The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

To Touch, To Heal 

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45 

Namaan is a great and powerful man.  He is a general in the Syrian army and the Syrians are occupying Palestine.  He is famous, well-respected, rich, a man of position.  He is used to being obeyed.  But like every one of us, he has a weakness.  He suffers from leprosy.  His is not the terrible disease that would have seen him banished from society, but nevertheless it hampers him.  He knows that some day he may be forced to live in seclusion.   

He has been told by one of the captive Hebrew girls that there is a prophet named Elisha in Palestine who will cure him.  He gets his retinue together, gets a lot of gifts and appears at the prophet’s door expecting an amazing cure. 

But the prophet doesn’t come out to him.  He sends a messenger instead.  Here he is, expecting bells and whistles and what does he get?  A mere messenger!  And what does the messenger have the nerve to tell him to do?  “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times.” The muddy, polluted Jordan! He thinks of the beautiful sparkling rivers of Syria and becomes enraged.  He turns on his heels to go home. 

His servants speak to him.  “What if he had told you to do something difficult?  Would you have done it?”  They finally talk him into it.  Down he goes to the Jordan, immerses himself seven times, and comes out of that muddy water cleaner than he has ever been in his life. 

Fast forward to the time of Jesus.  Another leper, huddled in the entrance to the cave, his ragged clothing drawn up to cover his face from the sunlight.  And he watches.  He has seen this man before.  He has heard about the miracles he performed. 

“If only …” he says to himself, looking at his wasted fingers and the white blotches that cover his skin.   It is difficult to even remember the last time he felt the warmth of human touch.  He is a pariah to the community, one of the walking dead, dependent on the few scraps that he finds in the garbage or that someone has left for him.  And whenever anyone approaches he rings his bell and shouts out “Unclean!” 

But today he finds the courage.  He calls out to Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 

He knows what to expect.  He has seen the revulsion of people as they look at his wasted limbs.  And yet this time it is different.  It is not revulsion that he sees.  It is pity, genuine pity, grief at his condition, anger at the disease that has wasted his body. 

“I do choose,” Jesus says to him.  And then he touches him.  That touch is something for which he has longed.  He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be touched.  He feels a shudder go through his whole body.  “Be made clean!” Jesus continues.  And suddenly he is clean.  Whole.  Free.  The only signs of his dreadful disease are the bell and his tattered clothing. 

“Don’t tell anybody,” Jesus says to him.  “Go and show yourself to the priest.”  How, he wonders, can he ever keep this to himself?  He is alive again, fully restored through the power of this wonderful, gentle person. 

Fast forward again.  Terry, a modern day leper, is lying in a hospital bed.  The room is darkened.  He can no longer tolerate the light.  His face is covered with dark, purple blotches.  His body is wasting away.  But worse, far worse than this dreadful disease, is the revulsion he sees in people’s eyes.  Fear of touching him! Fear of being touched, contaminated by him! How he longs to leave the isolation of this hospital room!  How he longs for family and friends to feel that it is okay to be there, to reach out and touch him!

He thought back to this morning’s encounter.  She had come into his room.  “I’m the chaplain,” she explained.  But then she just stood there, like everyone else.  She stood in the middle of the room, frozen with fear, afraid to touch anything.  Especially afraid to touch him! And she had fled. 

“I’ll never see her again,” he thinks in anger.  “This whole thing is so unfair.  Do I deserve to suffer this way?” 

And then she is there by his bed.  “Am I dreaming?” he thinks.  But no!  

“I’m sorry about how I reacted this morning.  Please forgive me.  I was afraid.”  She takes his hand in hers.  “I know it is all right to touch you.  I know I won’t get AIDS through touching you.  But I was still afraid.” 

She holds his hand rubbing his emaciated arm.  It gives him a tremendous amount of peace and good feeling.  For a while it balances out the pain.