation, the Rev. Kent Millard. Rev. Millard is the retired pastor of St. Luke’s in Indianapolis, one of the largest United Methodist congregations in the U.S. On his second night with us, Rev. Millard shared with us a story from his days as a seminarian. Rev. Millard was a student at Boston Seminary in the early days of the Civil Rights movement, and after that first terrible march on Selma, the one now known as “Bloody Sunday,” when some of the marchers were killed by local police who attacked with billy clubs and tear gas, Martin Luther King called on Boston Seminarians (among many others) to come and to support their march to Montgomery for voter’s rights. Rev. Millard and about 20 others from Boston University flew down to Selma, where they immediately received non-violence training.
Needless to say, Rev. Millard was quite afraid, but joining with nearly 2,500 other marchers and protected by nearly 4,000 troops from the U.S. Army and Alabama National Guard, he joined the peaceful protest which marched its way into Montgomery nearly three weeks after that first “Bloody Sunday,” on March 24. That day, the protesters sent one African American into the Alabama State Capitol building to try and register to vote, but he was turned out. So the next day the marchers went back to try again. And this time, as they gathered in front of the State Capitol, they were surrounded by Klansmen who were shouting all sorts of horrendous things at them. So before the group sent another person in to try and register for the vote, a leader of the march stood on the steps and began to pray. But his prayer wasn’t for the people inside the building, that they might see fit to give the vote to all people equally. The man’s prayer wasn’t even for the marchers who had so faithfully labored for the rights of all people. This leader prayed for the Klansmen who were surrounding them and cursing them; he prayed that God might break their hearts of stone and turn them into hearts of love.
Several years later, Rev. Millard returned to north Alabama to preach at a United Methodist minister’s conference, not unlike the one I attended this week. He shared that same story with the gathered group, and afterwards, he was approached by one of the pastors. The man told him that he had been there in Montgomery that day, too, that he had heard that prayer of the man on the steps of the Capitol Building. He had been one of the Klansmen there, and he told of many of the awful things he had done during that period of his life. Then he shared about the day he walked into a church, knelt down at the altar, and began to pray. As the tears rolled from the man’s face, he shared with Rev. Millard how he had felt God breaking his heart of stone that day and calling him into a ministry of reconciliation. The man felt moved by God to make up for all the terrible things he had done in his days as a Klansman. God had given him a heart of love.
Friends, all around us the injustices of society prevail, casting out people for no reason except that they are “different.” We can respond with hearts of stone, or we can let that anger be an act of love, compassion, pity. Healing stories become healing ministries. And like Jesus, we can and should reach out our hands to the outcaste, offering not only healing, but God’s liberating mercy that breaks hearts of stone, tears down the barriers of society, and frees all people to love and serve and proclaim the name of Christ our Lord!
