Mark 1: 40-45
40A leper* came to him begging him, and kneeling* he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ 41Moved with pity,* Jesus* stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 42Immediately the leprosy* left him, and he was made clean. 43After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44saying 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.’ 45But 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.
There was no place for him. There was no place for him inside the walls of the holy places. There was no place for him in the arms of a loved one or anyone. There was no place for him in the heart of God. Or at least that is what he came to believe.
He was labeled as unclean, too dirty for a blessing, too sick for hope. He was used to being alone, or at least uninvited. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way, he had plans and dreams for his life, but he had left them behind long ago. These were supposed to be the times in his life that would leave him proud, the times where he would worship with his family, the times where he would dance in praise, the times he would remember with fondness in his old age. But now he sat and watched as it heart ached and his family and friends and neighbors and fellow faithful worshiped up front in the Temple, - in his mind he wasn’t fully alive or at least not a full human being in the eyes of the people who glanced at him with fear.
Because of his skin disease, anything he touched would become ceremonially unclean. His heart sank and his stomach burned each time he touched something and caused it to become officially unholy. Apart from the social stigma, he was in deep pain. So severe was his condition that he had spent his life savings on every doctor that would dare to see him, but he only grew worse. He was exhausted and tired of being in pain. He had nothing to lose.
Through the gossip that spread like wildfire outside the temple walls, among the eunuchs and lepers and all those were not invited inside, he had heard stories of a healer. Jesus was a common name, but people called this one, The Jesus…The Jesus… and he heard that The Jesus was coming to town…so despite the grave risk he dares to enter a bustling crowd, wincing as he tries to avoid brushing against any and everyone, for he doesn’t want to impose on them the experience of the outcast life he has been forced to live. He had heard about the Jesus. He had heard stories of this healer, The Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. He pushes his way to the man at the center of the and drops to his knees in tears, begging him , ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ He had been rejected and cast off so many times before, but this day, this moment, he heard words that he had waited for, words of possibility, words of a new beginning. Every emotion pours out of him, tears, sweat, and this healer, this Jesus of Nazareth, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’
These words hardly make sense to us today. It is not like Jesus’ pronouncement is about soap and suds and a good scrub. Being declared clean means being given a new identity. Being declared clean means being welcomed back home. Being declared clean is like being born again with a new set of possibilities in front of you. When Jesus says to the man who had suffered for so long, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Jesus is saying, I choose you, God chooses you.
Imagine that! Imagine hearing these words when you have been told that there is no place for you. Imagine hearing these words when you were not allowed to come inside the sanctuary. Imagine hearing these words when you were not to be hugged or even touched. With these words, “I do choose,” Jesus was radically challenging the status quo of his time because Jesus knew the truth about the human heart. While some of us carry our wounds on the outside, all of us have aches inside. So, instead of creating categories of who is included inside the Kingdom, Jesus breaks down all the walls and mountains and barriers that we have built. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God does not reside just in a small space behind walls, but the Kingdom is at hand. God’s blessing is for each and every human heart. Jesus brings the Kingdom out in the world, out to where people are hungry and hurting. Jesus brings the Kingdom outside the Temple walls, Jesus brings the Kingdom to houses and places of work, Jesus brings the Kingdom even to those who were left out and cast aside. Jesus was proclaiming to the man and to you and you and you that you are chosen by God, just as you are. By touching the man, Jesus himself became unclean and he switched the expectation and took the man’s experience upon himself. But Jesus wanted to make very clear who it is that God chooses… God chooses you, God chooses to love you, to love each of us and to welcome us home, in all of our imperfections and frailties whether we are sick or well, rich or poor, woman or man, child or adult, broken or hurting, you are a part of God’s Kingdom. And being in God’s Kingdom means that even if for just a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what has been within us all along and it is the Spirit of our Living God. May we live as if we have welcomed God’s healing spirit within our hearts. Amen.