I think
the worst thing we could ever teach someone is that they should keep their
distance from Jesus. Yet, this is what
these ten lepers were taught. Not
specifically from Jesus, of course, they’d been taught to keep their distance
from everyone who didn’t share their disease.
When the first signs of leprosy were noticed on someone’s skin, there
would be a funeral style liturgy in which the victim would be mourned as if
dead when cast out of the community, shunned, told to remain perpetually
separate, to cry out to warn people not to come near them. They were taught that their skin was so dreadful,
literally, something that people dreaded so, that they must keep away, because
they were dangerous, because they were feared.
They were taught to hate their own skin, taught that the only useful
thing they could do with their lives was to help others avoid them.
So, when
Jesus even talks with them, even lets his gaze rest upon them, he’s disrupting
a pattern. He’s doing something risky on
the basis of much ancient medicine, letting his eyes be imprinted with disease,
which could harm him. There’s no reason
to think that Jesus didn’t think of this as risky; there’s every reason to be
sure that he never lets risk keep him from loving someone. So, he looks, he talks, and he directs them
to go to the priests. In both Israel and
Samaria, the priests functioned as kind of ‘purity inspectors.’ They made no claims to be able to cure
leprosy, but they could diagnose it, and functioned as gate-keepers for who got
included and who got shunned, deciding whose skin was to be feared.
And all ten
of the lepers have enough faith to go, despite the fact that the text tells us
that none of them were cured at the point when they turn around and start going
to their respective priests (the Samaritan the most daring, as he goes alone to
find a Samaritan priest). They go,
prepared to be laughed at, derided, chased out of town, failing in their one
mission to help others avoid them, exposing again their dreaded skin to
authoritative inspection. Their willing
obedience to Jesus’ word is witness and challenge enough to us.
But, the
one, the Samaritan… he realizes he’s been healed. He’s the only one we hear that of. The other nine have drunk so deeply of the toxic
Kool-Aid that they’ve internalized the message behind their shunning: that
their skin is dreadful, they’re dangerous, they’re to be feared. We can only notice something our imagination
can conceive of, and their imagination has been so assaulted that they can’t
conceive of their bodies as having dignity, they can’t notice they’ve been
cured. But, somehow, the Samaritan can. That original spark of divine brilliance so
dimmed and defiled has not been extinguished.
Despite all the marginalization, this one notices. He’s been healed. Not just cured, it’s not just that his
symptoms have been taken away, he’s been healed, he’s been restored to
wholeness, a wholeness that allows him to express the fullness of his dignity
in the highest human act going: giving thanks to God. It’s amazing, it’s a testimony to Jesus’
power not just to cure, but to heal, to equip us for a sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving.
Here in
this Eucharist, we begin by acknowledging our need for healing, from the sin
that plagues us, and then we offer our thanksgivings, along with our needs and
our sorrows, on the altar. But, in
between those two things, comes this gospel.
A word that, as Paul said, is not chained, is not tame, reaches out and
inspires us to thanksgiving, invigorates our awe at Jesus’ healing might and
willingness to risk his own bodily integrity for our full wholeness, and also
challenges us.
It’s so
easy to think that we’re so much better than those people of 2,000 years ago
(Jew or Gentile). Maybe not the Holy
Family, but pretty much everyone else.
We don’t shun lepers, right? No,
but we still make people feel feared because of what their skin looks
like. We are part of a society that
tells young black men, especially those with strong-looking bodies, that people
are scared of them, and they should do whatever is necessary to avoid that, to
be less dreadful, because that’s the only way for them to stay safe.
Have we
not learned from Lazarus and the rich man?
That when we inscribe chasms in our world, God may well respect those,
but we can’t expect Him to put heaven on our side of the chasm? Our world is so in need of healing. And all this fear is inscribed in our
hearts. We are in so much need of
healing. And Jesus has so much to give.
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