Sermon Archive

"Be Made Clean", Mark 1:40-45

Date: February 15, 2009, The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Author: The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

            Leviticus chapter thirteen: “The leper 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 remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

            I took Bob out for coffee when he started coming to the church I served in Fargo . I could tell he knew a lot about worship so it didn't surprise me to find out he was a Lutheran pastor. He also told me he was on disability because he had AIDS. I will admit I was shocked and uncomfortable. Then I asked him why he had decided to come to St. Mark's. He had been an active member of the largest church in Fargo but when he was hospitalized one of the pastors of that congregation came to visit him; when he found out why he was in the hospital, this pastor told Bob he really wasn't welcome at First Lutheran and suggested he attend St. Mark's instead. I think it was at that moment that I become really proud of the congregation I was serving. St. Mark's welcomed Bob. He taught Sunday School and the parents were of his class were very supportive. He preached and served as cantor and when he died, the congregation was proud to host his funeral.

            When I reread our lesson today, I thought of Bob. There are reasons why the Old Testament laws in Leviticus thirteen and fourteen quarantined those with skin diseases and why the priests were in charge of declaring clean and unclean. In our Gospel text a leper comes to Jesus saying, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Jesus had been healing and casting out demons and this man recognizes in Jesus one who had the power to make him clean.   Jesus turns to the man and says, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. If this was all to the story, it would be just another miracle of Jesus which shows his power as Son of God and Savior. The demons are subject to Jesus. He is able to cure those with infirmities and diseases. But there is more to the text than that. What is really strange are some of the words used of Jesus. Our text reads, “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand.” That sounds just like Jesus who cares about people and wants to help them. But in many manuscripts the word is different. It is the word for “angry, incensed, enraged.” And later in the text, the word translated as “sternly warning him,” also means “expressing indignation.” The word in classical Greek means “growling.” The word used refers to the snort of a horse. The image of an angry, growling Jesus is disconcerting. I am sure it is why scribes were uncomfortable with “angry” and may have used “moved with pity” instead. It may be why the translators used, “sternly warning” rather than “indignant.”

              Jesus tells the leper to go and show himself to the priest. Ched Meyers, a Chi Rho speaker here a couple of years ago, sees Jesus' anger relates to the priests of the time. They followed the letter of the law but seemed not to care for hurting people. The Law of Moses required people with skin diseases to go to the priest to be declared clean or unclean. The priest had power to exclude the leper from the community but not the power to heal him of his disease. Perhaps Jesus was angry that the priest had turned him away. That is what Meyers suggests. Was Jesus angry that the man had come to him when the Law declared that he should remain outside the camp? Yet Jesus reached out his hand to touch the man rather than recoiling from him and this rendered Jesus unclean too. The man gave his uncleanness to Jesus and received the purity and holiness and health from the Lord. Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus breaking down the barriers that keep people apart. I would like to think that Jesus was angry at sin and evil. His compassion for the man, his pity for this fellow human ravaged by disease and ostracized by his people is coupled with anger at the power of evil evidenced in his illness.

            Right now I am angry at cancer. I received a letter this week from Olivier who had been our exchange student fifteen years ago. Olivier has lung cancer and now has a tumor in his brain. Treatment has not worked well and, as he put it in his letter, “The doctors are not confident.” Olivier and his wife have twin babies, Chloe and Gabriel now five months old. It is likely that Olivier will not see his children grow. I am angry, not at God, but at the disease, at the fallen state of creation, at the forces of evil which oppose God's will for full and abundant life. I am angry and sad and fearful for this young man of thirty-four. I am angry at the economy. This past week the pastors of the Oregon Synod were meeting at the bishop's convocation. One young pastor, Andy, left the conference early. Andy had to go home because he had received word that his father had just lost his job. There are people in this congregation who have lost their jobs. After the convocation I attended a meeting of the endowment committee of the synod and also the finance committee. The church is cutting positions and not filling others, ending important ministries because of the state of the economy. I am angry and sad and fearful for so many at this time.

            Jesus could rightly be angry at sin and evil and at the same time have compassion for those caught in the bondage that comes with living in this world. Earlier in this same chapter of Mark a demon was called an “unclean spirit.” Anything that keeps us from living a full and fulfilled life is demonic. People losing jobs, people with cancer or AIDS, people troubled in mind or spirit—all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve are by nature sinful and unclean and in need of Christ's healing touch.

            That is the other part of our story. Jesus told the healed leper to go to the priests to be declared clean. Whether it was to show a lousy priest that Jesus had the power that the religious authorities did not have or simply to comply with biblical law, we do not know. Certainly the man needed the priest's declaration to live as part of his community. Then Jesus charged him to tell no one—“See that you say nothing to anyone.” This may have been one of many occasions in Mark's Gospel where Jesus commands people to say nothing about him. He is the Messiah but in this Gospel, Jesus is a secret Messiah. The secret is only revealed when the centurion looks at the dying Jesus and confesses, “Truly this man is the Son of God.” Jesus' identity as Messiah will not be understood until the cross. But our text says the man can not keep silent. In this world of darkness, Jesus is the light. In the midst of sin and sickness and decay, Jesus is God's power to heal and save. The man could do nothing other than proclaim the good news freely and spread the word.

            I have been wondering if I should fly to France to see Olivier. I do not know if he is well enough to have me come or whether a visit would be an imposition. He has told me that he is not a believer but he has welcomed me praying for him. Last week he sent me a photo showing him as a boy dressed in a white alb, wearing a cross and carrying a large candle. I do not know if it is baptism or first communion or confirmation but I think he sent it to let me know that he had at one time connected with the church and faith. What I want to tell him is to believe on the Lord Jesus. Jesus still has the power to heal and cleanse and save. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, God has prepared for those who love God” and then adds, “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” Our hope is not for this life only but for eternal life. God is with us now when we lose a job, our investments fall, we get cancer. God promises us life beyond this life that will never end. Amen.

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