The tension continues to build as we continue to work our way through the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. Yes – we are still on the first chapter! But, hey, this is the Gospel of Mark, and one of the narrative’s most obvious characteristics is its immediacy, that sense of the rising crescendo of events: And then...and then… and then.
The tension builds. Plans are adjusted. Changes are made. Exorcisms – like the demon-possessed man in the temple – and dramatic healings – like Simon’s mother-in-law with her fever – those sorts of events just do not fit into the mold of a gentle rabbi and a nice, quiet preaching ministry. What is Jesus to do?
As we saw last week, the crowds in Capernaum insisted upon following Jesus expectantly – craving more miraculous healings and more dramatic exorcisms – more and more and more - until he said, “Enough, enough, enough, moving right along, moving right along, moving right along.
As United Church of Christ pastor Kate Huey writes, “Perhaps (Jesus) doesn't want to be seen as a magician, or even to be known as a worker of miracles if that keeps people from hearing the message he proclaims, from coming to understand who he is.”
And so Jesus and the Twelve left Capernaum, the town that had almost begun to seem like home (what with those meals that Simon’s mother-in-law insisted upon preparing for them – what a good cook she was) – and they moved out into the countryside – down the dusty dirt road toward whatever it is that would come next.
I picture Jesus in my mind - heaving a great sigh of relief when the last hut on the outskirts of Capernaum disappeared over the rise of the road behind them. Surely now the crowds would be gone. Surely now the cries of the crippled, the blind, the oddballs, the doomed would be replaced by an almost blessed silence. Surely now, they would be alone – just the rabbi and his little group of devotees.
And so it was. But not for along. Nothing in the Gospel of Mark is for long. You see, down the road a piece, a man was walking their way – a man quite obviously not doing well.
Patrick Oden describes the wretched fellow this way: “He is extremely gaunt, and wearing what can only barely be called clothes. These tatters are wrapped all around him, trying to cover seemingly every part of his body. But the wind and their raggedness keep that an impossible task…White splotches cover what (the skin) underneath the rags. Scabs and sores are everywhere.”
It cannot be – but lo and behold it is - this man is a leper - in those ancient times, one known to be cursed by God, one whose sin is clearly shown for the world to see.”
It is perhaps instructive at this point for us to understand that the ailment that afflicted the unnamed man approaching Jesus was most likely not our modern day disease of leprosy. You see, leprosy, as we know it, was practically non-existent in Palestine in Jesus’ day.
Armed with that knowledge, this tale becomes a bit more nuanced when we realize that the man’s ailment might better be described as simply rough or scaly skin – less than perfect – perhaps pock-marked, acne-ed, Runaway psoriasis maybe?
Or untreated eczema? Like your grandfather or uncle. Like the friend of your teenaged son.
Describe it as you will. The man who brashly approached Jesus and his followers was, by social convention and religious dogma, a pariah, an outcast. Here is how Presbyterian pastor Robert Elder describes the situation.
“The social taboos for lepers in Israel were powerful and frightening in their comprehensiveness. No leper, under any circumstances, was to approach a non-leper. Any time a person who was clean came near them, lepers were to stand off at a distance and shout, if they still had voices to shout with, "Unclean! Unclean!"
… Lepers were excluded from the general population and from any contact with the people of God. Participation in the religious life of the community was forbidden, any approach to the temple in Jerusalem was entirely out of the question. Rabbis of the time are known to have expressed opinions on the status of lepers, calling them living corpses whose cure was as difficult as resurrection of the dead.”
And yet, this dead man walking continued to approach Jesus. And as he did, those close followers of the rabbi did something they would continue to do right up until the end. They backed away. They melted into the scenery even as Jesus took a step closer to the disfigured man.
It was then that the man asked Jesus a most serious question. He asked Jesus not to heal him but rather to make him clean – and therein lies a huge difference. You see, only a Jewish priest can make someone clean. After all, there are 32 verses in the Torah book of Leviticus explaining the only acceptable process that can lead to being clean. Check it out – Leviticus 14.
Now Jesus must make a decision. Does he fly in the face of not only social convention but also religious laws regarding purity? Some translations of this story tell us that pity showed on Jesus’ face at this point. However, many Biblical scholars believe that the more accurate translation from the Greek is anger.
And so, even as a flash of anger glimmered in Jesus’ eyes, he does what he has been called to do. He steps right over those 32 verses in Leviticus into reimagining a social order where the rough and scaly skinned people – your grandfather or uncle, the friend of your teenaged son - the outcasts, the pariahs are no longer excluded.
In fact, Jesus embraces that new world even as he embraces the leper before him. Yes - Jesus touches the man – making himself unclean in the eyes of the temple hotshots in order that the lost may be found, the marginalized welcomed, the unclean clean.
Of course, Jesus knows that a sudden healing of this sort will seem very suspicious and so with the best interest of the leper in mind, he urges him to go to the priest for confirmation. Remember that only a priest could declare someone to be clean. Remember those 32 verses in Leviticus 14.
Realize, however, that the priests were not a cold-hearted lot determined to make life miserable and difficult for the Jewish people. The priests were the ones who were ultimately responsible for keeping the community together and safe, for making it work in the midst of the pagan Roman Empire.
No wonder Jesus the Jew sternly directed the man to go to the temple priests in order to be officially reinstated in the community. However, instead the leper dances off joyfully, his glee something he could not keep inside. And, really, do we blame him?
That is the essence of this little story. However, I want to briefly talk about two ideas that leap out at me as I ponder it. The first is this anger business. Why would Jesus have been angry? And was he angry at the leper, or did something else get his dander up?
I suppose one could say that his anger was directed at the leper. After all, the guy should have kept his distance and obeyed the rules. By approaching Jesus, all he was doing was stirring up a lot of trouble and putting Jesus into a very difficult position. It was almost surreal – the tattered sunken-eyed man coming closer and closer. What was Jesus supposed to do – turn tail and run?
However, I am not so sure that it was the leper that made Jesus angry. I have a feeling that if we had been there and had watched closely, we would have seen a flash of compassion in Jesus’ eyes before we saw the anger.
You see, I think that Jesus’ anger was not directed at the leper, but was rather focused on the powers that had been created (and that we still create) that ultimately hold back all of creation – the values, the systems, the things we feel forced to do to one another to cope with and survive in this crazy world.
And so in both risky love and anger, Jesus reached out and touched the man. And that is the second thing I want to ponder. Jesus begins to break the rules when he continues to walk toward an obviously ritually unclean, impure person. And he smashes those rules to bits when he reaches out and touches the man.
Jesus’ followers must have been aghast, horrified, so tied to their culture were they, to the way things are, have always been, and will forever be. Yikes! Imagine! In contrast to all the social and religious mores, Jesus gives that leper a bear hug.
What an act of faith – to not only re-imagine the world, but to take one small step to make it so. What an act of courage – to build and rebuild relationships in radical ways, relationships between the clean and the unclean, between those who are in and those who are out. What an act of blessed defiance – to jump right over all 32 verses in Leviticus 14 in order to welcome an outcast home, home to the community, in order to do what is right instead of what is easy. What an act of risky love and anger.
Rev. Nancy Foran
Raymond Village Community Church
Raymond, ME
www.rvccme.org
And so for us, there is a nagging symbolism in these five little verses in the earliest Gospel we have, in this story of Jesus and a nameless leper which has made its way into Holy Scripture, the Book on which we say we base our lives.
Jesus openly commits an act of risky love and anger. He does not turn his back on a hurting world, but rather faithfully, courageously, and defiantly steps right into it and embraces it – in all its brokenness, in all its dirtiness, in all its pain. May we as his followers be faithful enough, courageous enough, and defiant enough to do likewise.
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