University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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            This much we know: a man approaches Jesus out of desperation, a man with leprosy.  As a leper he had been relegated to life as an outcast, an untouchable. Beyond the discomforts of his insidious skin disease, he had endured social and religious isolation, all of it specified in the holiness laws of Leviticus.  The leper, said the law, "shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!' He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp." (Lev. 13:45-46)  And so the man had been isolated from family and friends, excluded from public worship, and removed from any human contact, for anyone who came in contact with him would also be rendered "unclean."[1] It is distressing how often our concerns for purity put borders and boundaries on the extension of simple human kindness and compassion.

            Yet, this we also know: having heard of Jesus' work elsewhere, this leper ignores the law's restrictions and rushes to kneel at the feet of Jesus.  No comfortable distance here. No shouts of "Unclean!" to warn Jesus to stay away.  At Jesus' feet he begs... indeed, boldly claims, "If you choose, you can make me clean."

            And we know this: Jesus then does two very important things before he sends the man off with a plea for his silence.  First, he touches the man.  He reaches out to him and touches him and says, "I do choose. Be made clean." Putting himself at risk of having to join the leper colony, Jesus crosses the boundary the Torah had established between the two of them and touches the man. Says one scholar,

This [touch] is important for understanding Jesus' ministry and [the ministry] of those who would continue his work. Jesus did not minister long distance, safe from all that plagued the lives of those he would help. His work of forgiving brought him into contact with sinners; his work of lifting placed him among the fallen; his words of encouragement were spoken among the hopeless; his healing put him in contact with the diseased; his giving new life took him to the tomb.[2]

            The touch that seems to us like an inconsequential detail in Mark's account actually has profound meaning in the context of Mark's culture.  It shows us the kind of person, the kind of Christ, Jesus intends to be.  He is the Christ who comes to serve, not to be served.  He is the Christ who will not consider his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but will rather empty himself for the sake of God's children.  He is the kind of Christ who will cross borders and boundaries to touch lepers and embrace those at the margins. "All the way to the cross Jesus will be trying to get those who think, ‘where the messiah is, there will be no misery,' to accept a new [paradigm] - ‘where there is misery, there is the messiah.'"[3] 

            But here is a curious thing.  Just prior to extending his touch to the man with leprosy, something happens to Jesus.  In fact, Mark tells the reader something essential about Jesus.  But we're not quite sure what it is.  Let me explain. Our pew Bibles, like most contemporary translations of verse 41, say that Jesus was "moved with pity" in his encounter with the leper. The NIV says "moved with compassion."  Such translations are based on the Greek word splanchnizomai.

[Gary Charles argues that splanchnizomai] identifies a profoundly intense emotional response that viscerally propels one [who feels such] compassion into action on behalf of others.  The compassion Jesus feels for [this man] is more than a casual and gentle sentiment that eventually passes with time.... Mark presses his readers to see the compassion of Jesus, not merely as a matter of temperament, but also as a discipleship orientation. Disciples of Jesus are called to break down all barriers - religious, social, economic, political - between human need and God's liberating mercy. The compassion of Jesus is no sentimental pity for this poor man. His compassion compels him to reach across the boundary of disease to touch an untouchable.[4]

            All of that makes good sense.  But if you read the footnote in your pew Bible, you will see that a number of the ancient Greek manuscripts have a different word than splanchnizomai. In those manuscripts the word was orgistheis, which is best translated as "anger."  "Moved with anger," these early manuscripts said, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper to heal him. Theologian William Placher explains that

The general scholarly rule is to think that the more difficult reading is the original one.  A copyist might think, "‘anger' cannot be right; I will change it to ‘pity,'" but it is hard to imagine someone doing the opposite.  Surely, though, Jesus would not be angry at the leper.  Might he, however, have been angry at the system that compelled lepers, already physically afflicted, to live outside the town, to dress in rags, and to approach others shouting, "Unclean, unclean"?  The further burdens we place on those already suffering are just the sort of thing that did make Jesus angry.[5]

            Do you remember the movie The Blind Side from a couple of years ago?  It's the story of a white family from Tennessee that takes in an African-American teenager named Michael who has been struggling in the foster care system.  When it becomes apparent that the Tuohys are making Michael part of their family, the mother, Leanne, starts to hear about it from her friends, good church-going people who nonetheless think Leanne is taking her Christian values a bit too far.  As they sit at a country club having lunch, one asks, "Is this some kind of white guilt thing?"  "What will your daddy say?" another friend demands.  Leanne is filled with the same kind of anger I imagine Jesus felt on that road, as he realized that good religious people would scorn and reject him for helping this man.  With her eyes blazing, Leanne snaps back at her friends and nearly storms out before they back down and apologize.  She and Jesus are not much alike, as I judge it, but both of them risked judgment and shame because of their compassion, and that kind of injustice does provoke a certain righteous anger.[6] Indeed, I can't imagine Jesus looking around at the boundaries we have constructed today in our political polarities on matters such as immigration and health care and economics and not getting angry. I can't imagine it.

            I said earlier that Jesus did two very important things before sending the healed leper on his way. The first was his touch, stirred either by deep compassion or by anger at the systematic exclusion and outcasting of those who were different...and maybe both.  The second may seem a bit odd to us.  He sent the man to a priest to be ritually cleansed. If he was healed, why did the man need a priest? The answer is simple; this was not a private blessing, any more than a baptism is a private sacrament. Jesus knew that without the ritual cleansing, the man could not be welcomed back into the community's life.  Jesus' concern was not simply with the man's physical health; he also wanted the man restored in every social, religious and economic venue as well.  He understood that healing on one level only would not be sufficient, that his restorative touch had to extend further, to mend the fabric of his relationships. Our healing may begin internally, but it's completed in community.[7] 

An old friend from my preaching group, the Moveable Feast, Robin White, was for some years the pastor of a church in Wilmington, Delaware. Early in her tenure there, someone warned her about one of the church's teenagers, a problematic and troubled boy name Conrad, whose story I have shared with some of you before.

Conrad was an angry, disruptive 15-year-old who'd been expelled from school for drugs, outbursts in class, and verbally abusing teachers.  He'd also been kicked out of Church School and Vacation Bible School.  His mother had all but given up on him. The boy had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals and drug rehab centers.  He smoked, swore a blue streak, and his pants hung so low that most of his boxer shorts were exposed.  Other parents just didn't want him around their own kids.

Conrad was in the church building every morning for some private tutoring, and Robin said that before long, he began appearing at her study door.  At first he came under the guise of wanting a gum ball from the gum ball machine she had.  But soon, he would plop down in a chair and tell Robin about the latest computer games or [hip-hop] music.  After a few minutes of listening, Robin would tell Conrad she had to get back to work.  He would give her a grin and unfold his long lanky body and say, "I need a cigarette."  And he was gone till next morning.

Against all odds, Conrad started coming to church on Sundays with his mother [but he didn't sit with her].  He would stroll down the aisle during the opening hymn holding up his pants.  He sat in the front pew by himself until the scripture reading when he would get up and saunter back down the aisle and out the door.  In the middle of the sermon, back down the aisle he came.  Much to the displeasure of some of the congregation, Robin asked Conrad to be an usher.  At least he would be going up and down the aisle for a reason. She fielded more than a few complaints about the way he walked and dressed as he ushered.  But soon the youth group advisors took an interest in Conrad, too.  They asked him to come to youth events, but he always had an excuse.  Robin said that she and the leaders tried hard to get him to go on an overnight.  "It'll be fun," [she] promised.  He said he wasn't coming because he had other plans, doubtless drinking and drugs.  But on the evening of the overnight, Conrad showed up with his pillow and sleeping bag.  "I changed my mind," he grinned. 

The following Sunday, Conrad was in church as usual.  So was a woman named Sarah, an elderly and faithful member of the congregation who also sat toward the front.  She had sat there with her husband, Ed, every Sunday for forty years.  But Ed's funeral had been the Tuesday before.  The opening hymn was A Mighty Fortress.  Robin says she looked down from the pulpit to see Sarah sitting alone, bent over in grief, tears flowing freely.  [About] the same time, she saw Conrad ambling down the center aisle.  As he walked by Sarah, Conrad caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye.  He stopped, whirled his long body around, hiked up his pants, and slid in to the pew next to her.  He draped his arm around her shoulders and held her trembling body close as the congregation sang, "God's truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever." [8]

            Much of the time, what we need most is the love and embrace of a community. Goodness, how we need each other.  Jesus understood that, as he touched the leper, so he sent him to the priest...perhaps partly out of compassion and partly out of anger at the system that required such ritual acts. Whatever the reason, he sent him.  Conrad, who had known his own pain, understood it when he slid in next to Sarah and touched her grief. Opportunities for us to demonstrate such understanding arise almost every day. In such matters we almost always have a choice to make.  "If you choose," the leper said, "you can make me clean." Who knows what choices we will be asked to make?  Sometimes, to be sure, such opportunities and choices present themselves to us clearly and unambiguously, and the saints of God know unequivocally what they must do, and thus rally to acts of compassion and kindness... of service and sacrifice.  At other times, the choices present themselves in disguise, with less clarity and more ambiguity.  Our task, as followers of the one who became angry at the boundaries and crossed them out of compassion, is to channel our indignation and our compassion with similar grace. As Jon Walton says:

This is a healing story with passion in it.  It is not just any healing story.  Jesus is frustrated and upset when he heals the man; and in the process of healing him, Jesus breaks down the walls that have been carefully built and scrupulously preserved by well-meaning religious types, and he touches the leper.  He dares to do the unconventional, in fact, the unlawful, so that he may accomplish the unlikely.[9]

            Indignation and compassion: these are not just matters of temperament, but also discipleship orientations.   As disciples of the Christ, we are called to take note of those who are hurting, to resist and work to break down the artificial boundaries that separate us from any of God's children, and at times, to step intentionally across those boundaries in acts of compassion and faithfulness.  We may not be able to heal others in the way Jesus did, but by such acts of grace we will bind them to ourselves, and perhaps in the process will discover that we ourselves have been healed.

[1] Douglas Hare, Mark, Westminster Bible Companion, Louisville, Westminster John Knox, 1996, 33-34.

[2] Fred Craddock, et al., Preaching Through the Christian Year - B, Valley Forge, Trinity Press International, 1993, 103.

[3] Craddock, et al., 103.

[4] Gary Charles, in David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, 357-359.

[5] William C. Placher, Mark: Belief Commentary, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, 42.

[6] Emily M. Brown, "Jesus Interrupted," Day 1 sermon, broadcast today, February 12. 2012.

[7] Carla Pratt Keyes, "Bridging the Distance," sermon preached February 12, 2006 at the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Tucker, Georgia.

[8] Michael Lindvall, "Beyond No Pale," sermon preached at the Government Street Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama on January 29, 2006, as cited by Keyes; cf. note 5.

[9] Jon Walton, "Jesus Iconoclast," sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, February 12, 2006, as cited by P.C. Enniss, in "Mark 1:40-45: Pastoral Perspective," Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, 358.