How many of you here this morning have flown on a plane this past week?
Anyone here been this week on a bus or a subway or a train?
How many of you this week entered a public building and had to push or pull open the door?
Let me try this: anyone recently ridden an escalator or taken a stairway, and held the handrail? How many of you have pushed a grocery cart this week?
I think we got just about everybody, and some of you we got multiple times.
All of these actions, just normal everyday living, put you up close and personal with the same thing: dirt, germs, microbes, bacteria, or the stuff that really might make you sick.
Before people figured out that it is bacteria and viruses that spread disease, getting sick was a scary, unknown, unexpected event. Who got sick, why they got sick, why they got well, or didn’t . . . it all was a mystery. The ravages of leprosy, the bubonic and pneumonic plagues, influenza, tuberculosis, polio, and most recently AIDs, have all infused us with fear, even after we figured out the cause, the effect, and the even the cure.
The only way to way to ward off infectious disease before the discovery of bacteriology was isolation. Today we practice isolation by keeping our kids home from school or making ourselves stay home from work. We also isolate ourselves through the wonder of chemicals.
I want to do a little experiment this morning. How many of you have a pack of antibacterial wipes in your pocket, or purse? Take them out. Yes, if you have a little squeeze bottle of “Purel” on you, that counts as well. Can you hold them up? Let’s see what percentage of us are “isolationists.” (Be sure you take out your own anti-bacterial products).
It looks like about half [or three-quarters, or a quarter] of us are isolationists. I know of one church where the pastor had to ask the people please NOT to use the Wet-Wipes after the Passing of the Peace. It was too disruptive of the liturgy that followed, and too disparaging of the liturgy that preceded it.
With all this isolationist bathing in anti-bacterial products, why are we still so “germy”?
Environmental scientists are now beginning to admit that it seems the more we try to isolate ourselves from bugs and baddies, the more we end up making ourselves more susceptible to them. In fact, some pediatricians now are actually recommending that parents let their kids eat dirt regularly. When you see your child playing in the kitty litter, eating in the dog bowl, don’t jump up and rescue them. Let them get “down and dirty.”
Too many antibiotics for sniffles and plugged ears . . .
Too many hermetically sealed households that don’t let air in and don’t let air out . . .
Too many antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiallergenic substances . . .
All end up making us bulls-eyes for bugs.
You heard it right: Wet-Wipes are making us bulls-eyes for bugs.
What’s that about?
We are really healthy, until we aren’t.
Until one stray bad bug enters the atmosphere.
Suddenly an immune system that has been coddled and protected, kept clean and pristine, encounters a real, live bad guy. Without a stockpile of immune responses to draw from, without the kick-back reflexes of a body that has regularly come under assault and learned to fight back against day-to-day germy stuff, we make ourselves sitting ducks.
It’s time we got “down and dirty” again. Instead of walling ourselves off from everything we consider to be “dirty” we need to risk getting mud on our knees and some grime under our fingernails. We need to expose both our bodies and our spirits to the “dirt” that we fear the most, in order to grow stronger.
There was nothing wrong with the Levitical mandates that kept all “lepers” “outside the camp.” Bacteriologically the practice made good, hygienic sense. But being branded as a leper was not just a diagnosis. It was a cultural death sentence.
Those infected were forever forbidden to participate in normal social life.
Those infected had to relinquish family ties.
Those infected had to abandon all social relationships.
Those infected had the human touch exorcised from their lives.
The enforced isolation required by Levitical law made a physical disease into a spiritual disease, both for those suffering from leprosy, and for those who imposed the law and turned away the lepers in their community. Those with leprosy had their spirit hollowed out by loneliness and isolation. Those who cast out the lepers had their spirit hardened and callused against compassion for another.
Every age, every nation, every community, every religion, has its particular lepers. Every culture labels certain people lepers. The lepers in our midst are the ones we fear, the ones who we feel endanger us, the ones who remind us of our own weaknesses, the ones we do not want to see.
In fact, one of the best ways to understand the history of America is to see it as a kind of “leper colony,” or leper continent. For example, at different points in history,
The Puritans who fled England to practice their faith were “lepers” to the hard-liners in the Church of England.
The Irish immigrants were the “lepers” to those of English heritage.
The eastern European immigrants were the “lepers” to the western Europeans.
And leprosy, as ever, continues to be a “skin disease.” Leprosy lets us single out and be fearful of whatever color skin is different than our own: black skin, white skin, brown skin, yellow skin, red skin.
Since 9/11 it has been too easy to put the leper label on all Muslims. And it was the leper label that terrorists put on America which made it possible for 9/11 to happen.
After Jesus’ crucifixion, when the disciples were still hiding out in Jerusalem, the Bible says this: “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked, for fear of the Jews” (Luke 20:19). How strange a situation! Who are the disciples afraid of? Let me read that again: “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked, for fear of the Jews.”
Wait a minute! What’s wrong here? The disciples ARE Jews. The disciples are afraid of their own people. They are afraid of their own identity. They are afraid of themselves. They want to isolate and keep out that which is a part of them. In effect, they make themselves both the leper, and the community that rejects the leper.
Within each of us are the germs of our own form of “leprosy”, our weaknesses, our pet hatreds, our obsessions, our fears, our desires, our diagnoses. We are always afraid of ourselves. We are afraid of our true selves, and we project onto others what we most fear or dislike in ourselves. We can’t forgive others what we can’t forgive in ourselves. For example, anti-Semitism is often an unease with one’s own Jewish identity. Think Ludwig Wittgenstein. Think Adolph Hitler.
How did Paul put it: ALL of us have “fallen short” of the glory of God. All of us. No exceptions. We’re all hypocrites.
But it’s more than that. We’re all lepers. . . .
What’s your leprosy?
In Mark’s text Jesus let slip his divine nature by curing the leprous man of his disease. Only the divine, only God can cure leprosy. For leprosy is more than a mere disease. It is an unholy, uncleanness that must be dealt with by the Holy One.
That which is leprous within each of us can only be cured in that same way. By the Holy One. It takes the divine touch, the hand of God, to transform cratered flesh into new creation flesh.
Leprosy is a tough disease to eradicate. When Naaman, a mighty warrior and commander of King Aram’s army, came to the prophet Elisha to be healed of his leprosy he was convinced that the prophet would cure him instantly. But Elisha commands Naaman to go to the Jordan river and wash in it seven times. The water would wash Naaman clean, the prophet promised, but only if he kept at it, he must bath seven times. At first Naaman rejected Elisha’s simplistic “shampoo bottle” instructions. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
But it was only after the big, strong warrior did something so simple as to let the waters of the Jordan run over him again, and again, and again, did his transformation occur. The power of God’s word ran through that water, washing, cleansing, purifying Naamun of his disease. (2 Kings 5).
What leprosy does God want to cure you of this morning? What part of yourself are you afraid of? What part of you are you hiding from?
You say “servant,” but Jesus says “friend.”
You say “leper,” but Jesus says “lover.”
You say “unforgiveable,” but Jesus says “forgiven and cast into the depths of the sea.”
[A great way to end this sermon would be to play the Nicole Nordeman song “Rolling River God” while flashing the words on the screen. Or better yet, show one of the videos that have been made of this song. Or best yet, have someone in your church put some images to her words and play them for your people.
Here are the lyrics . . . .
Verse 1
Rolling River God Little Stones are smooth Only once the water passes through So I am a stone rough and grainy still Trying to reconcile this river's chill
CHORUS: But when I close my eyes and feel you rushing by I know that time brings change and change takes time And when the sunset comes my prayer would be just this one that you might pick me up and notice that I am just a little smoother in your hand
Verse 2
Sometimes raging wild sometimes swollen high never have I known this river dry The deepest part of you is where I want to stay and feel the sharpest edges wash away
CHORUS:
You might even consider passing out a smooth stone to everyone present. Have them watch the video once. The in a moment of silence, have them write on the stone their leprosy, what they’re most afraid of in themselves. And during the second playing of the song, invite them to come forward and cast their stone on the altar, or into a fountain that is up front.