| A leper came to him begging him,
and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you
can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched
out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I
do choose. Be made clean!” |
| Immediately the leprosy left
him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him
he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that
you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the
priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded,
as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began
to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that
Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed
out in the country; and people came to him from every
quarter. |
|
| Mark
1:40-45 |
| I grew up in the days before sleek TV ad campaigns such as
Nike’s “Just Do It” began. I was a child
in the ‘80s, an era of snappy TV jingles that are regrettably
stuck in my long-term memory. Ads such as “Aren’t
you glad--you used dial?” “Gentlemen prefer Hanes” and “Just
for the taste of it, Diet Coke”. I remember Juicy Fruit’s “The
taste is gonna move you” and that “Kleenex says ‘Bless
you.’” No one my age can forget the commercial
that made a legend out of a small child, “Hey Mikey…He
likes it!” All these ad campaigns came flooding back
into my memory this past week because of one annoying jingle
that kept singing in my psyche as I was meditating on our scripture
passage from Mark. I was pondering the significance of Jesus’ physical
action as he “stretched out his hand and touched” the
leper and into my head shot AT&T’s, “Reach
out, reach out and touch someone.” And it wouldn’t
leave all week. |
| Well Jesus reached out and touched someone in Mark, but
he reached out to someone off limits. He touched a man who
was ritually unclean. That leper was an outcast, an untouchable
person for a righteous Jew of Jesus’ day. Yet moved with
pity Jesus reached out and touched the leper. Then he said, “I
do choose. Be made clean!” Something important is going
on even before the leper is healed. Jesus went crashing through
a major religious barrier. He could have healed the man’s
wound and then touched him after he was ritually clean. Instead
he chose to touch the unclean man, defiling himself in the
eyes of his contemporaries. Then he made the man clean. This
is not just another healing story; God is on the loose in Jesus
breaking down all religious barriers that oppress and ostracize
people. |
| For us to understand the significance of these actions we
need some kind of modern day example of how wide the divide
between the ritually pure and the unclean had become in ancient
Judaism and how lepers were treated in those years. In India
today an “untouchable” or dalit, which
in Sanskrit means “trampled upon,” still suffers
a similar social plight to the leper in Mark. The dalit are
born unclean according to the Hindi caste system. Like the
leper they face societal estrangement and exclusion from the
larger community. Although India’s constitution banned
untouchability in 1950, discrimination against them is still
pervasive. A human rights watch activist said that even today, "Dalits are
not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples,
wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from
the same cups in tea stalls." India's Untouchables are
relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of
being publicly humiliated and disgraced. (1) Amazingly, both
the leper and many dalits have asked for justice and their
space back in their communities. The leper came to Jesus believing, “If
you choose, you can make me clean.” He asked for and
demanded to be let back into the community. Many of the 260
million Hindi, Buddhist, Sikh and Christian dalits are working
for the day when their society will recognize their inherent
worthiness. |
| This notion of a pure people being tainted by interaction
with others plays out in almost every society. This notion,
that some are within some boundary while others are outside
remains an unfortunate part of our society and even the church
today. As individuals we mask our self-insecurities through
shades of this belief. This notion of God-given superiority
or purity is pushed to its extreme when used by groups as propaganda
to incite war, hate and dominance such as the Holocaust, ethnic
cleansings and white supremacy hate crimes. Our scripture passages
show God tearing down boundaries and barriers, providing compassion
to those whom society would dare to call outsiders. “I
do choose,” said Jesus. It’s the gospel story!
Who is an outsider if we all stand in need of God’s cleansing
for our transgressions? Who is “other” if God created
the cosmos out of self-giving love and declared it good? |
| One of my New Testament professors, Dr. Brian Blount, said
about Jesus’ challenge to the scribes’ interpretation
of the holiness and purity laws. “In a perilous act
of solidarity, instead of confirming the man’s exclusion
by shunning him Jesus reached out and symbolically drew him
in. He shattered the boundaries of purity that displaced the
infirm and in the process rewrote the book on the nature of
God’s community.” (2) God entered the unclean,
humanity, to be hope for all. “I do choose. Be made
clean!” The
nature of God’s community is to be one of welcome and
risk taking, as we all understand ourselves as outsiders brought
into reconciliation with God receiving healing and hope through
God’s amazing grace. |
| Of the 24 million Christians in India, two-thirds are dalits.
(3) Thousands more of the 260 million dalits have become Christians
each year. They clearly hear grace offered to them in the message
of God who enters human suffering and is not afraid to defy
societal codes and restrictions. The message has reached them.
They are not what the system tells them, they are beloved by
God who stands with them in their fight for justice and makes
them whole even before justice comes. |
| For those of us who society generally accepts, I wonder what
it takes for us to declare ourselves, as the leper did, in
need? It is harder for many of us who are delusional in our
beliefs of self-sufficiency to open ourselves to receive grace.
Yet we are in need of cleansing for our wounds. We stand in
need of cleansing for our sin against God and one another too.
Like the title of the Henri Nouwen book that seeks a ministry
that emulates Jesus’ life, Christians are to understand
that we are “wounded healers” who go out to share
with others from a place of vulnerability. We are receivers
of grace who are transformed throughout the journey of our
faith. |
| A few weeks ago I read a meditation written by a senior minister
of a large congregation in an urban area. He had signed onto
a project to spend a few days and nights on the street as the
homeless do in his city’s downtown. The intention of
the project was to help those providing social services understand
more of what the homeless experience physically and emotionally
on a daily basis. He hit the street looking and smelling his
part in some sweaty, dirty clothes he had prepared. He was
unshaven and scruffy. Everyone walked around and away from
him. He was prepared to eat less, to skip his daily shower,
and to be dependent on someone else’s mercy for food
and shelter. But he was not emotionally prepared to handle
the pain of isolation, the loss of friendly smiles and of conversation.
For the first time in his life he was not “socially acceptable” to
people he met on the street. He yearned for someone to be open
to real engagement with him. |
| After a night in a downtown shelter and a lot of walking
and moving around to avoid the police, he entered a Catholic
church and slipped into a back pew for a service. Afterwards
the priest came down the aisle, sat down and talked with him.
Then the priest reached out and took his hand in his and prayed
for him. It was the first and only intentional touch he received
during his days on the street. It was enough. The barrier that
had held back his brokenness from God broke. Again he knew
himself to be whole, made clean, loved and cherished by God
and he realized he had been running on his own self-sufficiency
for a long while now. In the priest’s ministry of engagement
he saw a new model for his ministry. He was no longer afraid
to reach out and touch anyone with a word of grace and love.
His newfound vulnerability was used by God to help others as
he opened himself to the risky business of ministry. |
| “If
you choose, you can make me clean” said the leper to
Jesus. What guts the leper had to ask to be made clean. He
asked for boundaries to be broken because he believed that
in Jesus, God could return him to his community. He
would not return the same though! Now he “began
to proclaim” what God had done for him “freely.” He
spread the word and others began to look for this Jesus who
breaks boundaries and restores people to wholeness. |
| Here, at the end of the first chapter of Mark we hear Jesus’ words
and are told that God chose to be vulnerable, coming to us
in Jesus, in order that we may be set free from whatever is
binding us. Now is the time for our ministry to follow the
ministry of our savior. Do not be afraid to reach out and touch
someone showing forth your hope in God who breaks down all
barriers for the sake of the world. |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - February 12, 2006 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) “India's "Untouchables" Face Violence,
Discrimination” Hillary Mayell in National Geographic
News, June 2, 2003, at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0602_030602_untouchables.html |
| (2) Brian K. Blount and Gary W. Charles in Preaching Mark
in Two Voices (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2002)
26. |
| (3) A ray of hope Court decision
in India favors Christian ‘untouchables’ by
Anto Akkara. Ecumenical News International, April 15, 2005,
http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2005/05208.htm |
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