February 12, 2012

What’s the Most Radical Thing You Can Do?

Mark 1:40-45

 

Did you hear about the leper who laughed his head off?

 

Now that I have been completely insensitive, if not gross …

 

We just witnessed a dramatic, if not humorous, rendition of the story of Naaman. Naaman was a powerful guy, a general in the army of the Aramaeans, which is roughly modern day Syria. As we know, disease is no respecter of persons. And Naaman had a horrible disease, made worse by the fact that it was so visible. I’m talking about leprosy.

One thing to note: When the Bible tells stories about leprosy it is not necessarily referring to the actual disease of leprosy, but to any number of skin diseases or conditions that have afflicted people in every time and place. Another thing to note is that in the ancient Semitic cultures people with skin conditions were considered ritually unclean. This is a little difficult for us to understand because we don’t think that way. For example, we don’t disallow people to enter our sanctuary because they have a skin condition, or have touched a corpse, or they are women in their menstrual cycle, or they are gentiles—things that would have made them unclean.

Leprosy was a serious concern for these people because a leper was not only ostracized from the community, but from his or her religion. So people sought healing not only for the sake of being healed, but for the sake of being ritually “clean,” for the sake of being reconnected to the community. Naaman is desperate to be healed. Elisha, a prophet from neighboring (and rival) Israel, tells Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River, a river in Israel, rather than in one of the rivers in his native Aram. The thought of this initially perturbed Naaman, but his servant convinced him that he had nothing to lose by bathing in a foreign river. He does and he is cured.

Because the competition among gods and religions was so fierce in that day, we cannot overestimate how radical it was for Naaman to bathe in the river of a foreign god. Truly this was the most radical thing Naaman could do … Keep that in mind as we fast forward in history to another leper, this one without a name, without power or prestige. We find his story in Mark 1:40-45:

 

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “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!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 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.” 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.

 

So here is this leper that hears about a man named Jesus who has acquired a reputation for healing. He seeks Jesus out and begs him, saying, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Really? Is it as simple as Jesus making a choice? According to the story, Jesus simply chooses to heal the leper and he is made clean. It’s possible to interpret this story as a ritual cleansing rather than the literal healing of a skin disease. But I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that as incredulous as it may sound, the writer of the story meant that Jesus literally healed the man’s skin condition, which in turn made him ritually clean.

Jesus then tells the man to go to a priest—an employee of the authorized religious system—and show the priest that he is clean so that he can be declared ritually clean and reenter the community of faith. But the man didn’t do that. Instead, he went out and began to tell everyone what happened to him. As I mentioned last week, Jesus didn’t want the recipients of his healings and exorcisms to go blabbing to everyone they met that they had been healed and exorcised by this man from Galilee. There are two reasons for this.

First, he knew he would become more famous than a rock star, and rock stars are not always free to go out in public without being mobbed. Second, and more importantly, he knew that if people started looking to him for healings and such the religious authorities would not be happy. As Jesus’ reputation grew in a positive way among the people it grew in a negative way among the religious authorities. Some outlaws rob banks, but Jesus was threatening to rob the Temple of its reputation and authority. This was not good for the financial coffers of the Temple religion, and so Jesus had to go into hiding, although the people were able to find him. He was now an outlaw, in the truest sense of that word. He was operating outside of the law.

So, here’s the story so far. The story of Jesus begins when he takes part in an illegal initiation ritual: baptism. He then decides after serious contemplation to become an “outlaw hero.” His mentor, John the Baptist, is arrested, so he decides to take John’s message about the Kingdom of God to the people. The Kingdom of God was a direct threat to the kingdoms of Caesar and Herod. He begins his movement in the city of Capernaum, located on the Sea of Galilee. There he recruits a “gang” of fishermen, which, I believe, initially serve as his bodyguards. His teachings border on the dangerous and destructive, at least from the perspective of the authorized religion of his place and time. He tries to remain incognito for the sake of personal safety, but he can’t get people to keep their mouths shut, so he goes on the lam.

Have you ever wondered what the people from Jesus’ hometown were thinking at this time? “Hey, have you heard about Joseph and Mary’s son? He took off a few months ago to join some weird cult. Now we hear he’s hiding out in the country. People see him as some kind of healer. We even hear he can do exorcisms. He better be careful, because the governmental and religious authorities do not like competition for the people’s hearts and minds.” I’m sure someone must have said, “That Jesus, he’s doing the most radical thing a carpenter from Nazareth could do.” Believe it or not—not that I’m like Jesus or anything—but I can relate to this.

I had a close friend in one of my churches years ago who, after getting to know my story, said to me, “Jimmy, I know why you became a minister.” I said to him, “Please tell me! I want to know!” He said, “Because it was the most radical thing you could do.” I’m sure my ancestors would agree. Being the first and only clergy person in my family—especially a family like mine with all kinds of “colorful” characters—is enough to have my ancestors tossing and turning in their final resting places.

Here’s my point: Jesus was doing the most radical thing he could do. Leaving home, becoming part of an unauthorized religious movement, becoming the leader of that movement, acquiring a reputation as a healer and an exorcist, being on the lam. Pretty radical stuff. About the only thing that would have made him any more radical would be a Harley, tattoos, piercings, and a black leather vest. Other than that, he’s about as radical as he can be at this point.

Now, there have been lots and lots of books and blogs written about how radical Jesus was. There’s nothing radical about that! And more times than not, writers and preachers and other assorted Christian thinkers will point to his healings of lepers as the most visible sign of his radical, outside of the law, outside of the box ministry. However, as one blogger so ingenuously put it: “I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long time since I met a leper.” In other words, to emphasize Jesus’ advocacy for lepers doesn’t really mean much to us today.

It’s safe for us to proclaim “Jesus healed lepers!” No need to go into hiding about that because there aren’t enough lepers around to create a big stigma about it, at least not around here. So as we near the end of our series of worship services and sermons about Jesus the Outlaw, we have to ask ourselves the following question, “What does his radical outlaw ministry mean to us today?” If we were a bunch of limb-rotting lepers or foaming at the mouth demoniacs, then the answer to that question would be easy.

But we aren’t. We’re just average, normal, fairly calm, bathed, good law-abiding citizens in a country known for its religious freedom and tolerance of all sorts of beliefs and behaviors. It’s hard for us to be radical because we’ve pretty much “uprooted” (which is what the word radical means) most of the things that needed uprooting. For example, it was much easier to be radical or “outlaw-ish” before such things as women’s suffrage or the Civil Rights movement. But what do we do now?

In recent years, the gay and lesbian movement has created an opportunity for people who are searching for ways to be as radical as Jesus. The LGBT community has often rightly been seen as modern-day lepers in the sense of being ostracized from their community and faith. And while there is still a lot of work to be done in that area —as evidenced by a recent boycott attempt against JC Penney for hiring Ellen Degeneres as their spokesperson—there will come a day in the future when championing the rights of the LGBT community will no longer be “the most radical thing someone can do.”

What do we do when we run out of “issues”? I believe it was John Stuart Mill, the great 19^th century English philosopher, who said that if he woke up one morning and all the major social problems of his day had been solved, he would likely kill himself because there would be nothing left to live for. Those of us with outlaw blood coursing through our veins need a cause to keep our blood pumping, do we not? We need something to stir our passions, some one or some group to fight for, to champion, to advocate for. Is there an issue out there that awaits those of you who prefer to follow the Outlaw Jesus rather than the syrupy sweet gentle Sunday school Jesus?

Like Naaman, the Aramaean general who sought healing from a river devoted to a foreign god, like Jesus, who left his hometown environs to begin a counter-religious movement, what is the most radical thing you can do? Is there something out there that compels you to put on your outlaw mask, to travel under cover of darkness, to be a hero?

And for whom? Who needs you to buck the system, to stand up to the powers that be, to risk being vilified for a cause greater than yourself? Who are the lepers in your midst? In simple terms, that’s what the Jesus story is all about, and that’s what our story should be about as well.