Readings:
- Leviticus 13.1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32.1-2, 5, 11 Response: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.” - 1 Corinthians 10.31-11.1
- Mark 1.40-45
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
In many ways, the entire first chapter of Mark’s Gospel (not just the first typical day) serves as an overture. Themes that will be elaborated in greater detail in later chapters are presented in abbreviated form. In this Sunday’s reading the first chapter concludes by setting the stage for the theme of conflict that is characteristic of the reaction to Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel. (LaVerdiere 1999 1.76)
We see the good news of the coming of God’s reign break through the traditional social boundaries of Israel to an untouchable. Two Sundays ago the man with the unclean spirit in the Capernaum synagogue assembly articulated the fears of the congregation when he asked, “You have come to destroy us, haven’t you?” This Sunday we discover that their fear was well founded. The power of God’s word shatters social conventions and redefines the People of God.
A man with a repulsive skin condition (Greek: lepra) approaches Jesus and confronts him with a challenge: “If you want to, you can make me clean.” (Good News Bible translation) The man’s words are more an act of faith than a request for a cure. He acknowledges Jesus’ power to cure, but he is not sure that Jesus is willing to use that power for him.
Why wouldn’t Jesus want to cure the man? The answer is not hard to find. So-called lepers were untouchables. (See LaVerdiere 1999.1, 76.)
It is important to note that we are not talking about Hansen’s disease or modern leprosy here. That disease was extremely rare if not non-existent in first century Palestine. Only one instance has been reported in Palestine prior to the sixth century CE. (See Pilch 1999, 142; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0912/09121603)
Nor was it a matter of a contagious disease and fear of infection. The germ theory of disease was still seventeen centuries off, and even Hansen’s disease itself is not particularly infectious – certainly nothing like influenza or scarlet fever.
Israelites and their Semitic neighbors found people with certain kinds of what we today would call skin diseases to be repulsive, out of place, or polluting. The skin was supposed to be a barrier that kept blood inside. Thus, a bloody rash or bleeding sore was considered impure. It was a social/psychological, not a medical, thing. Biblical leprosy was considered foul or slimy – something you wouldn’t want to touch. Religiously, people with leprosy were considered to be an affront to God’s holiness and not fit to be part of the worshipping community. (See Leviticus 13, 14; Pilch 1996, 34-36; Wright & Jones, 1992, 277-282; Brueggemann et al. 1993, 150.)
Biblical lepers were like people of color in an oppressive white culture. For Jesus to extend his healing ministry to lepers would have been like his going through rural areas in America of the 1920s (North or South) promoting interracial marriage. The outrage of the dominant whites would have been overwhelming. Or, the reaction to biblical lepers could be compared to the irrational fear with which some people react to homosexual persons.
As the first reading from Leviticus makes clear, as long as their condition continued lepers were excluded from the community and had to live alone. Moreover, anyone who touched them was unclean too and became a social pariah. Was Jesus willing to jeopardize his reputation and his ministry just to cure one person?
Politicians have to face these kinds of choices. In her book No Ordinary Time Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s explanation of his refusal to endorse a federal anti-lynching campaign in the mid 1930’s.
I did not choose the tools with which I must work . . . Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected quite different ones. But I’ve got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America. The southerners by reason of the seniority rule in Congress are chairmen or occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees. If I come out for the anti-lynching bill, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk. (Goodwin 1994, 163)
One can hardly fault Roosevelt for that stance. Often he had to generate public opinion or wait until public opinion came around to his side before proposing reform legislation. Likewise, it would have been understandable if Jesus had sidestepped this cure.
There is more. The Greek word “to make clean” can also mean “to declare clean.” (See Taylor 1959, 187.) If that is how the leper understood his request, he was asking Jesus to declare him clean, something reserved to a priest. Jesus’ action could be seen as a challenge to the religious authority and social position of the temple priesthood. Sooner or later, that was bound to provoke a reaction.
Thus, Jesus had ample reason not to cure the leper. His first four disciples would have been more than justified in saying: “Don’t go there!” Yet, Mark tells us that Jesus “touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.’”
By healing the man, Jesus restored him to the community of Israel; by touching the man, Jesus became a social outcast. The key to the healing is the mystery of the cross. As Paul says, “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5.21)
Notice the end of the first reading from Leviticus (Lv 13:46) where a “leper” is required to “dwell apart, making his abode outside (Greek: exo) the camp.” At the end of today’s gospel reading Jesus seems to share the same fate. “He remained outside (exo) in deserted [unpopulated] places.”
Was his having touched a leper the reason that he couldn’t enter a town openly? (See Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 151.) “Earlier he fled Capernaum because ‘the whole city’ was at his doorstep. Now no town offers him refuge, and he must stay in the country (literally, ‘deserted places).” (Brueggemann et al. 1993, 151)
Malina and Rohrbaugh point to an additional cause for the inhospitality of towns to Jesus.
[The gossip network] functioned as an important mechanism of informal social control. For example, in cases where a person sought to claim more honor than his birthright provided (an action considered stealing in a limited-good society in which gain for one automatically meant loss for someone else), the gossip network could trigger a backlash that cut the claimant down to size very quickly. That may be the reason for Mark’s note in Mk 1:45 that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town. Since he is in his home region and his reputation is growing, backlash may have started. (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 367)
To drive the point home Mark inserts another of his favorite themes, the messianic secret. Jesus tells the cured leper to “tell no one anything . . . .” Throughout Mark’s Gospel Jesus silences those who proclaim him to be the Messiah. “Mark uses commands to silence . . . in order to forestall the misunderstanding of Jesus [as merely a wonder worker] and to point forward to the supreme miracle of the cross.” (Fuller & Westberg 2006, 306)
In spite of any obstacles the cure of the leper may have raised, Mark concludes, “people kept coming to him [Jesus] from everywhere.” It is as if the Reign of God functioned like the power of public opinion that can sweep away political obstacles to reform. Even though Jesus had touched a leper, the word of God continued to touch people’s hearts.
What can we learn from this gospel passage? For one thing it challenges us to consider our attitudes and actions regarding the “untouchables” in our own society. Many of us are generous in our contributions to the poor and to worthy causes. However, how often do we actually touch social outcasts in such a way that we become vulnerable to the forces that oppress them? How often have we made a commitment to a poor person or family that puts our own wealth or income in jeopardy? How often have we risked our own reputation to stand for unpopular causes, e.g. the rights of Muslim immigrants or the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons?
How often are we aware at social gatherings that social outcasts are conspicuously absent? The next time you go to church, look around. How many people are really poor, shabbily clothed, disfigured, or ill? How many people of color are present? Conversely, how comfortable do we feel in social gatherings where such people predominate?
One thing is clear. The good news of the reign of God is not really good news if we do not proclaim it to social outcasts in an effective way that demonstrates our love for them. The word of Jesus can be effective in our lives only if it tears down the barriers of class privilege and unjust social structures.
Never underestimate the destructive force of the gospel. Imitating the healing power of Jesus can disrupt our world in ways that we can’t even imagine.
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
Brueggemann et al. 1993 – Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year B. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 143-151.
Donahue & Harrington 2002 – John R. Donahue, S.J. and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 2002), pp._____.
Fuller & Westberg 2006 – Reginald H. Fuller and Daniel Westberg, Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today, Third Edition (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2006), pp. 304-307.
Good News Bible 1976 – Good News Bible: The Bible in Today’s English Version (New York: American Bible Society, 1976 [New Testament])
Goodwin 1994 – Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994)
LaVerdiere 1999.1 – Eugene LaVerdiere, The Beginning of the Gospel: Introducing the Gospel According to Mark, Vol. 1 (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 75-76.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 151 & 367.
Pilch 1996 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus: Sunday by Sunday, Cycle B (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 34-36
Pilch 1999 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural Dictionary of the Bible (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 141-146.
Taylor 1959 – Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark (London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1959), pp. 185-191.
Wright & Jones 1992 – David P. Wright and Richard N. Jones, “Leprosy” in David Noel Freedman, Editor in Chief, The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), s.v. “Leprosy,” Volume 4, pp. 277-282.