h-6Sunday-b

February 12, 2006

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Rev. Richard Eslinger

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 X 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 X Mark 1:40-45

This story of Jesus’ cleansing the leper is striking, powerful. It draws our attention and invites us into the drama. I mean, here is an outcast leper coming to Jesus and he asks for healing. And Jesus, “moved with pity,” touches the leper and announces that he is made clean. Jesus does what no other would do—he reaches out and touches this man. And Jesus accomplishes what no other has done—he heals him. And the story is striking, too, because of its twists and turns. The leper come to Jesus and announces, “If you will.” So add another name to those here early in St. Mark’s Gospel who know something of Jesus’ power and his identity. (So far, the list includes first of all, ourselves, who are told by the Evangelist in the first verse of the first chapter that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Second on the list, though, are the unclean spirits who do know the holiness of Christ and his power to cast them out. But now, this leper comes with some degree of faith and knowledge of the Son of God. “If you will,” he begins. And he then begs for healing that the Son of God provides.

Notice as the story progresses, there is a remarkable resonance between its words and actions and our own here within the Mass (“worship service” or other term within other traditions). There is a liturgical quality to the story that is also striking. The parallels are remarkable. Look, each Lord’s Day we come to this holy place to come into the presence of our Lord. We kneel and offer a common prayer: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed." Then we are graced with the healing, forgiving, sustaining Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. And we are sent out to show forth Christ’s love in the world and proclaim the Gospel. Now recall the opening of the story St. Mark tells us today. The leper comes to Jesus, kneels down, and makes a petition amazingly like our own. We ask for healing; the leper does the same. Both the leper and all of us in this assembly have come with faith that Christ is the Son of God and has the power and the compassion to heal and to restore. We are all even sent forth in a similar manner. The leper is “dismissed” while in the Latin Mass, the words were heard, “Ite, Missa est.” “Go, you are sent forth,” the priest or deacon announces. We are dismissed just as the leper now made clean. Dismissed at once. Perhaps there is a plot in common between our own worship and the story of this leper and Jesus because we do share so much need and we know who it is who can heal us. This liturgical quality of the story just may well serve to impress us with a new insight—“This is our story, too!”

But here is where these “stories held in common” seem to diverge. It seems as if that leper healed by Jesus and this community healed by the Lord almost go in opposite directions. It is fascinating. I mean, on one hand, the leper is cautioned not to tell anyone anything, but to go and make witness to the priest and offer to God according to the Law. Instead, the healed leper cannot restrain himself to bearing witness only in private to the priest. Being dismissed, the man goes out and proclaims the entire account to everyone. He becomes one of the earliest evangelists in the Gospel of Mark! Sent to witness to the priest, he goes out and proclaims this good news of his healing and of this Healer. Once an outcast, now, cleansed by Christ, he is restored to his community. But he does not return to whatever he was doing in the old days before his disease forced him out. He returns as someone whose very presence is a sign of the power and compassion of Jesus Christ. But he is not a silent sign. No. He goes everywhere, telling out this Good News. (After all, those who study evangelization do stress the effectiveness of an indigenous evangelist, someone who now embraces Christian faith and tells his or her neighbors.) Well, this healed leper is just such an evangelist. He knows his community, knows who lives on what streets, and also probably knows who is in the greatest need of hearing this Gospel right now! “The man went away,” St. Mark says, “and began to publicize the whole matter.”

On the other hand, consider our own post-dismissal plans. Once we are blessed and sent forth, where do we go and what do we proclaim? Good question. Now the theology of the Church states that we, too, are sent forth to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially in those places where we are most “indigenous.” There are, after all, people and places that are best reached with the Good News precisely by us. No one else is so strategically placed as we are—in our communities, our workplace, and even in our families. But let’s be honest to God here, the outcome of our being dismissed from the Eucharist often results in our not proclaiming the Gospel to anyone. We return to our communities, our workplace, our families and remain silent about the greatest news in the world. One author wrote a book some time ago called God’s Frozen People. And the question remains, do we still “freeze up” and grow silent when sent out into the world? Maybe the occasion will present itself when someone mentions that they “used to be” a Catholic (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist—preachers are invited to refer to their own parish’s tradition). Maybe this person is carrying around perceptions that no longer fit after the reforms of the churches. Or maybe this person has had a negative experience that has been carried for a long time. On the other hand, American society is now a missionary context for most every parish. More and more, it is the case the persons we encounter have no prior experience within Christ’s church. The people who heard the leper who had been cleansed needed to hear his proclamation about Jesus. That is clear—they flocked to find him. Our own co-workers, family and friends also deserve to hear the Gospel. We are sent forth to bear that Good News into the world. We are not sent out to be God’s frozen people. We are dismissed to be evangels.

Now it is at this point in the story that another huge reversal takes place. It has to do with being inside and being outside. See, at the opening of the story, it was clear who was in and who was out. After his early ministry of healing and casting out evil, Jesus was definitely on the inside. When he preached in the synagogue, crowds flocked to him. After Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, the whole city gathered at the door to Peter’s home. Jesus was very much on the inside of his community; his popularity was sky high. On the other hand, we know, too, who was on the outside. It was the leper. We have heard how he was diagnosed after he developed that horrible disease. And after he was declared a leper he was most certainly unclean, most certainly an outcast. But look at the reversal that happens when Jesus touches and heals this outcast. The cleansed leper is now restored to community and to covenant joy. He witnesses his cure to the priests and he proclaims the One who cured him to his community. This joy-filled former leper is no longer an outcast. But because the word about Jesus was being so effectively proclaimed, “it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.” The healed man was in every part of the community; Jesus was “outside in desert places.” The reversal is profound. For a season there in Galilee, our Lord will have some foretaste of that final time when he will be crucified outside the wall. Left to die there on the cross as one even more unclean than a leper. Oh this little season of being outcast is, to be sure, based on popularity, not on vilification and hatred. Still, in St. Mark’s Gospel, beginnings and endings have a way of connecting with each other. The Italian masters would signal this connection of beginnings and endings by painting a crossed beam high above their manger scenes of the Holy Family. In Mark’s Gospel, here is a similar scene—Jesus becomes an outcast for a time because he is the compassionate Son of God who touches and heals this leper.

And as for the outcome of our words and actions that bear witness to the Gospel, we, too, may have miraculous responses or we may be greeted with scorn. We do not know. That is Jesus’ own “messianic secret!” Still, we do seem to be given this much information about the outcome of our bearing witness to Jesus Christ. We will be graced by being included in a community of faith with all the other outcasts,…new sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers. Who are these members of our new family? Well, in just a bit we will greet some of them with the peace of Christ on the way to our Holy Meal with the risen Christ.

Amen.