The Community of Jesus

Rowena Harris
18 February 2003

When I was Hospital Chaplain in Rockhampton, back in the early 90s, the first AIDS patients were finally making their presence known, in a region hitherto fairly exclusive of their issues. But suddenly it all went public, and people began to know about AIDS and its various forms and complications, but more importantly, began to know patients suffering from HIV-related illnesses. Funerals, pastoral care networks, public forums… All fascinating and all very challenging to a region where manliness meant “sin, surf, sex, sweat and sun” (to quote a popular motto), and folk who fit in, who suffered from hitherto unmentionable diseases just didn’t belong.

I remember one couple—well-known, but only recently out… one died, and the other tried to come to terms not only with sad loss, but the unwillingness of both sets of extended families to even mention what had happened. The words “He died of an HIV-related illness” were too difficult to even mention. As I listened to this man and ministered to the folk involved, I kept thinking of the stories and instructions in the bible regarding the other once unmentionable disease—leprosy.

So as to be more disposed to the hearing of God’s word tonight, imagine a man kneeling before Jesus. The man has ulcers on his entire body and his withered arms are stumps so only his plea can reach out to Jesus. The “untouchable” touches Jesus, who touches the “untouchable” because he was moved with compassion.

Leprosy was both a physical illness and quite a social alienation in the time of Jesus. Two full chapters in the book of Leviticus deal with how lepers were to be handled, or rather, not handled. Being different, especially in something physical, such as leprosy or being barren, was seen as an affront to the goodness of God and so was in the same category as sin.

The Leper of today’s Gospel forms a picture of a man who experiences suffering, but comes to Jesus in his need and simplicity. Jesus meets the man’s truth, his condition, and his faith. Jesus meets us there as well.

And what indeed of us? Well to go back to my own situation, and to draw a parallel… mumps, chicken pox, and measles which entered our house meant missing a few weeks of school—fun for us, but hard on my parents who then had four kids, ranging from toddler to mid-teen in the house, quarantined or isolated, and resulting in disrupted school, piano, ballet, and so forth schedules. We were not allowed out and nobody could come in. We were “unclean” until the plague was over and the quarantine was removed. But what happened to us was only temporary—still, it helps place the events in tonight’s gospel reading more firmly in our sights, as we can at least imagine how it might have been.

In today’s First Reading we hear but a few lines from the two chapters dedicated to leprosy. There is the physical leprosy mentioned, but also leprosy of clothing and of the house. Cleanliness was definitely the in-thing. The writers of these chapters authenticated these laws by putting them down as words spoken by God to Moses and Aaron. These prescriptions gave much power to the priests who were the “public health nurses” of the time. They decided what to do with quarantines, and who was out and how the “outs” got back in.

Any form of decay, sores, disfigurement or unusual characteristic was data for the priests to “do their thing”. There were rituals of sacrifice for sin, which the priests could perform when they judged the healing of the exiled. God’s creation was seen as perfect and so any distortion was viewed as sin or a result of sin.

The Gospel pictures Jesus as the “new priest” or “public health nurse” who reached out to touch, heal, and return a leper to the community. Jesus told the man to observe the ritual practice of his Jewish tradition by showing himself to the priests. Imagine how excited the man would have been!

The now-clean man goes off and spreads the news about Jesus. A strange reversal takes place then. The man returns to his home village, while Jesus, because of the publicising of the cleansing “remained outside in deserted places and people kept coming to him from everywhere”. Jesus continues putting himself outside and against the power of the Law. He is raising the tension between himself as the Priest of God and the priests of the old Law.

These days there are many “camps” or factions who seem to be dedicated to one thing and dedicated against all others; “ins” and “outs”, “us” and “them” seem to be the operating labels. Be it politics, religion, pro or anti war—we know what the nature of the “community” is—those who belong with us and those who definitely don’t. We fear uncleanliness or contamination or at least the worry that they might cause us to do something, or feel something differently from what we are used to.

And yet of course, we know that is not what real community is about at all!

Jesus came to include. Sin divides; our sins and those of others perpetuate alienation. Physical disfigurement or mental illnesses are not necessarily caused by sin, as that is unlikely.

Jesus came to save us from sin and hopefully, from sinning. He did not come as the “public nurse” to eradicate physical illness, but heal us from the sinful attitudes and actions resulting from our encounters with what we perceive as “not normal”.

Jesus’ attitude towards the leper and his healing touch form the invitation to us who follow him. He looks at our deformities with the same compassion as he had towards the leper and asks us to have compassion on ourselves as well. He invites us back into his “camp’, which is a movement rather than a place. He asks us to have compassion, in turn, on others.

This movement is outward, inclusive, and compassionate towards the “them” or “others” who have been sinned against. There are many forms of leprosy around us, and we who have had our rebirth in Jesus are commissioned by the Word and the Eucharist to extend his healing touch.

The “avoided” of our vision are the “inviters” of our mission. The lepers of our times are the poor, those who speak another language; the HIV-infected person, the pregnant teenager, the refugee, the homeless, and all those whom we label as “Them”. Jesus saved the “them” by renaming them “us”. And so, we are community, in his name….