Mark 1.40-45
In the 1980s, when I was doing my studies at St. Augustine Seminary, I also completed a six month Clinical Pastoral Internship at Toronto East General, now known as Michael Garron Hospital, as part of my formation in Chaplaincy.
The very first patient I visited and spent time with was a young man, in his late 20’s, dying from AIDS. Those of you born before the 1970’s will no doubt remember the disgust and anger and judgementalism that showed itself at that time, when not much was known about HIV and fear controlled so many of people’s – and society’s – reactions.
And while I have not spent a lot of time with people with Leprosy, I have spent time with patients dying from AIDS. I have seen first hand not only the ravages of the disease, but the alienation faced by those persons afflicted with it. And how society reacted. I remember a small group of people asking about my first visit, and when I told them that the patient had AIDS – they ALL STEPPED BACK slightly from me. Unconsciously. Such was the fear at that time.
So, when I see the text from our first reading today from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, where Chapter 13 lays out for the authorities, and the people, in really quite some detail, the process of diagnosing and quarantining cases of leprosy, well – I get it. The fear of the unknown. And the fear for our lives.
Leprosy was a fearsome disease. It was highly contagious, and it was fatal. And to separate the infected from the healthy no doubt did a good bit to control the spread of the disease. But medical theory was sketchy at best in those days, and by itself it doesn’t explain the revulsion people felt at the thought of a leper, and the detailed lengths to which people would go in shielding themselves from such a person. After all, there were a good many other diseases, even more fatal, more common, and more contagious than leprosy. Tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, … a long list. But people who suffered from these weren’t made to tear their clothes, cover their faces, wear a bell, leave the camp, and warn away anyone who might come near by yelling out their uncleanliness.
In the literature of so many cultures, leprosy was so uniquely despised, because in the experience of those peoples, it was worse than contagious, even worse than fatal…. It was ugly. Leprosy attacked the tissues of the body in a particularly gruesome way. It was not easy to be compassionate towards a leper. It was much easier to be disgusted, to be repulsed, much easier to hide away or cover up the thing that offends and frightens, rather than to face it and to begin the process of healing with compassion, and with understanding.
And to be honest, I saw the same societal response of disgust and repulsion to many of the cases of AIDS, because of the lifestyle decisions that were associated with it. I guess in two thousand years, we haven’t changed all that much, have we.
So, that takes us back to Mark – the Gospel those messages are both simple and profound. What is Mark trying to point out to us in this gospel account? Was it that Jesus healed a man with Leprosy? I don’t think so.
I believe that even before the leper was healed, Christ had worked His miracle, simply by reaching out and touching the man. In place of disgust, Christ put compassion. He refused to let the commonly accepted attitudes and misunderstandings of His time be the norm for His actions. The real manifestation of God’s power in this encounter is not that one sick person is made healthy, but rather that a person universally held to be repulsive, unlovable, even evil, is in fact loved, is in fact the object of God’s mercy and compassion.
And that is a miracle indeed. A miracle that heals not only leprosy, but heals as well human fear, human prejudice, human inability to love where and when the need is greatest.
Hold on to that image of Christ reaching out His hand to the leper, and curing him with a touch, with compassion, with understanding and with acceptance. Because encountering people with compassion, understanding and acceptance is how fear is overcome. It is how the mask of ugliness is torn away. It is how the broken and the weak are made whole and strong.
Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion. He challenges our idea of what is true love for our neighbour. For each of us has a great capacity for love. We have in our power to reach out to those who are suffering the pain of rejection. Each day, all around us, we can enkindle new hope, we can help bring back the zest for living in someone else, and when we do, we mirror dimly the infinite compassion of God.
And I think this is what Mark is saying. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Mark tells us that if we want to see God’s presence, then look to what Jesus does. His actions. And if we want to experience God’s presence, then do what Jesus did.
Jesus reaches into the depths of the hearts of people who feel that they’re totally alone and isolated, who feel they have nowhere to turn. To those who believe they are unloveable. To those who by their illnesses or lifestyle decisions feel on the fringe of society – rejected by the community. Jesus throughout his ministry reaches out to encounter those who society judges and casts away. And that includes those who we, in our inner judgements, have pushed into the fringes. Have cast away.
Jesus’s actions are a challenge to us, one that has us look at our own fears and judgements and challenges us to a new way of looking at things, challenges us to stretch our capacity for compassion. Mark reminds us that the Messiah, the Christ, came to break down barriers that limit our ways of thinking, to reveal to us a depth of Love and Mercy that reflect the essence of God. And Mark reminds us that you and I are called to put that love, that mercy, into action.
Because if we do not reach out to the others who have been pushed to the fringes of life, for whatever reason, then who in God’s name will?