The Angry Jesus
It’s trivia time. Put on your thinking caps, because we have hit the 1) biology category in Jeopardy game. The answer is:
“The largest organ, weighing 8 pounds for most adults. When stretched out it would cover 22 square feet.” 2) The question is:
“What is the…… skin?”
Skin is probably the most important organ we have as human beings, if we didn’t we would literally evaporate. Our other organs would just flop all over the place and our bodily fluids would be gone in heartbeat. The skin protects us in other ways, too, it slowly darkens as the melanin in our skin adapts to the sunlight, and hence people from northern regions of the world have fairer skin than those closer to the equator that are exposed to far more and stronger rays from the sun.
Sadly thousands of dollars are spent by men and women trying to keep or make the three layers of their skin beautiful.
There’s Oil of Olay, Mary Kay, Avon, Old Spice Body Gel for men and so forth. The topical products aren’t all that money is spent on; there are the tucks and laser treatments to tighten skin, to get rid of wrinkles and waddles, right?
From the time of the first people, it didn’t take long to determine that pigmentation was one way of identifying people as to where they were from or by what they might be allowed to do.
Jacob and Esau, Esau was not the handsome one, but the hairy

son, the one who was not in favor with his mother and ultimately ended up losing his birthright to his younger brother who became
Israel. History has proven over and over that those easily identifiable by the stronger or dominant group became the persecuted whether they were Africans brought to Europe and the
United States as slaves or the Jewish people and gypsies sent to concentration camps in Germany or Japanese Americans sent to interment camps in the United States during World War II.
Our Hebrew Bible Lesson and Gospel Lesson deal with skin today, no not skin color, but skin condition. In biblical days many skin conditions from psoriasis to severe acne were lumped under a term that is often translated as leprosy. Walls, stones, leather and cloth could succumb to the disease. When we read the descriptions in Leviticus it is clear they are talking about conditions that turned the skin white and even caused hair loss.
Today we understand Hansen’s disease or leprosy to be a nerve condition, which cause large nodes under the skin and open sores where the nerve endings died and injuries affect the outer layer of the skin. With modern medicine people live a normal life and there is no need for leper colonies. Leprosy is passed from person to person, but the incubation period is so long it is difficult to know from where one caught it. An interesting aside, those of us who live in northern region s tend not to catch Hansen’s disease, more commonly called leprosy, another good reason to

call the Dakotas home.
We read in Leviticus that people with any type of skin disease were thought to be out of favor with God, must have sinned, as there was no other explanation as to what was happening to their skin, house (mildew on the walls), clothing, or even the ground, as rocks would get a whitish growth on them.
The priests were the only ones who could determine if the cause was sin or a disease that could be cured. Chapters 13 and 14 read like a medical book, describing the various maladies and treatments.
According to the Law of Moses, once the priest determined a person unclean, they had to live outside the camp, outside the community, which meant they couldn’t be in the temple or synagogues either. They were to wear sack cloth; their hair was to be disheveled, which was standard procedure for those who were grieving or known to be out of favor with God. Those who were declared unclean were like the walking dead, not unlike the old practice on death row of having the guard moving a condemned prisoner shouting, “Dead man walking!” They had no future, life was basically over for them, they were out of the community, couldn’t even worship God, plus the humiliation of having to shout “Unclean” every time they came close to a
“CLEAN” person.
In our reading from 2 Kings, we can only assume that

Naaman was so important and his skill so in demand that he wasn’t sent away from his community. Perhaps he had to dine and sleep away from his family, we aren’t told, but if we read a bit further than today’s passage, we learn that Naaman became a believer in the ONE God of Israel. His healing brought about his conversion.
Naaman’s story is passed from generation to generation of people who are suffering with uncleanness, so is it any wonder that first century Jews and gentiles are seeking a cure from another prophet?
Imagine with me, those of you who are wearing anything white today are the ones who have been declared unclean. The rest of us are the ones who are clean and must avoid contact with you, so that we do not become afflicted with this skin disease sent by God because you are such bad people. You must separate yourselves from the rest of the people and start shouting Unclean when someone approaches you. It would not be very pleasant would it? The saddest thing is that you would be separated from your faith community; the one place you should feel wanted and accepted, one place you could go for healing and hope.
Now that we are kind of in the head of the man who approaches Jesus, begging Jesus for healing, as you have heard the stories about other healings. The man knows Jesus has the power, but will he choose to heal him, after all he is unclean and for some reason God is very angry with him. The New Revised

Standard Version tells us Jesus had pity on the man, but if we were to read some of the ancient manuscripts it would read,
“Jesus became angry.” The actual Greek word is translated anger. Did Jesus become angry because this unclean man came up to him, potentially causing Jesus to be unclean, having to go the temple priest and go through the cleansing ritual? Does that sound like the Jesus we know?
Or did he become angry because here was another interruption to his preaching schedule. In verse 38 we read, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” Jesus’ purpose was to proclaim the good news, but people kept getting in his way, wanting him to heal them. Was that why he was angry?
Or is it possible Jesus was angry because of what society and the religious leaders were doing to this man and others just like him? They were making them beg. They were making them homeless and taking self worth from them. Could that be what was making Jesus angry? Some scholars speculate that a scribe who was painstakingly copying Mark’s letter in the second or third century just couldn’t stand the fact that Jesus had gotten angry.
That was n’t the Jesus he knew, so he changed the word to pity, which embodied more the Jesus the early Christians were trying to make known.

We are to emulate Jesus, aren’t we called to be angry when the lepers of our world are being mistreated by society and by the church? Who are the lepers of our time? In a couple of months the General Conference of United Methodist Church will be meeting. Once again the question of ordaining gays and lesbians will come up.
I wonder what Jesus’ reaction would be to that vote? One cold night, a man showed up at our door with $2.00 in his hand. He wanted to buy a blanket. Would Jesus be angry?
Hungry children come to school Monday mornings, would Jesus be angry? Latinos work in fields as planes spray over them with pesticides, would Jesus be angry?
Jesus healed the man, sent him to the priest, sent him home and back into society. Did the healed man make a difference for the others? We know that he told the good news. Jesus heals us, heals us by forgiving us, by teaching us and showing us the way. May we walk with him and do something about his anger.
Amen.
Linda Baldock
Todd Mellette Parish, South Dakota
February 12, 2012