If we are willing

‘… If you are willing, you can make me clean.’  (Mark 1:40)

Mark 1:40-45 (Year B: Lent -1)

I am willing was the curt answer from Jesus to this statement by the man with leprosy who ‘came to him and begged him on his knees’ (v. 40). Some versions report that Jesus was ‘moved with pity’ (v. 40) while other translations state that ‘Jesus was indignant’. I prefer ‘moved with pity’. Perhaps the leper, in breaking social norms, approached someone who was clean. Was Jesus taken by complete surprise and reacted angrily in the first instance? Or, perhaps, his ‘anger’ was more to do with fear. 

Who would touch a leper? Would you or I touch someone with Ebola?

Whatever was felt by him, Jesus was moved to act and to respond to what was a bold request and, surely, a risky one for Jesus who risked deadly infection as well as social disapproval for associating with someone who was ritually impure.

Begging has mixed connotations and not something used, generally, in regards to prayer. But we can be sure that God speaking through David will not leave us down - ‘I am here and I call, you will hear me, O God. Turn your ear to me; hear my words.’ (Psalm 16:6).

In today’s ‘advanced economies’ leprosy has been abolished.  A few centuries ago leper hospitals and colonies were common.  Here, in Dublin, Townsend Street is translated as ‘Sráid na Lobhar’ where, it is believed a place for lepers (lobhair) used to be.  Note that when the new arrivals took over they just named it ‘Town’s End’. That sounds better. Further east the natives were removed to, literally, ‘Irishtown’ beside An Rinn – land’s end.  All societies, tribes and in-groups know how to include and to exclude.

One of the tragic aspects of leprosy in those far off times must have been the sense of loneliness, isolation and social exclusion. When this was reinforced by false religious notions that, in some way, the condition was due to the sinfulness of the victims (either directly or indirectly) the sense of brutality is heightened. In our modern, sophisticated and supposedly enlightened world is ‘social leprosy’ a thing of the past?  Change the medical details and the face of the sufferers and we might find disturbing cases of 21^st century social leprosy (including modern-day traditional leprosy in many parts of the world). Persons by reason of their ethnic status, colour, religion, sexual orientation, marital or relationship status or political persuasion are placed in situations of exclusion, disrespect, mistrust and oppression. If we think that this is something of an exaggeration in our little slice of the world try considering some of the following:

• If a family from ‘that group’ moved in next door how would your enlightened socio-liberal principles stand up?
• Have you ever been at a wedding in a church where the happily married couple and their families of mixed Christian backgrounds as well as friends are not, all, allowed to share at the one Table of the Chief Host at the banquet? (and here one is referring to the 21^st century and not the 16^th century where, instead, the guests might have killed each other before arriving at the ceremony).
• Is someone’s sexual orientation or relationship status something to be best ‘not told and not asked’ about? Conveniently swept under the carpet when, in fact, everyone knows but can’t talk about it or deal with the issue honestly?

And the list could go on.

Healing for others may not just be an exercise in compassion where illness of one sort or another is concerned. It might also involve healing for the healer (us) because we treat others – health and wholesome people – as if it were they who need healing and not us. Roles can be reversed and healing happens in us as we learn to let go of our own prejudices, wounds and fears.

What this passage from the Gospel of St Mark shows is that Jesus’s approach and values were utterly ‘sacramental’ to use a theologically loaded term. One way of understanding sacramentalism is that it concerns outward visible signs of inward spiritual grace. Touching and being touched in ways that are entirely appropriate and healing is a type of sacramental action. In the established sacraments of Western catholic Christianity touching can happen at Baptism, the Eucharist, Reconciliation (Penance), Ordination, Anointing, Marriage and Confirmation. It’s all take for granted. But, ‘sacramentalism’ does not stop there. Ministries of healing have developed in the Christian community and many have been touched deeply in their souls. Outward signs are important. But, the inner healing is something powerful, real and lasting. Many miracles are still happening today but they are not readily visible. One of the greatest miracles is the grace people with incurable diseases to accept their situation and grow in love and trust. This does not necessarily lessen the suffering or grief in which they find themselves. But, they find a deeper level of meaning, purpose and peace that is lacking where trust has been abandoned. In Isaiah 57:19 we are promised deep healing.

If a leper in 1^st century Palestine could not be touched by another person (other than another leper) – especially when most needed such as in the moments someone is slipping away from this life (as anyone will know who has journeyed with some to the ‘farewell point’) – then we have many types of social leprosy in modern-day Western economically ‘advanced’ societies. We just change the language and the detail and turn it into clinical and linguistically sanitised terminology.

Much of what we strive for is the result of forces and desires deep within us. We may not even be aware of these forces and may ascribe our actions to motivations and influences outside our control. However, if we are more honest with ourselves we must acknowledge that our own will power is an important factor. It is always conditioned by circumstances but it is never eclipsed. If we are willing we can rise to extraordinary heights. ‘where there is a will there is a way’ as the saying goes. Was Jesus moved with astonishment, emotion and pity as a result of the desperate, humbling and faith-full pleas of the leper? It is plausible to think that Jesus was cornered and his compassion triggered his response. Let’s say that it was not on the agenda for that day. Someone crossed his path who was an outcast, a sinner in regards to the thought systems of the time and someone who was dangerously ill.

In responding to this situation Jesus ‘reached out his hand and touched the man’. In doing so he declare ‘I am willing’.  God in Jesus is willing to reach out to us and to touch us in the very depths of our despair, our worries and our fragility. In healing the leper Jesus does not omit to instruct the healed one to present himself to the priests in accordance with the Torah – the religious law (as laid out, for example, in the Book of Leviticus (3:1-2)).

And Jesus ‘went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news’. But there was a price: ‘As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places.’  In short, he was never far from the excluded and the outcasts. Maybe he even hung out with them in different places and times? For us mortals, extending the hand of healing to others could trigger our own inner healing.

Are there among us, today, those with an inner wound of some sort? Society treats various forms of mental illness as a form of stigma, for example. This isolates those who are affected and builds walls of separation and shame. If we are willing we can become channels of healing for others. But those who experience healing in this way, in their turn, become sources of healing in us.  ‘ Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.’ (v. 45)

It never stops and it shouldn’t.