The Man Is The Message

Sermon-Year B-6 Epiphany-Feb. 15, 2009

The Cloud of Unknowing,
"O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen.
I was going to start off my sermon with a question. When I was a little boy, back in the early ‘50s, there were two things that I was most afraid of. What were they? So I was visiting a fellow in the hospital yesterday, someone who has been in for 5 weeks. He and I are about the same age, and I thought I would try the question out on him. What two things were we most afraid of as little boys. He looked at me with all seriousness and said, “is one of them catheters?”
I never swam in a public swimming pool when I was a little boy. You know why? Because my mother was afraid that I would catch polio. Ask people under 40 about polio and they know very little, but when I was a kid it was the mystery disease that could strike at you out of the blue. We weren’t sure how you caught it, but most of the time it struck children. And we knew enough to know that if you were around someone who had it, you had a higher percentage of getting it. So-no public swimming pools, afraid of anyone who might have this dreaded illness. It was a terrible sickness. It seemed to strike one group (children) predominantly. People with polio were isolated, quarantined. Everyone knew to stay away from them.
It was a terrible disease and very frightening. And now in the US, it’s disappeared. And I remember getting first the shots and then the sugar cubes with the vaccine, and everyone was happy-because we could go swimming, because we no longer had to be afraid. In an instant our lives had changed.
The leper in today’s story, has some kind of skin disease-we’re not sure that it was what we call leprosy. But the Law of the Jews was very clear, if you had a skin disease (Leviticus 13-14)
“The person with the leprous disease 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 shall live alone, his dwelling place shall be outside the community.”
You were contaminated and tainted, you were considered a threat to the community and dangerous to society. If you had a skin disease you were barred from the temple and you could get no closer than 6 feet to anyone.
Hold on to this image for a moment.
Last week I told you that the story we heard from Mark had this wonderful insight. Jesus realized that no matter how hard he tried, if he kept healing people, and getting rid of their demons, that people would never listen to the good news. They would instead be transfixed, mesmerized by his power-and they would never ever ever listen to his message: that the Kingdom of God had come near them-. He understood that, and it was a terrible awareness. People would not listen-they would want one, and only one, thing-to be fixed, cured, healed. Jesus wanted to bring new life, but he recognized that everyone who now came to him would want only relief from the old life.
Mark’s gospel last week ended this way’ 38Jesus answered ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Jesus was a healer. And a preacher. And an exorcist. And a reconciler. And a teacher. And a prophet. And so many more things. But no one cared. They all wanted just one thing-to be cured. Jesus’ ministry was suddenly narrowing contracting-Did you hear how this gospel ended? 1:45 But the man with leprosy went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Now Jesus can’t go into any town-he has to stay out in the countryside. From last week we heard that he can no longer stay in one place, he has to keep moving. Because Jesus has touched a contaminated man, he now is considered separated from the temple. He sets the leper free, who tells everyone about this great healer-and Jesus has become increasingly restricted.
Did you pick up the hint of anger in this story? It’s the first chapter of Mark-so early in Jesus’ life, and he is becoming aware that his message, his ministry is beyond his control, different than what he came for. Jesus is trying to change the world, and people won’t let him. Fred Craddock, the great Christian writer, liked to say that Jesus’ healings created “audiences, not congregations.” People loved to see healings, but they didn’t “get it”. And each verse, each, encounter, becomes increasing frustrating for Jesus. Each story in this Epiphany season not only reveals that people don’t understand who Jesus is and what his message is, but their misunderstanding makes it increasingly difficult for Jesus to preach that message, and tell that good news.
But two small things happened in this story that people will remember. Two tiny events occurred that long after Jesus has moved on, were to stick with people and would cause them to wonder. The man with leprosy gives Jesus the option, the decision, about what to do:
"If you choose, you can make me clean." Jesus, knowing what this action, what this choice will mean, still responds, "I do choose. Be made clean!" And even years later when Mark is writing all this down, these words will be remembered. Jesus chose, not just to heal, but to allow himself to be labeled as a healer. He knew what this would do, and still he went ahead.
And secondly, so simply, and effortlessly, Jesus did what no one else would ever ever do, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. When the first people with AIDS were being diagnosed in the 1980s, and no one knew how this illness was being communicated, nor how it was caught, Christian caregivers stepped forward, FIRST, and repeated this story as they held and embraced people with HIV.
Jesus touched the man whom no one else would touch. Just as Jesus lifted up the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law, Jesus reached out to the one who was abandoned and unwanted, isolated and quarantined.
And when people in the surrounding countryside, heard of the healing of the man with leprosy, they also heard that Jesus chose to do this, and that he touched him. And now they knew that not only was there a great healer coming-but they knew that he was a man of courage-and hope-and a many who brought people back.
And this is how the first chapter of the gospel of Mark ends-with some anger and frustration, with people not getting it and proclaiming the wrong message, with people being healed and included back into community. It is an amazing chapter. And this is how it ends-a man comes to Jesus, kneeling, begging for hope, and he is sent out, proclaiming the power of God.
It is a simple story. Jesus is realizing every moment that the message cannot be separated from himself. He is learning, like the patrol in Saving Private Ryan, that the man is the mission. It’s not what Jesus says that will change people-it’s who he is, what he does, and especially-who he touches and brings to health. Jesus is realizing ever so slowly that it’s not just the words he says, but who he is that will become the message.

2 Kings 5:1-14
5:1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.
5:2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a20young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife.
5:3 She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."
5:4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
5:5 And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel." He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.
5:6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy."
5:7 When the king of Israel read t he letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me."
5:8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel."
5:9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house.
5:10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."
5:11 But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!
5:12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage.
5:13 But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean'?"
5:14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
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Psalm 30
30:1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
30:2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
30:3 O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol, resto red me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
30:4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
30:5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
30:6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved."
30:7 By your favor, O LORD, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
30:8 To you, O LORD, I cried, and to the LORD I made supplication:
30:9 "What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
30:10 Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me! O LORD, be my helper!"
30:11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
30:12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
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1 Corinthians 9:24-27
9:24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.
9:25 Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.
9:26 So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air;
9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
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Mark 1:40-45
1:40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."
1:41 Moved with pity, Jes us stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!"
1:42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.
1:43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,
1:44 saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
1:45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.