Richard Bollman, S.J.

6^th Sunday, 15 February "Meeting the Leper"

BIBLE COMMENT: Mark 1:40-45; Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46;

1 Corinthians 10:31 - 11:1

Leviticus is the 3^rd book of the Bible, and it is an

expansion of the law of God as it was lived in the Jewish community.

It’s about practical matters of daily life:

things like diet, preparation of food, childbirth, sexuality,

how to evaluate disease and healing from disease.

Certain practices and conditions of health or behavior were believed to be holy,

and the persons involved were called holy, or unholy–if they didn’t measure up.

Health and hybienic cleanliness for example could be taken as a sign that a person

is aligned with God’s favor and God’s will.

Or they weren’t. And unholy people need to be avoided.

That’s why the first consideration in illness is the question of holiness:

some physical conditions were judged to be

repellent or mysterious, so the best thing to do

was to set such people apart.

The priestly caste would make such decisions,

and they would also decide if a person was cured.

Somebody who was cured would be required to offer a ritual sacrifice,

a bird or lamb, as a testimonial to God’s restored action in their life and body.

Leprosy was such a disease: felt to be a mark of God against someone,

and felt to be contagious. Shun such a person.

They look different; they are clearly marked as unholy.

Actually the word that has come down to us as "leprosy"

was actually a kind of scaley skin disease,

which appeared rather rapidly, and in some cases might clear up.

But while you had it, you were an outsider to the community.

You were like the dead, and should not be spoken to or touched.

This is the background presumed by our Gospel story today.

And you’ll hear some of the Levitical text where this law of holiness is explained.

Also this Sunday we hear from Paul’s first letter to Corinth,

a brief section, again revealing some striking shift in attitude

among Christians living in the Gentile world,

and needing to respect the old customs of Judaism, even as they live free of them.

This is a miracle story with a difference.

As you can see, Jesus made contact with this leprous man

and in so doing, he broke the law of holiness: it was a moment

of social comment, social change in the air.

Once you look out for this, Jesus and the breach of social barriers,

you get a different sense of Gospel.

The famous encounter of Jesus and the woman at the well

was one such moment of breach.

Another occurs in the story of the Samaritan

who touched the wounded man by the roadside,

that same man that was avoided by two members of the clergy

because they could not touch the dead, or the bleeding.

So here’s a question for our lives:

Who can I touch, who can I talk to?

I first faced such questions when I got to high school.

And I went to a fairly homogeneous school: St. Xavier.

But the social categories were scary.

Looking back, I ended up meeting a group you might call the verbal nerds:

the debaters, the publication staff, we got along.

Truly diverse schools must be much more threatening.

I’m always encouraged to hear stories of connection

at big places like Walnut Hills;

it must take skill, learning all those implicit rules, who to approach, who to avoid.

Here’s an example from my adult life.

When I was director of programming at the Milford retreat center

we sponsored a first-ever weekend for gay and lesbian Christians.

This was back in the mid-eighties.

The gay community was becoming more visible,

especially because AIDS had just been identified a few years back,

and ordinances about minority rights were starting to be more inclusive:

so, in short, we wanted to do something, and we tried this,

taking a lot of care about good PR and hospitality,

and then to my surprise I discovered on the first evening

that our kitchen crew had ordered rubber gloves for themselves

to prevent contamination in handling their dishes.

In some simple way, they were observing the Law of Holiness.

They knew who they could touch and who they had to avoid.

And though I at first found this insulting, I had to back off

because I couldn’t change the kitchen staff,

and basically, they were scared.

They had their boundaries, their law of holiness.

These boundary points: where do you meet them yourselves,

who do you encounter that might scare you, or threaten your status?

We have this tendency to measure our safety

by avoiding someone who is a danger to our comfort or our reputation.

Jesus felt there was something more important than the law of holiness,

that was the way of compassion.

In this, he said, we human beings come much closer to God’s point of view.

Sometimes he resisted: he said once to a pagan woman

why should you receive healing–the bread of life is meant only for the

children of the household. And she responded in anger,

Sir, even the dogs get crumbs, even the dogs.

And Jesus learned.

So it is that gradually, Jesus pushed toward a freedom

based on compassion, a freedom that announced

a new order of things that he called the reign of God.

I can only think that as he prayed at nights, which was his custom,

the reign of God, the kingdom, the kindom, of Abba who sent him.

this mission of the kingdom became more powerful in him,

and he cut through the prohibitions that his own people had lived by

in order to announce God’s generosity,

even though doing that was a risk. Reaching out to touch, a risk.

But finally, this is what God is like: the one who reaches out,

reclaims, trusts, empowers.

I commend this to your prayer: even you, even ourselves,

broken or erratic as we might be,

don’t imagine that there is a holiness you haven’t measured up to.

The only norm by which to measure ourselves is by God’s generosity,

and the willingness of Jesus to take a risk in our direction.

And looking around at our own social scene,

this is my best shot at a parallel story of the leper.

So I picture this guy coming to a job placement office,

clear from 5 years in jail for a drug charge, and clean from any use of drugs,

saying "If you want, you could hire me for a job;

you could open a door of training."

What a moment of social boundaries being tested.

If you want you could make me clean.

I’m glad to hear that such compassionate and sensible receptivity

actually takes place in some hiring places in the city:

"Cincinnati Works," for example, or "Jobs Plus,"

or Sister Judy Tensing’s work in food service that many of you know.

I hope there is follow through as well in construction jobs,

which offer a good future through apprenticeships.

There was a great effort in assembling a Bank Projects agreement

involving city and county and unions and citizens,

Some small percentage of money from federally sponsored public works

has to be used for job training,

and there are apprenticeship programs set up already through unions,

even to meet the needs of the willing newcomer, even with a prison record.

But it will take something more than a written agreement to make this work:

it takes a sense of social vision, the capacity to see real people in front of you,

willingness to take a risk.

Jesus on this brink of touching the unwanted, the unusable,

must have asked himself, "but what are people for, if not to be reclaimed?"

How else can a society flourish again, much less the kingdom of God

begin to be revealed.

I think its good to know that such matters were on the mind of Jesus a lot.

And maybe in our own world of concern, from school cafeteria

to medical waiting rooms and job placement offices,

we might come to boundaries, moments where we can set aside

the old prohibitions, and become creators of something new.

We might be changed ourselves in that moment of courage.

We’d no longer be just the priest guardians of the old ways,

but we find a prophetic voice for something powerfully inclusive.

I hate to saw it, but that seems to be the Jesus of the Gospel

that we meet each week. At times it’s more scary to me than high school was.