6 Ordinary Time
GOD WELCOMES THE «UNCLEAN»
José Antonio Pagola
Out of nowhere, a leper «comes up to Jesus». According to the Law, he can’t come into contact
with anyone. He’s «unclean» and has to live isolated. He can never enter the Temple. How could
God welcome a being so repugnant into God’s presence? His destiny is to live in exclusion. Thus
says the Law.
In spite of everything, this hopeless leper dares to challenge all the norms. He knows that he’s doing
wrong. That’s why he goes down on his knees. He doesn’t dare to speak with Jesus face to face.
From down on the ground, he makes this plea: «If you are willing, you can cleanse me». He knows
that Jesus can cure him, but will he want to cleanse him? Would Jesus dare to pull him out of the
exclusion that he has been subjected to in God’s name?
It’s surprising to see the emotion that the leper’s approach raises in Jesus. He isn’t horrified nor
does he draw back. In the face of this poor man’s situation, «he is moved from the depths of his
heart». Gentleness overflows. How could he not want to cleanse him, being one who goes about
moved by God’s compassion towards God’s sons and daughters who are most defenseless and
rejected?
Without a moment’s hesitation, «he extends his hand» toward that man and «touches» his skin that
is despised by the pure. He knows that it’s forbidden by the Law and that with this gesture he’s
reaffirming the transgression that the leper initiated. Only compassion moves him: «I am willing. Be
cleansed».
This is what the God who is incarnate in Jesus wants: to cleanse the world of exclusions that go
against the Father’s compassion. It isn’t God who excludes, but our laws and institutions. It isn’t
God who marginalizes: it’s us. From now on, all will see clearly that no one should be excluded in
Jesus’ name.
To follow him means to not be horrified in the face of any unclean man or woman. We can’t
withdraw our welcome from any «excluded». For Jesus, what’s most important is the person who
suffers and not the norm. To constantly put the norm in first place is the best way to lose the
sensitivity of Jesus in the face of the despised and rejected, the best way to live without compassion.
There are few places where Jesus’ Spirit is more recognizable than in those people who freely offer
support and friendship to defenseless prostitutes, who accompany people with AIDS who have been
forgotten by everyone, who defend gays who can’t live their condition with dignity… All of this
reminds us that everyone fits in God’s heart.
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B - Mark 1:40-45
President John F Kennedy invited a bishop to give an invocation. The prayer was endless. Later, a
smiling President Kennedy asked a guest, "Did you hear that bishop's speech to God?" There is
irony in today's Gospel. Jesus tells the cured man to tell no one of the miracle. The fellow cannot
contain himself. He tells everyone.
Yet in Matthew 28,19, Jesus tells us to tell everyone about Him. What do we do? That's right. We
tell no one. We should bring back the former leper. He was a better public relations person than we.
Or we should become like the bishop. As the scene opens, Jesus is walking out of the Galilean
mountains. He has delivered His famous sermon on the Beatitudes. He is about to take off the
academic gown and hood of the scholar and put on the mantle of the miracle worker. Though
Mark's Gospel is the shortest, it contains the most miracles. Christ was being followed by a huge
mob. As He approached a town, a desperate man broke through the crowd and painfully got to his
knees before Jesus. The crowd ran away in horror. The fellow was our unnamed leper. Leprosy was
a common disease in Palestine. In its late stages, the illness is a bad scene.
Substitute foul smelling sores for nose, lips, toes, etc, and one has the picture. The Jews looked
upon leprosy not so much as a physical disease but a spiritual uncleanness. The leper carried both
physical wounds and the conviction that God hated him. Talk about poor self-image! Jewish law
was harsh to lepers. They had to live outside towns. If they came upon a clean person, they had to
ring a bell and shout, "Leper, leper." The historian Josephus wrote they "were, in effect, dead men."
Imagine the courage of this fellow! The law stated if a leper exposed others to his disease, he was to
be stoned to death. Lucky for him that the people around the Teacher were so anxious to get away
from the scene. Otherwise they might have well stoned him to death. Would Jesus have put Himself
between them and the stones? With you, I answer yes.
A question rises. How did the leper sense that the Christ would not flee in revulsion with everyone
else? What quality did he discern in Him that told him Jesus would hold His ground? Mark here is
telling us much about Jesus. He signals us He was most approachable. We discover He has time for
those whom others consider human garbage. One hears people say, "My sin is so horrible not even
God could forgive it." This Gospel gives the lie to such a statement. The mystics tell us God will
forgive us not because of who we are but because of who He is. "If you want to, you can cure me."
The leper's gut plea is couched in just eight words. People in pain do not speak in pages. They have
time only for the essentials. Today's account tells us that the Teacher cured the fellow before Him
and touched his running sores. Can anyone here imagine what that stroking must have felt like to
the leper? Probably it was the first time in years that someone who was clean placed a hand upon
him. If one picture is worth a thousand words, one touch must be worth ten thousand to a leper. Is
there anyone here who is still frightened of Jesus the Christ? This miracle is called by scholars an
action miracle. It happened in a nanosecond. This is unlike other miracles in Mark. There the
Teacher takes the man aside, looks to the heavens, sighs, puts spittle on the man's ear, etc. But here
the Nazarene felt there was no time for preliminaries.
This fellow's misery had to be terminated immediately. What does that tell you about the Person
whom you worship? Would that we could teach ourselves to have just a fraction of that compassion.
Though we may not have a healing ministry, each of us can practice a hearing ministry. Suffering
people need to talk. Walt Whitman wrote, "Seeing a wounded soldier on the battlefield, I do not ask
who he is. I become the wounded man." So should it be with us. One who is Christ-centered instead
of self-centered, said GK Chesterton, is a sane person in an insane world. One final note! The cured
man taught us how to pray. His prayer needed only eight words. Jesus showed fondness for short
prayers.
Check Matthew 6:7, "In your prayers do not use a lot of meaningless words..." Jesus is e-mailing us
the information that brief prayers bring quick answers.
Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Unclean No More
When I visit a hospital or a nursing home, I often will come upon a room that with a warning on the
door. It will say, "Infection. All visitors must check with nurses station and then use mask, gloves
and gown. When I did this for a while, I became use to "gowning up. I had to feel bad for the poor
patient though. It made them seem like an outcast to society, but at least our society has found a
way for the rest of us to care for them. That was not the case back in the days of our Lord?or even
up to the middle of the last century. When people were seen as infected, they were isolated from the
community.
No one would care for them, no matter how sick they were. They were seen to be unclean. In fact,
that had to walk around with a bell and continually shout, "Unclean, Unclean. By unclean they
meant more than dirty. For the ancients, unclean meant "possessed by evil. So these poor people
with one of the many diseases included in the category of leprosy, were forced to live completely
isolated from society, with no one to care for them, hoping that some kind people would leave them
food or even some garbage for them to go through. If they walked from one place to another, they
had to call out "Unclean,? not just so people could avoid them, but so the people could be protected
from the evil that must have done this to them. And then Jesus came.
He cured lepers. He did not see people who were unclean. He did not fear the power of evil. He saw
people who were suffering the result of evil. For that is what all suffering is, the result of evil. He
saw them, cared for them, and healed them. They would not have to go around calling out,
"Unclean anymore. There are times that we also feel unclean. And I don't mean unclean because we
need to take a shower. I mean unclean because we know that we have fallen for the attack of evil.
And we see our parents, friends, or other people we love, and feel so rotten about ourselves that we
really don't even want to talk to them. "They are good, we realize, and then we ask, "What if they
were to know what I have done?
Or we walk into Church and see so many people trying to be their best, and we don't feel that we
belong among them. There are times that all of us want to call out to others, "Unclean, Unclean,
stay away from me. Like the leper in the Gospel reading, we don't have to remain unclean. Jesus
healed the leper. He saved him from the grips of evil. We come before the Lord, particularly in the
sacrament of reconciliation, confession, and he doesn't see our sin. He sees us as someone He loves
who is hurting. And He heals us. He saves us from the grips of evil. We talk a lot about salvation in
the Church. It might seem to be a theological term, that doesn't relate to us. But then we fall, and we
are caught by the Lord. He heals us. We realize that we have been saved. That is salvation. There
are people we know who are convinced that they are unclean.
They may be involved in drugs, alcohol, sex or in other ways have merited a pretty bad reputation.
Some of them decide to live the role assigned to them by their immediate society and go out of their
way to seem to be even worse then they really are. Or they transfer their guilt onto other people
continually making others feel like the scum of the earth, when, in fact, that is how they feel about
themselves. Be nice to them. Be kind to them. Don't join them in evil, or in talking about others.
But don't think of them as despicable. Jesus never treated people that way. Pray for them. And,
perhaps, by the grace of God, they also will come before Jesus and seek to be made clean. And then
there are people who have not done anything wrong, but who have been made to feel that they are
outcasts, have been made to feel that they are unclean.
They may have a physical challenge. They may be overweight, and made to feel that they don't
belong among the beautiful thinner people, or they may be mentally challenged and made to feel
that they are lesser human beings then others. They are not unclean. And it is up to us as a Christian
Society, as a Catholic Family, to let them know that as long as they too possess Jesus Christ, they
belong in the heart of our community. What a horrible thing it is to go through life feeling unclean.
What a wonderful thing it is to know that with Jesus Christ, none of us are unclean. In fact, we are
more than not unclean.
6 Ordinary Time
Jesus' Authority Week 3 (February 15, 2015)
Message: That cleansing will enable you to place yourself completely under Jesus' authority. This
homily concludes our mini-series on the Authority of Jesus. When Jesus begins his public ministry
he speaks with authority. The word has an interesting etymology: "auctor" in Latin means
"originator." Jesus is the origin, the source. He comes not so much to give us a new teaching, but to
give us himself. Jesus is our origin and our future, our destiny.
To realize that destiny we have to place ourselves under Jesus' authority. That process involves
recognizing our sins, receiving his forgiveness and becoming his disciple. Last Sunday we saw
Jesus authority in an interesting way: his first miracle of healing - not a cancer or a paralysis, but
something seeming small. A fever. A fever, however, can lay a person low. That's what happened to
Simon's mother-in-law. Jesus goes to her, takes her hand and lifts her up. She begins to serve - with
gratitude, not grudgingly. Jesus heals us so we can serve others, become his disciples. This Sunday
we see another aspect of Jesus' healing. He cleanses a leper. As the first reading indicates, it's not
easy to diagnose leprosy. It begins with a small blotch and then little by little consumes a person.
First the extremities (feet, hands, nose) and eventually the inner core.
Leprosy provides a graphic image for how sin works. Greed, lust, envy at first they seem
insignificant but they keep eating away and finally destroy from within. Often enough we don't
recognize our own failings. A guy can consider himself compassionate and generous, but the people
he lives with tell a different story. Like the first stages of leprosy, it's difficult to see personal faults.
Still, those faults become hard to ignore. A guy might say to me that he doesn't know what to do
about some vice - for example,anger. Someone hurt him deeply and the memory fills him with
bitterness, a desire for revenge. The anger eats away inside him and begins to affect his way of
relating to others.
I do not have a quick remedy for resentment. If I did I would use it myself. In a way it's like going
to a doctor. I want a simple prescription, something I can take that will make the problem disappear.
But a good doctor will go deeper. He will talk about a whole program that involves stress reduction,
learning to eat the right food, getting fresh air and exercising. Similarly Jesus offers more than a
simple cure. After he cleanse the leper, he says, "go show yourself to the priest." Jesus insists on a
program. And as things turn out, we have just such a program. It begins Wednesday and is called
Lent. It involves getting ashes on the forehead and abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and
Fridays of Lent.
The program includes making an examination of your life and re-ordering your finances. It means a
new schedule - dropping some activities so you can have time alone with Jesus.* Jesus wants to
heal the leprosy that threatens to consume from within. That cleansing - as it progresses - will
enable you to live what St. Paul says today, "Do everything for the glory of God." That is, place
yourself completely under Jesus' authority. What would it be to say to Jesus, "If you wish, you can
make me clean." And then to hear, "I will do it. Be made clean."
Amen. ************ *You can't say everything in one homily, but homilist may want to say
upfront that no matter what a person's present state, no matter what he has done, no matter how big
a mess he has made, God cares for him - as good parent cares for his child. You might consider
yourself finished, but God has not finished with you yet.
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Classic Sunday,
February 15, 2015 Mark 1: 40?45
Gospel Summary
This passage continues the narrative of Jesus' mission immediately following his baptism in the
Jordan and the call of the first disciples. As beloved Son and Messiah, his mission is to proclaim the
good news of the coming of God's kingdom. God's rule over all creation would bring to an end the
domination of Satan, characterized by all forms of untruth, violence, sickness, and death. That the
power of God's rule is present in Jesus becomes evident to the amazement of the people by his
teaching with authority, his healing, and his casting out demons.
This Sunday's gospel tells us of Jesus' cure of a man afflicted with leprosy (a term referring to any
repulsive skin disease). A leper comes to Jesus and begs to be cured. Moved with compassion, Jesus
touches the "untouchable? and cures him. He then sends him to a priest so that he can be reinstated
into the community. After curing the leper, Jesus had admonished him not to publicize what had
happened. Mark here anticipates a major theme he will develop more explicitly in his gospel:
namely, that people, even Peter and the rest of his disciples, will misunderstand Jesus' mission.
The theme reflects an aspect of Satan's attempt to entice Jesus to redefine his mission solely to the
satisfaction of people's temporal needs, and thereby to become the messiah of his own earthly,
political kingdom. The kingdom of Satan would remain essentially intact had Jesus succumbed to
that temptation. John's gospel also alludes to Jesus' concern about the mistaken notion people had of
his mission: "Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone you are looking for me not because you saw signs but
because you ate the loaves and were filled? (John 6: 15:26). Jesus, however, is faithful to his
Father's will to the end. Filled with divine compassion, he responds to the temporal needs of people
for healing and for food; but ultimately he wants to give the gift of eternal life with God, the only
gift that will satisfy the restlessness and the hunger of the human heart.
Life Implications Since the Church is the means by which Christ extends his mission for the sake of
God's kingdom through history, healing will be an essential characteristic of its service. Christians,
through the urging of Christ's compassion, must bring healing to the world's sickness, making
possible medical care even for the "untouchables? of our own society. In the Catholic tradition,
Christ's compassionate hand touches the sick in a special way through the sacrament of anointing.
The Church like Christ will be tempted to reduce the meaning of God's kingdom to the relief of
people's obvious and pressing temporal needs. Christ's compassion, however, continues to extend
beyond these needs to the deepest human need for personal transformation through communion in
eternal, divine life. We can see how Christ's compassionate hand touches the sick in both aspects in
the prayers appointed for the administration of the sacrament of anointing. Like Jesus each of us
will endure a trial of faith when beset by suffering and approaching death. Am I really God's
beloved daughter?
Am I really God's beloved son? Is it death that defines the meaning of human existence? The source
of our hope is that we share Christ's own unconquerable hope through the gift of his Spirit. Jesus
prayed to be delivered from suffering and death; nevertheless, as things worked out, he trusted in
God's love through the experience of his suffering, abandonment, and dying. In our time of trial, as
the Letter to the Hebrews tells, we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of
faith. "For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has
taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God? (Hebrews 12: 2)..
SIXTH Sunday
Leviticus 13, 1-2. 44-46; Psalm 32; 1
Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45
"Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded." (Mark 1,
44) Some say that priesthood is a creation of the Church and that Christ did not intend to make a
priesthood. Here he acknowledges the Levitical priesthood, which he raised up and made perfect by
his own sacrifice, creating an eternal priesthood which shall not pass away. The bodily healing of
the stain of leprosy is a sign of the perfect healing of redemption made once for all by Christ the
High Priest.
The one priesthood of Christ Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its
fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the "one mediator between God and men." (1 Tim 2:5)
The Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, "priest of God Most High," as a prefiguration of the
priesthood of Christ, the unique "high priest after the order of Melchizedek'; (Heb 5:10; cf. 6:20;
Gen 14:18) "holy, blameless, unstained," (Heb 7:26) "by a single offering he has forever perfected
for all time those who are sanctified," (Heb 10:14) that is, by the unique sacrifice of the cross. (CCC
1544)
The redemptive sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all; yet it is made present in the
Eucharistic sacrifice of the Church. The same is true of the one priesthood of Christ; it is made
present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ's
priesthood: "Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers." (St. Thomas
Aquinas, Hebr. 8, 4) (CCC 1545) (Paragraph numbers indicate reference to the Catechism of the
Catholic Church.) I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ
in the liturgy",