The very last thing I wanted to talk about today was leprosy, but to understand the amazing radical compassion of Jesus, and try to imitate it even somewhat, you have to know how awful leprosy was at the time of Jesus and what a risk Jesus took not only by speaking to this man, but reaching out his hand and actually touching him!
At the time of Jesus, there was no disease regarded with more terror and pity than leprosy. No other disease reduced a human being for so many years to such a hideous wreck. The infected area loses all sensation. Often you did not know you had it till you burned or scalded yourself without feeling any pain. Your body becomes discolored with patches and blisters. The muscles waste away, the tendons contract until your hands become like claws. Then there is an ulceration of the feet, hands and fingers until a whole hand or foot may drop off. All of this happened to your body over a period of twenty to thirty years.
As you were enduring this terrible disease, you were ostracized from the community to suffer alone sometimes living in cemeteries. You had to wear ripped clothes, go bare-headed and wear a covering over your mouth. If you saw anyone coming, you were required to call out “Unclean! Unclean!’ so people could run. Back in that day, probably most cruel of all, was the belief that such a sick person was being punished by God for some sin he had committed!
Many of the Jewish practice were carried into the Middle Ages. A priest, wearing a stole and carrying a
crucifix, led a leper into the church and read the burial rites over him while
he was still alive. The leper was required to wear all black, live in a leper house
and was not allowed into a church service. He could however watch from outside
through a “leper squint,” a narrow slit in the walls. A leper not only suffered
physically, but also suffered from being socially and religiously shunned. It
is into such a situation that Jesus is confronted by a leper. Here is what the
text today says. Pay attention to every word.
I tried very hard to think of situations today that even come close to the situation of this leper and Jesus that we can compare it to in our experience if we can ever hope to imitate Jesus’ radical compassion. The closest I could come up with was the way we treated AIDS when it came onto the scene. I think I was the first priest in Louisville who was willing to do a funeral for a Catholic who had died of AIDS. At the request of family members, I remember trying to persuade over the phone another Catholic man dying of AIDS in Tennessee that his disease was not a punishment from God and that God loved him without condition and he would soon be with him in heaven!
Other than that, I could not come up with much from my personal experience, but I thought of a few situations that come close. I am talking about nursing home workers who daily touch, wipe, bathe, feed, clean up after and rub the wrinkled and sagging bodies of the sick and elderly in our nursing homes around this city. I volunteer at the St. Joseph Home for the Aged, operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor, but I only see the residents when they are cleaned up and dressed and riding around in wheel chairs! I do not see, smell, feel or touch what they have to touch behind the scenes. I know that many of those workers do not choose to do that work. That have to do it to make a living! I cannot take their places. I could not do what they do. I cannot pay them more. But what I can do is to give them the respect, honor and the affirmation they deserve. When I speak to the residents being pushed around in wheel chairs, I always make a concerted effort to speak to the workers pushing them, thank them, pat them on the hand and ask them how they are doing!
What can we all do to imitate the amazing radical compassion of Jesus for the leper in today’s gospel? I spent some time trying to come up with a list of opportunities. Hopefully you can come up with some more if I just invite you to be aware in the days and weeks ahead. We cannot fix most of the situations I will mention, but we can at least extend compassion, sympathy and encouragement which cost us nothing if it comes from a Jesus-like heart!
The world has become a mean place. It’s almost as if people have been given permission to be as nasty and mean as they can be to people they don’t like or people who threaten them just by being different: the homeless, refugees, the mentally and physically handicapped, the addicted, the obese and the poor in general. In the group we might add others that we tend to treat with less dignity because of the work they do: fast food workers, sanitation workers, public transportation drivers, janitors and housekeepers.
Not
all of us could reach out and touch a leper like Jesus, but all of us can treat
others who are discriminated against, constantly put down and taken for granted with respect. We have the power to make a hurting someone's day. Sometimes, all it takes is something as little as some focused attention like
eye contact, asking their names, wishing them a good day or even a pat or a
wink when appropriate. Look for opportunities to do just that! When I was
writing my column in The Record, called An Encouraging Word, I intentionally
looked for people to affirm who never expected it, never got noticed or never have
been affirmed for anything! I trained myself to look for goodness to affirm behind
their often off-putting exterior. It was a sort of spiritual magic. I called it
“blessing people.” “Blessing people” is not about waving crosses over them, it
was about looking beneath their externals and see the “child of God” hidden
there and giving it a spiritual hug!
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