Jesus heals the man suffering from leprosy
This sermon today is not for the squeamish. It is not intended to make us who are the comfortable relax in our comfort. I do not apologise should this sermon provoke, yes, even annoy or anger some of you. It is intended to get us all to become gadflies - people who by persistent challenge and criticism motivate or annoy others into righteous action on behalf of the poor, the outcast and the rejected.
In our Mark 1:40-45 reading today we see a man with leprosy coming to Jesus and begging him, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."
In your mind's eye see Jesus reaching out his hand and touching the man. Hear him respond, "I am willing. Be clean!"
Leprosy is a horrible wasting disease but also curable with modern medicine. However, at the time of Jesus, the term encompassed what we now consider to be fairly normal, such as eczema, and other forms of uncomfortable or unsightly skin conditions and skin irritations.
Such 'illnesses' could only be explained within the language and science of the time and often were associated with a punishment from God for sinful activity. Therefore such skin conditions were seen as proving the sufferer to be spiritually unclean.
Leprosy, as we know it today, was first recorded in Egypt more than 1000 years before the birth of Jesus. To be classed as a leper was to be condemned and exiled from family, friends and wider community.
In the Christian Testament we read again and again of Jesus healing those who suffered from different skin disorders that were all classified under the generic term 'leprosy'. Doubtless such healing of 'lepers' sometimes amounted to curing those excluded ones who had no more than acne, eczema, or fungal skin infections.
The important point however is that to be called a 'leper' meant spiritual punishment for spiritual misdemeanour. It resulted in being made an outcast but Jesus broke the taboos: he touched and healed those suffering from 'leprosy' and he forgave the sin that was thought to have been the cause of the 'leprosy' in the first place.
Until the penny dropped for me, I had interpreted the forgiving of the sins of lepers by Jesus as a general forgiveness for all sins committed by them. But now it is obvious to me, within the cleanliness / holiness and unclean / unholy understandings of the culture that preceded, surrounded and impacted upon Jesus, Jesus was forgiving the specific sin that had been associated with the 'leprosy' itself.
But as we look at 'leprosy' from our 21st century medically advanced society we know that leprosy has nothing to do with being God's punishment for any sin whatsoever and to claim otherwise is a blasphemy.
It was ignorance at the time of Jesus, and ignorance remained right through until the rapid advancement in scientific and medical knowledge over the past couple of centuries that associated all kinds of illness with demon possession. Sadly it is ignorance today that still enables some so called 'spiritual' people to hold onto the association between demon possession and all kinds of child misbehaviour or disease.
It is such spiritual ignorance that has led to the killing of children in Britain over the past 10 years as adults attempted to beat demons from them. Let us never forget the evil killing of Victoria Climbie at the hands of her aunt and boyfriend who claimed that she was possessed by the devil.
But even though there was public outrage a decade ago when the truth of what happened to Victoria Climbie came to light, child protection officers in Britain have dealt with some 38 further cases of serious child abuse as a result of claims of demonic possession reported to them in the last five years.
Yet the fear of child protection officers is that hundreds of children still are being subjected to violent beatings, deprivation of food and warm clothing, and other abuses: all as a form of exorcism.
Worse still, such brutality is in the name of their god - and often it is in the name of the Christian God that the perceived demon is driven from the child in such an evil manner. And the most vulnerable children who are 'exorcised' in such despicable ways are often those born with some form of disability.
But this is not just a problem for Britain. In the USA on Dec 4, 2011 a New Jersey father who claimed to be possessed by demons killed his two-year-old daughter. On Jan 7, 2012 a New York mother killed her own child claiming that it was a 'demon' child.
Today, such awful exorcisms based upon ignorance are most prevalent in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Nigeria. Indeed, in December 2008 a self-proclaimed bishop called Sunday Ulup-Aya was arrested by Nigerian police following his public claim that he had killed 110 child 'witches' to save them from demonic possession.
But being an outcast is not restricted to those children who suffer at the hands of the ignorant. It also applies to all who suffer as a result of the greed of others.
Not every one who works in the banking sector is an abuser or an exploiter of others but we know of some so-called 'top bankers' who are paid huge salaries and often as much again in bonuses while 36,200 houses were repossessed by the banks in UK last year and the number is set to rise again this year. That was some 100,000 women, men and children made homeless during 2011 owing to the increasing level of unemployment along side cuts to welfare benefits leading to unmanageable debt. The bonuses of the 'fat cat' bankers would have paid for each of the 36,200 houses repossessed last year allowing 100,000 people still to have their own house.
In saying these things I am not being party political but I am talking from being part of a common humanity. At times like this I remind myself of the word 'ubuntu' from the Zulu/Xhosa languages of South Africa: ubuntu means, "when one rejoices we all rejoice and when one suffers we all suffer as humans together."
So how can we good Christian people rest easy tonight if we have done nothing about the many thousands in UK suffering from fuel poverty when the large energy companies are harvesting huge and growing profits from off all our backs?
How can we go to sleep tonight with clear consciences if we have done nothing about the millions of the world's poor being adversely impacted upon by global climate change? As always it seems that the least guilty are hit first and hardest by the extravagant and wasteful use of carbon fuels by those of us in the 'rich' nations of the world.
How can we eat our hearty Sunday roasts or whatever knowing that millions of others across the northern hemisphere are having to choose today between heating or eating in the depths of this biting winter weather?
Surely it is a godly and a humanitarian imperative that energy is supplied on the basis of the needs of all rather than upon the greed of some?
One of the many faults of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus was their belief in the proof of God's blessings being seen in those who were rich or at least comfortably well off, and in those who were influential and who could wield power over others. The other side of that coin was that being poor was the proof that they had lost or never had God's blessing.
Listen carefully: if proof of God's blessing is in the likes of plain Fred Goodwin, the destroyer of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the proof of God's displeasure is demonstrated in the millions caught in the global poverty trap - if this is 'God' then I want nothing to do with such a monster.
But as I look at Jesus so I see the real God - the One God of All people at work and it is the exact opposite of the kind of God who blesses some and condemns others. It is as I walk along side Jesus day by day that I experience what it means to be a follower of the Way of Jesus.
In our Mark 1:40-45 reading we see a leper approaching Jesus. Here was an excluded one. Certainly no one would actually touch anybody who was tainted with the label 'leper' for fear of being 'infected' by both the leprosy and the perceived 'sin' that had caused God's punishment to be placed upon the 'leper'.
But once again, Jesus demonstrated that no one was beyond his compassion. Jesus touched the man and healed him. So what, I wonder, are the implications of this story of the leper for life today?
Perhaps it is that we who are the 'respectable' and the 'religious' must never treat any one as inferior or unclean?
Perhaps we need to be much more open to and accepting of difference? And that includes especially those who are the excluded and the social outcasts who are not the way we would like them to be.
And this is the big question: how do we apply this to those who have broken the law and especially to those who have committed gross acts of evil against vulnerable children and vulnerable adults?
I am not suggesting that we should be soft on crime. Criminality should be rewarded with appropriate punishment, but let us never forget that, at the Last Supper, Jesus didn't wash uncontaminated feet, but he washed the polluted, unpleasant feet of all his disciples, even the one who would soon after betray him. People did not need to be good enough for Jesus to serve them.
And the point of this sermon today is this: Jesus broke the barriers between the clean and the unclean. He brought the outsider in and his Gospel truth still does.
No one has to be good enough before we serve him or her. No one should be excluded or ostracised by us because they are different or do not live up to our expectations. No one means no one because we are all indwelt with the same sacred spirit that indwelt Jesus of Nazareth.
In our Gospel reading today a man with leprosy went to Jesus and begged him, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."
In your mind's eye see your hand reaching out and touching the man and hear your voice: "I am willing. Be clean!"
Copyright ©: 2012, Rev John Churcher. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.