Mark 1:40-45

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Mark 1:40-45

A good Sunday for everyone. 

The evangelist Mark told us about the first episodes of Jesus' public life on the last two Sundays. We remember that he entered the synagogue of Capernaum, expelled the demon from a possessed person, and later entered the house and cured the fever of Peter's mother-in-law; then he went out into the square, and people were afflicted with all sorts of diseases waiting for him. This is the humanity that Jesus found. If we move through the Gospel, we meet people who introduce Jesus to people who need his help. Sick humanity that he did not come to condemn or judge but to heal. 

And today, the evangelist Mark speaks of another healing, the healing of the most feared disease in Israel, leprosy. It is a disease that does not kill but disfigures the person, makes the person despicable, unrecognizable, unpleasant. People were scared of lepers because they could infect them, and for this reason, they were abandoned, even by their families. They were marginalized by society, and there was a Leviticus provision about how a leper should behave. He had to stay separate, away from society, he had to wear torn clothes, his head uncovered, his beard covered, and if someone approached him unintentionally, he had to shout immediately: 'Go away because I am impure.' 

Usually, these poor people lived in caves or tents; their livelihood was entrusted to their families or some merciful person who brought them food but did not deliver it to their hands, but was left in a certain place, and people had to come and get it when these merciful people had gone away. The leper, says the book of Numbers, speaking of Moses' sister, is like one to whom his father has spat in his face and even been rejected by his father. And the book of Job says that leprosy is the first-born of death; considered incurable. 

To cure a leper was equivalent, in Jesus' time, to resurrect a dead person. Let us remember the answer given by the King of Israel when he received the letter from the King of Damascus asking him to heal the general of his army, Naaman, says: 'But does the king of Damascus think that I am God to cure leprosy?’ The condition of the lepers was the worst imaginable because they were kept away from people and also away from God because he who was struck by leprosy meant he was a great sinner and God had punished him for that. So, the leper did not even arouse compassion because he had gone to seek misfortune and had to suffer. 

For all this, leprosy had become the image of the condition to which the sinner is reduced. Those who fall into moral degradation remain lepers. The state of the leper is the mirror of the condition of the sinner. I said that leprosy does not kill, but it makes one lose sensitivity; thus, a person can be burned, hurt, and doesn't realize it, but the consequences are dire. This is exactly what happens to those who lose their moral sensibility. Leprosy makes you lose your physical sensitivity, but spiritual leprosy makes you lose your moral sensitivity, no longer distinguishing between what is good and what is bad, what humanizes and what degrades, and becomes unrecognizable as a person. Let us think of a dissolute, a criminal, who loses his human aspect, but also those who are dishonest, a cheater, a careerist, a quarrelsome, or a selfish person loses his human aspect and becomes unpleasant. These people are wrong. We say, 'bad people, it's better to stay away from them.' We don't trust these people. We try not to have anything to do with them, and we ostracize them as if they were lepers. 

And let’s also think about the image of humanity. The image of the demons that are present in this humanity. The image of the diseases that afflict humanity. The strongest image is that of a leprous humanity, where there are all kinds of violence, the injustice of all kinds, where creation is devastated because everyone thinks in themselves. It is humanity that is presented as degraded and ugly, and many say that leprosy, this spiritual leprosy that disfigures the person and also humanity, they say, is incurable; people will always be bad and selfish, competing and hurting each other; it is incurable leprosy. 

The question is whether this leprosy that disfigures people and humanity is incurable. Today's Gospel passage answers this question. Leprosy is indeed incurable for people, but God can introduce into the world a word that cures leprosy. Let us read in this light and in this symbolism the episode we now hear: 

"At that time, a leper came to him and, kneeling, begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.’ The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.” 

In the gospels, we see that the sick generally do not go to Jesus alone; there is always someone who cares of their condition in the hope that they can be healed, leading them to Jesus. Instead, this leper goes alone, no one can accompany him because no one can get close to him, but above all, no one has the hope that he can be recovered to live, back to the relationship with people and God. His condition is desperate; he lost everything: His family, affections, and friends also lost his relationship with God; he cannot be healed because only God can heal him. And he cannot turn to God because he knows that in his condition, he is repelled by God; God rejects him; he cannot set foot in the temple. 

This is the image of God that has been instilled in this poor person's heart, and let us be careful because it is still the image of God that is present in the heart, in the mind, even of many Christians. Their idea of God is that if you are ugly, dirty, and nasty, He does not look at you, wants you to move away from him, and if by chance you die without asking for forgiveness, he rejects you forever. If, on the contrary, you are good and behave well, then He welcomes you into his eternal abodes. 

The first condition for being cured of leprosy is to know, become aware, that this is a sinister image of God; therefore, you cannot be cured of leprosy if you do not come close to God, if you feel rejected by God. This leper goes to Jesus and does something that goes against the provisions dictated by the Jewish religion, by the traditions established by the rabbis. He will be cured because he has the courage to detach himself from this image of God and turn to Jesus. Certainly, he has heard of him as a man of God, like Elisha, who cured Naaman. 

Let's see how he approaches Jesus. He gets down on his knees, he does not yet know what Jesus' reaction will be because he cannot approach him; he is transgressing the religious provisions. He says, 'If you will, you can make me clean,' he does not say, heal me but ‘purify me.’ He cannot approach people or God because he is unclean. He says: 'I see that you present me with a different God that the rabbis taught me. You can purify me.’ Now let's look in detail at Jesus' reaction because he shows us the actual image of God, that image of God which the leper can approach with the certainty of being welcomed and cured. 

The text says, 'moved with pity.’ The Greek verb is 'σπλαγχνισθεὶς' – splanchnistheis = 'brought to compassion,' but here is a textual problem because this does not seem to be the verb used by the Evangelist Mark, who used another one, 'orguistheis,' which means that he has become indignant and angry. Bible scholars, when faced with two terms and they don't know which one the evangelist uses; they have to choose the more difficult one; now between the two, 'moved with pity, or 'has become indignant' at the leper; the most difficult is undoubtedly the second because it is much easier than a copyist, not having understood why Jesus was indignant, he has σπλαγχνισθεὶς' - splanchnistheis 'took pity.' And so, no one would have thought that Jesus was outraged. It could be a copyist mistake. Let us keep the verb that was most probably used by Mark: 'Jesus was indignant.' 

Let us try to understand, then, what fit of anger Jesus felt when he was in front of a poor leper who feels excommunicated, and in need of help. Jesus is indignant that this image of God has been instilled in this poor man's heart; it is the anger of God in the face of the disfigured preaching of his identity. And I share with you that it is also the anger I feel when I meet people who have turned away from the Church and God because of this preaching of a blasphemous face of God. God is not like the one a certain tradition has taught. 

And now the turning around of the image of God begins. The true God is the one we now see in Jesus, not that of tradition. All gestures speak to us of the true God. Jesus extended his hand. It was not necessary. It was enough that his word cured the leper; why does Mark mention the detail that he extended his hand? It is an expression that we find in the Old Testament; when God extended his hand, he would strike the enemies of his people. It is not about persons; when God extends his hand, enemies are not persons, they are the enemies of man who are beaten, and in this case, it is not the leper who is beaten by the hand of God, but it is leprosy that destroys in man the image of his Creator. 

And then Jesus touches him. Touch is the sense that puts us more in touch with each other because I can look at the other with a smile, tell them that I appreciate them, but until I touch them and embrace them, there is no full involvement of affection or acceptance of the other. Jesus touches the leper and caresses the leper; this is our God, the God we now see in Jesus of Nazareth. The Pharisees imagined him as the holy, separate God, and here instead, people find themselves before a God who already at baptism stood by the sinners and here even caresses the leper and says to him ‘I want you to be purified,' and he is cured immediately, and the leprosy disappears. 

According to tradition, when a pure person touched a leper who was impure or touched anything impure, it was not his 'purity’ which purified the impure, but the impurity was stronger. Here, however, the opposite is true. It is not Jesus who becomes impure; in Jesus, there is a force that heals all forms of impurity. This is the God we can approach today knowing that He caresses us, whatever the leprosy that has disfigured our human face, which should be the image made in the likeness of God. Now we see a surprising reaction from Jesus to the leper who has been cleansed. Let us listen: 

"Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. Then he said to him, ‘See that you tell no one anything but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed.” 

And now the evangelist Mark inserts a verse that I think many preachers will try to miss when he writes: "warning him sternly,” warning the leper who had been healed and send him out, why does Jesus do this? Jesus “dismissed him at once,” he had just caressed him…. Here we use two Greek verbs that are very strong. The first one: ἐμβριμησάμενος - embrimeámenos which means 'to complain' - 'to grunt.' Something must have irritated Jesus in this leper. And then the verb 'ἐξέβαλεν' - 'exebalen,' which means to cast out, as if it were a plague. 

But what is it that this leper does that make Jesus so indignant? How is it that he admonishes him and throws him out? The reprobation means that the leper did something he shouldn't have done; he should have been more careful. He believed that God had excluded him from his love. It is as if Jesus told him: ‘How could you think this about God? God does not exclude anyone from his love, no matter what condition they are in.’ Even today, some people are convinced that, because of their situation, they have committed serious misconduct, because they live in a state of sin, because they cannot approach the sacraments, they cannot receive communion. Are they convinced that God does not love them, excludes them, or rejects them? How can they think such a thing? 

Jesus is indignant, in the first place, to the one who has spoken thus of God, but he will also rebuke the one who has believed in this catechesis: how can you think of being excluded from God's love? There is no sin, no guilt, no condition that cannot make you feel loved by the Father in heaven. Let us remember what the first letter of John says, one of the most beautiful phrases in the Bible: "Even if your heart reproaches you, remember that God is greater than your heart," and therefore, you also have a responsibility if you give your allegiance to this garbage that has been preached about God; you should not have listened to those who preached these lies about God. 

And then he sends him out. It is not said that they were in a room since, in all probability were out in the open. Why does he send him out for? Sent out from that religious environment, from that mentality, of that catechesis that irritated Jesus. He said, "See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest… that will be proof for them." 

Here the Greek text has two meanings. ‘You don't have to tell about the miracle that could be misunderstood; you just have to present yourself to the priests’ which at that time was the hygiene office where it was carefully checked whether a person was cured of leprosy and could therefore be readmitted to society. "To be proof for them” = You have to testify to the priest that God does not exclude from the temple to lepers as they do because God loves every person. 

Now let's hear what the leper who was purified did: 

"The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.” 

The leper left and began to spread the word and transgressed the order that Jesus had given not to say anything to anyone, but the original Greek text doesn't say so; it doesn't say that he left, but 'ἐξελθὼν' - exelthon = that he went away... from where? He was inside a religious institution that had instilled meaningless ideas about God, and Jesus threw him out. He moved away from the circle of those who wanted him to remain faithful to the rabbis' catechesis. He went out, and not only does he not want to go back in, but he wants others to go out too, to experience his liberation, his joy and began to proclaim and spread the word. Not only the fact but 'τὸν λόγον’ - the message. 

He wants everyone to know what he has understood, that is, that he will say to everyone: ‘Look, God is not as we were taught. God does not discriminate against people. He offers his love to all. I was a leper, and I understood that He loved me madly. You should all know this.’ And perhaps someone might object at this point: 'But if God loves everyone, even those who misbehave, then I will do what I want.' It is beautiful to be a leper, isn't it? It would be as if the cured leper said, 'Since God loves me anyway, I'd rather go back to being a leper.’ That's silly; it's better not to talk about it. He is saying, 'Remember, when you feel like a leper, don't feel far from God, and because you feel loved, you will approach Him who alone can heal you, the only one who can make you beautiful, similar to the Father in Heaven.' 

And, at this time, says the evangelist Mark, Jesus could no longer enter a city publicly, but he had to stay out... why? Because he had become impure, he touched a leper and therefore has to get away from pure people. It is great our God who goes where there are lepers and not where some consider themselves just. The text concludes by saying that everyone came to him. One goes to God when one understands He loves us as we are. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.