“I do choose...”
Scripture Lesson: Mark
Dr. Matthew S. Brown
Don’t you find it a little
ironic that NBC, in a transparent attempt to appear urbane and worldly, has
chosen to refer to the Olympic host city, not by the name we all know,
Ah! but the beauteous sights
brought to our living rooms of Turin/Torino and the alluring culture of
Campanelle, casarecci,
castellane, cavatelli, conchiglie (that’s what we call shells, you know the
ones we mix with that exotic cheese - Velveeta!), conchiglioni (jumbo shells),
cresti di
Now, in addition you must
choose the type of flour for your pasta.
Will it be white, semolina, whole wheat, buckwheat, corn, brown rice, or
mung bean threads. O, and let us not
forget the array of traditional ingredients you may choose to add to your pasta
flour. There’s spinach, broccoli,
tomato, beats (I don’t think so), carrots, red bell pepper, chili peppers,
chocolate, or squid ink (Are you kidding me!).
So what will it be? “I’ll have the spaghettios.”
I have no claim to be an
authority on pasta. I just know how to
use Google. But the dizzying array of
pasta options brings to relief the daily challenge of choice.
When I wake, will I run, will
I walk, will I do a jumping jack?
Will I praise the morning
news reporter or will I see him as a hack?
When the driver cuts in front
of me, will I remember when I did the same?
Or will my nostrils flare and
my face turn red as I shout an ugly name?
When I’m greeted by the new
employees whom the boss says I must train,
Will I welcome them and
mentor them, or treat them with disdain?
O, the choices we must
make. Smile or frown? Laugh out loud or swallow the giggle? Engagement or Indifference? Listen or ignore? Respond, reply, retort or hold your tongue? Insult or Praise? Mercy or severity? Lay on the guilt or offer the grace? Kindness or cruelty?
What is it that leads us one
moment to offer someone fawning, idol worshiping, “I’m not worthy” adulation
and the next moment to dismiss someone with patronizing, scornful
contempt? O, the choices we do make.
O, yes, there are those who
boast, “I treat everyone the same.” Why
is it that those who make that claim treat everyone so pathetically while those
who have that claim made about them treat everyone with kindness? O, the choices we do make.
Will I regard you as friend
or foe, inferior or superior, threat or opportunity, child of God or spawn of
satan? O, the choices we do make.
“A leper came to [Jesus]
begging him, and kneeling he said to [Jesus], ‘If you choose, you can make me
clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched
out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’”
To be labeled as a leper in
that time and culture was devastating.
In that age, the term leprosy was an umbrella that covered a wide
variety of skin diseases ranging from the critical to the minor. Let me put it this way, if you were bald, you
sure didn’t want to get a sunburn. A
little bit of flaking and you could find yourself on a one way donkey out of
town, labeled a leper, pushed out of the community.
It was the mistaken
assumption of the time that even clothes and houses contracted leprosy. If there was a touch of mildew on the bedroom
wall or signs of rot in the doorpost, you could be labeled a leper. And before you think, “O how prehistoric a
notion!,” let me remind you that just
one hundred years ago a mental hospital was constructed in western North
Carolina with this elaborate air filtration system that involved a complex
series of tunnels because it was believed that mental illness was an airborne
disease.
In the days of Jesus, the
heartbreak of psoriasis could be exactly that because of the dire consequences
of being diagnosed as a leper.
You were not allowed in
places of worship. You were separated
from your family. You could not gossip
with your friends in the public square, though you were probably the subject of
everyone’s gossip. You were required to
distance yourself from everyone, and if you were to come within eyesight and
earshot of anyone it was expected that you were to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!”
The humiliation was all encompassing and the subsequent economic effects
were crippling, not only for you but also for your family and anyone who
depended on you or your work, because of course, you were not allowed in any
place of employment.
Don’t ever pride yourself
with the thought that you could never be reduced to a beggar until you’ve
endured the experience of having everything stripped away. You could find yourself becoming rather bold,
also. “Jesus, if you choose you can make
me clean.”
And then an amazing thing
happens. Jesus stretched out his hand
and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose....’” O, the choices that are made. The implications of this deed of compassion
are significant and expansive.
First, in the act of reaching
out to touch the leper, Jesus, too, could be labeled as unclean. It is yet another instance where Jesus will
not allow the rules of religion to get in the way of the love of God. If the son of God is so quick and uninhibited
about reaching out to those we are so willing to label as unclean or not
worthy, what does that say about us?
What does that say to us?
Second, when Jesus relieves
the man of his leprosy, he who has just broken a rule of religion encourages
the leper to abide the rules of religion by going to the priest and taking part
in the ritual of cleansing. For Jesus knows
that the real healing needed here is the restoration of the man to his family,
his community, his opportunity for work, worship. As one person said, this is not just a “Jesus
and me” story. The healing that takes
place here is the healing of a family and possibly a community.
Yes, we struggle with this
story because we know Jesus did not cure everyone during his earthly
ministry. Yes, we have prayed or we know
those who have prayed for the cure that has never come. But, isn’t there a difference between a cure
and a healing? The truth is that the
leper will suffer from other ailments.
Some of you know that the cure for one ailment can actually cause
another, and many here know the trauma of getting hit with a second illness
when you haven’t even recovered from the first.
Such is the nature of finitude.
And yet, I have seen healing
occur, sometimes most powerfully and poignantly, when the cure doesn’t come and
death is actually not avoided, the grace of reconciliation and the hope of
resurrection granting a sense of peace and wholeness never known before. Anyone who has ever shared communion with a
dying friend will affirm that healing comes in many forms.
In August of 1995, the
Session of the church I was serving gathered in the home of a 38 year old
husband and father of two young children who was nearing the last stage of his
battle with esophogeal cancer. We were
there for a service of homebound communion.
Usually, the pastor and one elder will make this journey, but for this
occasion the whole session agreed to participate. Many of the elders had not seen Andy for
quite some time and I’m sure many were uneasy about entering his home and
seeing the insidious effects of the disease.
I’m sure there were conversations earlier that morning with spouses
where statements were made such as, I’d rather take a beating than go over
there today;” or “I have a real fear of seeing people in that way;” And yet, they came, they prayed, they
touched. And God was in that place,
overpowering our skittish fears with the sense of his presence. There was a lot of healing going on that day
- in a family facing death with grace, in an ill-equipped and inarticulate
minister who learned the power of communion, in elders who discovered the
deeper meaning of the phrase “His body was broken,
His blood was shed.” No cancer cells were eradicated but the pall
of death could not cover the light of eternal life.
We all had to make the choice
to climb over that fence called fear to be where God is. We all had to break out of the prison of our
agendas, our precious protective worlds to be where God heals.
The leper wasn’t on the
agenda of Jesus for that day. In fact,
Jesus knew that encounter would make it more difficult for him to do the things
he had come to do, to go to the places he needed to go. The celebrity factor would get in the
way. However, compassion trumped
agenda. The leper was no less a child of
God than anyone else Jesus would meet.
Jesus said, “I do choose...”
What about us?
The problem with religion
then and now is the mistaken notion that if we separate ourselves enough, if we
segregate and protect ourselves from all that is messy in the world, if we hold
to the illusion that we are “Zestfully” clean and everyone out there is somehow
less than clean, then we will be where God is.
But look at the story. Does it
not imply we’ve been wrong? What the
leper shows us is that where there is suffering, where there is pain, where
there is someone who’s been left out, cast out, shut out - God will be there no
less than God will be here. And Jesus
invites those of us here to join him there.
When we heard that the twin
towers had fallen, we were irrevocably shaken and concluded that our world had
fundamentally changed. Why is it that
when we heard that 180,000 people had been slaughtered in
Jesus stepped aside, Jesus
reached out, Jesus touched, Jesus said, “I do choose” because he knew the
leper’s life was of no less value than any other. Let us climb over the fence of fear, let us
take the risk to touch that which the world calls messy, unclean and join Jesus
in the healing place. In the midst of
all of life’s choices, let us choose that.
May the compassion of Christ lead us to say, “I do choose...”
Amen.