In today's readings, we hear very different responses to
leprosy, a disease that was greatly feared in biblical times. In the Old Testament reading, we first hear
of a very strict and law driven response to leprosy, aiming to protect the
community from becoming infected from those who are sick. Then, Jesus gives us a compassionate response
that breaks through the barriers and prejudices of his society. I wonder what these readings tell us about
the Good News of Jesus, about how we are called to live out our faith?
From Leviticus, we hear how the ancient Jews dealt with
leprosy and other skin diseases that had no known cures. These diseases were considered very serious
not only because they were highly contagious, but because this ancient view saw
the afflicted patient as spiritually unclean and therefore unfit to participate
in religious rituals. The priests would
officially declare such a person as unclean, and he would be quarantined in
order to protect the community. In a
community-based society such as ancient Israel, such a separation was very
severe. At the time of his greatest
vulnerability, the leper would be deprived of community support. It's difficult for us to comprehend how cut
off from society a leper would have been in ancient Israel; his only regular
social contact would have been with other lepers. Our responsorial psalm today gives us some
additional understanding into this mindset, reminding us that in ancient
biblical times, many people regarded sin as the cause of leprosy and other
terrible diseases.
In the Gospel reading, in Jesus' interaction with the leper,
we get a much different response. And un-named leper approaches Jesus instead
of remaining on the outskirts of society.
Under Jewish law, the leper should have been warning Jesus not to
approach him. Yet, he kneels down and addresses Jesus as if in an act of
worship, begging him: “If you wish, you can make me clean.” By approaching
Jesus and interacting with him, the leper risks incurring a punishment much
harsher than the already grim reality of his disease. Yet, he sees a goodness
and authority in Jesus that surpasses the laws that he is called to follow.
Rather than being shocked or repulsed by the leper’s boldness, Jesus is moved
by the trust the leper places in him.
Jesus' compassionate response is not hollow or sentimental; it rather
fires the hope of those who live in hopelessness, nurturing those who wish to
follow Christ in love and helping to perfect the faith of those who approach
him in confidence. The shock of this encounter continues when Jesus reaches out
and touches the leper. I wonder if this
leper had ever been touched with love in such a way before, if another human being
had ever embraced him?
We might ask ourselves at this point why Jesus touched this
leper in order to heal him, especially since Jewish law & tradition would
have prevented him from doing so.
Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus performs miracles with simply a word or
even an unspoken desire. A wave of his hand
would have done the trick, without Jesus having to touch the leper’s diseased
skin. Yet, Jesus touches him - he makes
a point in touching him. He goes beyond what is necessary to physically reach
out to this leper, this outsider, in an act flowing out of God's abundant love.
Jesus' point of touching the leper reminds me of stories I
heard about Eva Peron, the first lady of Argentina over 50 years ago. I heard
these stories when I studied in Buenos Aires one summer. Coming from a humble
background herself, Eva Peron as the first lady of Argentina would spend an
enormous amount of time and energy in helping the poor. In frail health herself, even though she was
advised by her doctors not to touch people who were clearly very sick, she did
not hesitate to hug and even kiss many of the poor that she would meet. She
knew not only how much this meant to them, but also how much this contact meant
to her. One elderly man told me about
his encounter with Evita when he was a young man, how she hugged him as she met
him at a train station. He had written
to her to ask her to provide him a suit in which to get married. A poor Argentine gaucho cowboy, this man had
never had a nice set of clothing. Evita
did indeed give this man this suit, which he still kept sealed in a plastic bag
in his closet more than 10 decades later, which he very proudly showed to
me. This memory still brought tears to
his eyes. As human beings, we know how
important our physical human touch is in reaching out to others. Jesus as the incarnate Christ used this
physical touch as an important part of his ministry.
A message for us to take away from today’s insightful
readings is that when we discover Jesus at work through the Body of Christ present
in our world today, we understand that there is no one who is outside the reach
of God's mercy, that we are called the full realization of our human potential. In deed, the Body of Christ calls out to
empower all of us, especially those on the margins of society. The Good News of
the Gospel is that there is no outsider in the eyes of God, as we are all one
in Christ. In the powerlessness of the cross, Jesus has taken on the
“otherness” of the outsiders in all forms; he calls us to do the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment