Being Touched by the UnTouchable, February 15,2009

II Kings 5: 1-5
Mark 1: 40-45
There is a problem with our reading these texts this morning.
They each come from times and places where there were assumptions of class, that are hard for us to comprehend, not only Middle Class and Upper Middle Class and Upper Upper Middle Class, but also Prisoners of War, Servants and Serfs and Slaves, and those deemed to be Unclean, and Lepers, UnTouchables. In the early 1980s, I recall serving as a Chaplain at a public hospital in Harlem. There was a new disease, that was described as an Acquired Immune Deficiency that seemed to attack without reason. Imagine as a Deacon or Minister, trying to sit with someone who was dying, whose employer and family and friends had all shunned them, and by protocol you were to wear gown and booties, mask and gloves, just to be able to enter the room, and you were instructed never ever to touch them. More even than disease, this was about ritual impurity and economic classes, the perverse human concept that we could look passed a person's humanity, ignoring their very human existence, avoiding touch or being touched. Not only of those of differing social standing, but of family as well. The irony being that as far as we may believe we have come, our prejudices and fears have become the more insidious, and we are a people afraid to look one another in the eye, afraid of human touch.

One of the things I love about the Bible, is that as much as this is Holy Scripture, the Very Word of God, those words also place right before our eyes issues that are hard for us, realities we would rather not see, matters that touch us and are real. We know that we are to forgive, but there are times when forgiveness is hard. We know we are to trust, but having been wounded, disappointed, betrayed, trust is very difficult. We know we are to believe, to give all that we are without reserve, and our beliefs are to overcome our fears, but having invested in the Market and in our Homes, our Doubts become a cancer that consume us from within.

There was a difference in the version I read of Mark, from the translation you have in the pew Bibles. In the Greek of the New Testament, there is a word that can equally be translated as ANGER, or INDIGNATION, PITY, or COMPASSION. That word is about STRONG EMOTION, feelings which literally cause us to get in the face of another person, and to be moved to take on the face of the other.

Having been Called from the Wilderness, Jesus called his disciples, and began teaching and healing, yet no matter how many he touched, thousands more came searching for him. Before day break, he rose early to go off by himself even for a moment to pray. No sooner had he gotten down on his knees, cleared his mind of all distractions, focused his heart on God, than a man came to him with Leprosy. Appropriately, the evangelist names that more human than any of us, Jesus reaction would have been Anger and Indignation, which then changes to pity and compassion. Compassion and pity are not the same. Pity is to feel sorrow, to look down upon another and offer something to assuage our guilt. Compassion is to feel a sense of COMMUNION, to suffer for the other, to become as one with them, taking on their illness, their problems, their sin as your own.

There is this marvelous exchange between the two. The man stating his faith: IF YOU WILL, YOU CAN MAKE ME CLEAN. and Jesus reply, I WILL, BE CLEAN. We create a problem for ourselves when we put faith and practice together.
We imagine that if a person cannot be made well, either God is NOT all Powerful, or the person did not believe enough, and we begin to imagine, IF ONLY WE COULD HELP OUR UNBELIEF. To do so is to blame God and the victim, for having been human. A different starting point would be to accept that as Mortals, as Human beings we are destined to Die, life is a hopeless circumstance. And yet, at strange and wonderful times, miracles do occur. If we could say the right incantation faith would be Magic. Miracles do not happen simply because we want to avoid dying, though at times REAL FAITH does begin at the point of Absolute Desperation. As Jesus prayed in the Garden before his arrest, “Lord, All things are in Your hands, if possible let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, Thy will be done.”

Leprosy is Called Unclean for good reason. The flesh of fingers, toes, ears and nose literally becomes dead and decays, such that these extremities break off, a living corpse of rotting flesh. So it is, that the Law of Moses described that anyone cured of the disease of Leprosy needed to show themselves to the priest, to be bathed and anointed, to pray for spiritual purification, all in order to be accepted by the community as forgiven and clean. Instead, this man for whom Jesus had compassion, the untouchable whom Jesus touched, goes and tells everyone he was cured by Jesus.

On a morning when we are gathering together to talk with Gustav Niebuhr about his book Beyond Tolerance, there are few passages as appropriate as the story of Naaman.
Naaman was the Commander of the Aram-ean Army of the Syrians, after the era after King Solomon and before Alexander the Great. A Foreign Army that had been at war and invaded Israel. You have description of this fatal flaw, that this Powerful Warrior, Commander of a Foreign Army, is himself afflicted with Leprosy. In his household is a servant girl, who was captured from the Israelites. Out of Compassion for the husband of the woman she serves, the unnamed girl recommends he go to the Prophet Elisha, the Man of God in Israel. Naaman goes to his King, who out of Pity for Naaman sends him with gold and silver and robes. Naaman takes these to the King of Israel, who instead of seeing a man in need, sees a Warrior, a Commander who has raided his Nation, and now with letters from his Foreign King, demands that the King of Israel cure his Leprosy, which the King knows not how to do. The King of Israel is Indignant at the request of the Leper, but sends him on to see Elisha, the Man of God. When Naaman comes to the house of Elisha, and asks to be cured of Leprosy, the Man of God does not come out of his house, making Naaman Angry. Adding to this, the word Elisha sends by way of his servant Gehazi, is that Naaman should go to bathe in the the river Jordan. What Elisha had instructed, was that Naaman do as commanded by the Law of Moses. Instead Naaman was Indignant, because were not the waters of Syria as clean and pure as the Jordan? But, he is convinced to go, and his skin is washed clean. Having been forgiven, and restored, Naaman now comes to Elisha to Confess Faith In GOD. As much as we want to teach faith, and spare people their struggle, the truth is that often we need to be healed by God before we are able to confess believing. Naaman attempts to pay Elisha for his cure, which the Man of God rejects as having paid for Naaman's Leprosy, Elisha describes that instead this cure was done out of Compassion by God. Naaman now has a personal struggle, because while he has been healed of Leprosy, still he serves a Foreign King. At times our illness is healed, but not our circumstance. Then comes the poetic twist, for as Naaman prepares to leave, Gehazi Elisha's servant decides that if Naaman is willing to pay and Elisha does not want the payment, Gehazi could be paid. And for receiving Naaman's payment for his Leprosy, Gehazi receives Leprosy.

We have progressed so far, from intolerance to tolerance, but the question in going beyond is whether we can look one another in the eye and see each other as a child of God? Can we let go our desire to be paid for whatever we can? Can we change our hearts from Anger and Indignation and Pity, to real Compassion? If not, we are cursed and dead.