"Will You Say: ‘I Will!’?"
Psalm 30; 2 Kings 5: 1-14; Mark 1: 40-45;
February 12, 2006
A Monologue…a woman of the time speaks:
The hardest part…I would imagine…would be the loneliness….for the lepers, loneliness. But it’s not just the lepers. It’s not just them.
I’m not a leper, but for me, too, it is…at times… the loneliness even in the midst of a busy day tending to family and responsibilities…. when things get tough, people just stop coming around. It’s like they’re afraid what you’ve got is contagious…like the lepers….bad luck, no work, emotional challenges, family problems
….like it’s contagious and if they get too close to you, it might rub off on them. They’re thinking you must have done something wrong to be in this situation. That’s the way most of the world thinks….even the temple leaders think this way…we still think this way…even if we don’t say it.
How much more true this is for the leper. So sick. Called unclean. That’s what they were saying. Avoid him. Why the temple laws and leaders prohibit any contact.
The Holy Ones would do this!? That can’t be God’s intention….when someone needs people most, to turn away…can’t be God’s intention!
The leper…out there without family, friends, work to do, a way to live….outcast…dirty. None of us clean people would dare have contact with him…not even me…even though I know this cannot be right.
I too am afraid…of him…well, maybe what I am most afraid of all is all the "clean" people and their judgment against me if I would do what is just rather than what is "lawful".
If the disease isn’t contagious, the judgment sure seems to be!But then there’s this man, this One, Jesus. Have you not heard? It’s all over. Listen to this:
The leper, he must have heard the stories. Somehow he believed those stories, those rumors, enough that he was willing to beg…to beg…for what it is he most needs.
Would you beg?
For what would you beg?
He kneels. I can’t remember the last time I knelt my will and pride for anything or anyone or even my God!
He kneels and knows and honors this Jesus saying, "If you choose, you can make me clean!" Choose? Who wouldn’t? Who would? Seems, only Jesus.
And Jesus, was moved to pity…pity…down in the pit with this man he went. Down where he knew this man’s…loneliness.
Pity soon moves to anger!
Angry, not at this man for breaking the ancient cleanliness code to approach him.
But angry because when he needed help most, no one came. Angry cause surely this is not what God intends life to be.
He is angry at the injustice the temple allows!
Angry at the injustice we people magnify by doing nothing…looking the other way
…fearing for ourselves what might happen while the very worst is happening
to someone just like us!
Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him.
Touches him!
~Can you imagine what this one touch did in the life of this one leper….what this opened up in him….how this one touch goes on to touch so many others!
When was the last time you touched?
…you were touched? Do you choose to touch?
Jesus says, "I do choose! Be made clean!"
I do choose. I choose….you!
Choosen….My mourning turns to joy and now I am more afraid of not touching than of being touched. I am less of afraid of what might happen than I am if nothing happens…
But it is even better. Even better than being cleansed of his disease. He is sent to the very ones who bar such as him….such as these, would bar me, too! Jesus wants him to have their blessing, so beyond his healing, he can reenter community, life. They may see a bigger picture…God’s intention…
He was told not to tell anyone.
~Can you imagine how hard it must have been to be told this?
~Can you blame him for his joy in sharing?
~Can you blame Jesus for wanting it kept quiet so he could continue his life freely amongst the people?
~But it was not to be…we need him…you see, in his pity and anger, he chooses us….will we choose him?
It’s the loneliness. The pit.
Getting out? ….something in me wants it to be harder than….dipping in the river 7 times…than reaching out a hand…harder than simply touching….
Maybe if it is harder, I would feel more justified in having done nothing about my self-pit-y. You see, it is so simple it’s hard
….and there is nothing keeping me from life…but me…if all I have to do is kneel, ask, and be touched….to touch those who come to me.But will I?
Will I give of myself, risk the judgment of others,
risk standing out in the crowd,
the freedom anonymity provides
and the invisibility apathy creates.
Will I choose to touch someone else’s life …and have mine be touched in the choosing?
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