RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - February 15, 2009

“Dead Man Walking”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 1:40-45

Last Sunday we left Jesus heading out of town – even though he was the beloved and miraculous healer in Capernaum, even though people were lining up around the block to see him, preparing to cast off their crutches and canes, anticipating relief for their aching backs and sore eyes, and planning their escape from parasitic demons and unclean spirits. Jesus turned his back on all that and moved on to other towns nestled amidst the hills of Galilee.

Why did he leave that newfound fame and good feeling behind? Perhaps he did not want to be seen as a wizard or magician. Perhaps he did not want to be simply a healer when he sensed his call instead to be preaching and teaching the way, God’s way. Perhaps he did not want to be a miracle worker if that small piece of him kept people from really hearing the message of God’s abundant and compassionate love that he embodied and proclaimed.

Yet, whatever the reason for his leaving Capernaum, Jesus had not gone very far before he ran smack into a leper who had wandered from his hillside haunt and sought healing – if Jesus so willed it.

The man had not always been a leper, of course. At one time, he had been a healthy and productive member of society. He was a good father and was faithful to his wife. He attended the synagogue regularly, prayed when he had the chance, and gave his share of alms to the local beggar. He was a decent man. Then sometime in the last half dozen years, something terrible had happened.

The priests would tell him – not that they ever got close enough to counsel him – but if they had, they would tell him – not that he had contracted a highly contagious and incurable skin disease by breathing bad air or maybe it was the water – but rather that clearly he had so blatantly ignored the Holy Code of Purity detailed in the sacred book of Leviticus that – what? What else should he expect than to become unclean in such a horrific way that all the world would see beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had sinned – and sinned grievously.

After all, as Graydon Snyder wrote, "God made the world in a certain ordered fashion. People were also created in a clearly defined manner. If they were born with a defect, became visibly diseased, or their body didn't function correctly, then they were unclean." In other words, this was a matter for the priests, not the doctors.

And so it had started with the man who approached Jesus that hot summer afternoon. First there had been the fatigue and pain in the joints. Then there were the scaly spots that seemed to develop overnight on his skin, then the nodules that oozed their leprous pus, growing on his face and vocal cords until his voice was so raspy that it sounded like a demon was housed in his heart. And now his body was slowly and painfully decaying, and the torture would only end years down the road in death.

And this wreck of a human being fell to his knees before Jesus, and that gravelly voice arose from deep inside him, somewhat muffled by the yellowed and dirty linen bandages wrapped about his head and throat and swaddling his hands and feet. “You can make me clean….if you are willing.” No demands. No pleas. Just a statement of fact – or faith.

And Jesus thought for only an instant before answering, “I am willing….You are clean.” Just a simple statement of fact – or faith. Now many popular Biblical translations indicate that Jesus spoke these words with pity or compassion – and that certainly fits in with our modern day image of Jesus as the mild-mannered prophet.

However, most of these versions also have a footnote that says that the original Greek might more accurately be translated as Jesus speaking in anger. Interesting - why anger?

One explanation might be that Jesus was not interested in perpetuating the image of himself as a healer, but had a vastly more important message for the people that he encountered. Surely something like healing this untouchable leper would turn his best laid plans into a veritable circus. Perhaps Jesus rightly feared that all these healings would only shift the focus from God’s Way to something terribly peripheral.

However, let’s for a moment look from a different perspective. What if Jesus was angry because through his compassionate eyes he saw the leper kneeling before him totally alone – ostracized by his family and the friends and neighbors he grew up with, cast out by the synagogue and the priests who offered no spiritual sustenance, led to believe that even God had given up on him? What if Jesus was angry because the leper had been declared dead to his family, dead to his friends, dead to his church, and dead to his God? And you can not get much deader than that!

Could that be why, in that moment of righteous anger, that Jesus not only spoke the words of healing (which probably would have done the trick), but he offered a healing touch as well - even though Jewish law strictly forbid doing so? Could that righteous anger have driven him to not only risk contracting leprosy, but surely to rock the boat and whip up even more that growing animosity between himself and the princes of religion.?

What if Jesus offered a healing touch because he intuitively understood that leprosy was so much more than a physical ailment? What if he just knew that having leprosy was like being a dead man walking – shut out from everything that gives life, from every community and every relationship that brings sustenance and renewal?

What if when Jesus touched this man, he pulled the leper back to the land of the living not only because the leprosy was cured, but because the barriers that separated him from his wife, his children, and his friends were now gone? He was no longer alone. The great abyss between him and every other human being was bridged, bridged by a healing touch. What if out of such righteous anger came a terrible and beautiful moment of grace?

When I think of it this way, I find this passage to be one of the most moving in all of Scripture and that is because on some level we are all lepers, outcasts one and all, and we can not help but pray that we too will feel that compassionate touch born out of righteous anger pulling us into the grace of community.

For it is in community – not alone but with other people - that the Gospel message of forgiveness and compassion is re-enacted time after grace-filled time as you and I find it within ourselves to reach out with loving hands and hearts to those who live in “fear, mistrust, misunderstanding, anger, loneliness, the inability to communicate with each other, even those we love the most and are closest to… (who are) afraid to touch other people's lives and let our lives be touched by other people, ashamed of our own uncleanness, suspicious of other people.” (Frederick Buechner)

Beneath Mark’s story of a single leper being healed lurk the words of an important truth for us, and that it is: there is more to being a follower of Jesus than keeping our faith personal, that is, having only a private relationship with Jesus that changes our lives, at least on the inside. We should be cautioned by Megan McKenna’s words: ‘It is not enough to relate personally to Jesus and then live off a moment of healing or connection. Instead, we must return again and again to Jesus' word and to the company of other followers and walk the way together.”

And the way, God’s Way, is not a narrow path to walk alone. It is a highway to be walked in community – tinged undoubtedly with our own brand of righteous anger, but also clothed in great compassion.

Rosemary Brown wrote this poem:

The skeptic stood at the foot of the cross and asked,
"What happens now to the work you've done?"
And Jesus whispered, "I've my disciples to carry on!"
"Well, what happens if they fail you, Son of Man?"
the skeptic sneered.
"I have no other plan," Jesus sighed,
And then he died.

We are God’s plan because we are God’s community. So go forth - together – and be both angry and compassionate. Reach out your hand and touch all the dead men walking that you can find – and bring them home, home to a community of grace.

Sermon - February 15, 2009

“Dead Man Walking”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Mark 1:40-45

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 1:40-45