LITURGY AND LIFE

By Lucie Leduc

Forget looking for miracles, just widen our embrace

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feb. 12, 2012

Leviticus 13: 1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32
1 Corinthians 10: 31 - 11:1
Mark 1: 40-45

When I think of someone who stands out for her inclusivity of others, for welcoming every kind of human being into her embrace, I think of Mother Teresa. She says, “We are all God’s children, so it is important to share God’s gifts. Do not worry about why problems exist in the world — just respond to people’s needs. Some say to me that if we give charity to others it’ll diminish the responsibility of government toward the needy and the poor. I don’t concern myself with this, because governments do not usually offer love. I just do what I can do; the rest is not my business.”

In the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time we are challenged to consider a simple message. It is the very message the man healed of leprosy and the folks who sought Jesus out for healing in the Gospel reading for this Sunday completely miss. It is easy to miss, and equally easy to dismiss. It is this: in the reign of God — as Rev. Richard Rohr, OFM, so aptly entitles one of his books — everything and everyone belongs. Sounds simple enough, but most of us struggle to live with a wide enough embrace — to love the stranger, foreigner and other, and to heal the lepers in our lives, to put other people before ourselves — as Mother Teresa and St. Paul imitate Christ in doing.

In the first reading from the book of Leviticus we see how it is for the Hebrew community faced with a contagious disease and how it is for the person with the disease. The religiously prescribed norms for the individual found with leprosy have three profoundly disabling and heartbreaking consequences. Beyond suffering the physical effects of the disease, they suffer the social isolation of leprosy, required to “live alone with their dwelling outside the camp.” Added to this, they are given the religious designation (by the priest) of “unclean” with the belief attached that they have committed a sin and are being punished for it. In this sense, the person has the additional affliction of moral and spiritual isolation.

Contrast this first reading with the next two readings which invite a wide and inclusive view of community life.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, reminds them and us that we need to place the cultural sensitivities of others before our own for the glory of God. Bringing to mind all of the Greek and Hebrew religious and cultural taboos associated with unclean foods and drink, Paul makes clear to the newly formed Christian community that sensitivity and respecting others must take precedence over the advancement of new ideas or any other self-centred preoccupations. The motivation is clear: Paul wants relationship with others, wants them to know the Christ he met on the road to Damascus who lovingly called him out of his own religious rightness into loving communion with the world and others. Paul is “not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.”

As the latter sentence suggests, Paul takes his cue from Jesus whose embrace is widest of all. Jesus is the source for relationship and communion with all. We hear the man with leprosy approach Jesus begging to be made clean. He doesn’t ask to be cured, but to be made clean. It seems his moral and spiritual isolation are more difficult than even the physical suffering. Jesus is “moved with pity” and touches him saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Jesus is choosing that this man no longer be alienated from his true self in communion with God and with others in community. He is choosing to reunite this man in relationship with life.

Jesus “sternly” tells the man healed of leprosy to go to the priest, to follow the religious ritual such as it is and to tell no one about what has happened to him. Jesus, it seems, is not offended by the ritual norms of the religious community. He respects them, and at the same time he is attuned to a relationship with his Abba and the Spirit that tells of the union of all things, and acts from that place. He has touched the man, and knows that he too will be considered unclean, but his main motivation for “sternly” warning the man not to say anything is that he doesn’t want to scandalize the community. In this sense he places both the man and the community before his own need for safety.

As it turns out, the man healed of leprosy seems not to heed Jesus’ requests. His lack of discretion and his personal excitement over the healing creates the opposite of what Jesus is setting out to do. It creates restrictions for Jesus, as we’re told “Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to Jesus from every quarter.” Unwittingly, the man also places Jesus’ life in jeopardy with the religious authorities who are clinging to their rightness about laws over the needs of the people. Where his primary mission is to tell the good news of God’s reign in their midst, the good news of salvation for all, he is followed more for his healings and miracles.

We can easily miss the point along with the crowds and the man healed of leprosy: to be running after miracles, or get so excited about our experience of God that we miss out on loving and serving God well for the sake of others. Loving union with God, others and all of creation, is the heart of what salvation is about. How wide is my embrace?

Leduc is the program co-ordinator at Queen’s house Retreat and Renewal Centre in Saskatoon.