“Who are the Lepers?” Mark 1:40-45 Sixth Sunday of Epiphany February 12, 2012 Humber United Church

Rev. Nancy Price, in Nova Scotia, tells the story of a young doctor treating a child with AIDS. It was clear this child was suffering, was alone, and because of the child's physical condition would not know love or care. This young doctor hugged and held the child. His family, and even the nurses, chastised him for showing affection and care to this terrified child.

Now, it is clear that AIDS can’t be contracted by hugging someone - but we still treat those suffering as if they are lepers. Remember the proposals to take all the AIDS sufferers and isolate them on a island? Separate everyone from the mainstream population?

Remember the pictures of Princess Diana, hugging people with AIDS, with sick and dying children on her lap? When commenting about Diana, Nelson Mandela said:

"When she stroked the limbs of someone with leprosy, or sat on the bed of a man with HIV/AIDS and held his hand, she transformed public attitudes and improved the life chances of such people; people felt if a British princess can go to a ward with HIV patients, then there's nothing to be superstitious about."

The Biblical word for leprosy includes several types of skin disease, including what today is known as Hansen’s Disease, a kind of tuberculosis of the body. Did you know that today there are about 100 cases in the US each year, and as it becomes more drug resistant, chances are there will be an increase in diagnoses. Leprosy was also a word used for psoriasis, acne, rosacea, liver-coloured birthmarks. Culturally, if the outside was blemished, it was assumed that the “inside” was blemished too. Sin was seen as the root cause of all forms of leprosy. I’m sorry to say that attitude still persists today in some circles.

Remember the stories about sacrifices in the temple? The people believed, because the religious leaders told them, that every animal for sacrifice had to be completely unblemished. Purity laws required it. Someone who was considered unclean was cut off from the community, not allowed to worship with them.

A leper approached Jesus. We don’t know what the skin condition was, or how long he had it. What seems clear is that he was not willing to remain isolated from human contact or human community. He went to Jesus and issued what was tantamount to a challenge. He said to Jesus “If you choose, you can make me clean.”. Some translations say Jesus was angry; some translate the word as ‘indignant’. Some translate is as compassion. I have chosen to see Jesus as angry at religious and cultural attitudes which cut off certain people, and compassionate towards the man who seeks him out.

Note that the man does not directly say to Jesus “make my body whole and unblemished.” He says “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” I see it as a challenge to set aside the norm of society which isolated people who were ill, and to accept them into the mainstream despite their disease.

‘Especially if the translation "declare me clean" is used, this leper is approaching Jesus as a priest -- one who had the power and authority to declare lepers clean and thus restore them to normal society. But the leper also knows that by touching him, Jesus makes himself unclean in the eyes of the religious authorities.

Myers (Binding the Strong Man) writes about this: "The leper appears aware that his approach to Jesus, a nonpriest, was itself in violation of the symbolic system, which is why he gives Jesus a chance to refuse. It is almost as if he says, "You could declare me clean if only you would dare (1:40)."

But there is something more. Our translation reads “reached out his hand”, but a closer translation says Jesus took the man to him. In other words, he hugged the man. By hugging the man, even by touching him, Jesus himself then became “unclean”. So Jesus also could not go into the normal places - synagogue, marketplace. He had to remain isolated and outside as well.
Jesus touched the leper. He left the safety of his ‘clean’ world and entered the world of the leper with the simple act of touching him.

In a couple of weeks, I will be in the city of of Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. In the Old City, built in roughly 1535, is the Cathedral of San Pedro Claver, a Jesuit known as the Patron Saint of Slaves, who went to Colombia in 1610 as a student priest. Cartagena was a main centre for the slave trade in the Americas for over 100 years. Ten thousand slaves entered the port each year, from West Africa, under conditions so foul that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Pope Paul III condemned the slave trade, Pius IX called it “supreme villainy" but it continued to flourish. Claver declared himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."

“As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and miserable passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching. As Peter Claver often said, "We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips."

We must speak with our hands before we try to speak with our lips.

So I find myself asking who are the lepers among us today?

People with HIV-AIDS are still seen as “lepers”. Even though you cannot get the disease by touching someone, we still behave as if we can. There have been proposals to round up those with AIDS and put them in one place, a kind of modern-day leper colony. The virus and the disease are spreading throughout the African population particularly. Children are being born with the disease.

Today is Autism Sunday, a day in which we recognise Autism Spectrum Disorder, which affects the function and development of the brain. Autistic individuals see, hear and sense things differently - and as a result their ability to reason, communicate and interact with others is affected. As a spectrum disorder, there is a wide variation in its manifestation. It is not a mental disorder, nor is it a form of mental. It is still not well understood. Yet individuals with autism are still treated as if they are somehow not quite right. I found myself wondering if the man Jesus healed in the synagogue might have been autistic - back then an autistic individual might be seen as being possessed.

These are a couple of examples - but there are more. I encourage you to think about who might be seen as a leper among us.

What does it mean, in this day and age, to be “clean”? Is cleanliness next to godliness? If we shower every day and make sure we don’t have a bad odour, no pimples or acne, no chapped skin - are we godly people? Is that all it takes to be clean inside? Or is it the other way around? Is it that being loving and generous people (godly people) makes us clean inside? Is outer cleanliness an indication of what kind of people we really are?

A few years ago in the Toronto Star, there was a story about a native man who allowed his two children to freeze to death. In petitioning the judge, one of the elders commented that the man should be restored to health, that is, healed - within the circle of the community - that in fact to exclude him from the community would prevent his healing, and hence the community could not be healed either. In this understanding, if someone is unwell and separated from the community, the only way to heal the community is bring the person back within the circle so that all can be healed.

And this is the other part of the story. In reaching out, holding and touching the leper, Jesus did what the priests in the temple have the power to do, but refuse to do - he has restored this man to community. In the same way, in reaching out and touching those who are considered “lepers” today - those lepers are restored to life in community. Healing takes place - perhaps the healing of the disease if that is possible, but certainly the healing of the soul. The community is also healed. May it be so.

Sources:

1. Healing and Touch by Rev. Fran Ota February 14, 2009

2. Rev. Randy Quinn, from the sermon “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness”.

3. Rev. Nancy Price, from the Midrash discussion list

4. Nelson Mandela, November 2, 2002

5. Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes, at CrossMarks Christian Resources http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x40.htm

6. St. Peter Claver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Claver

7. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/587620