St. Luke 5: 12-13 showcases a man full of leprosy who asks Jesus to make him clean. Jesus responds positively and touches him and says “be clean.” I wonder how a man full of leprosy manages to get near to Jesus and the crowd he is addressing. It either happened by mistake, or the person managed to sneak in, or Jesus went to the place he stayed. Because people with leprosy were asked to stay away from others and were also asked not to touch anyone. There is a stigma of presence, touch and disease. However, the person gets close to Jesus.
Jesus’ miracle is special
because he doesn’t just say “be clean” but he stretches out his hand, touches him
and says, be clean. The element of acceptance, overcoming of the stigma of
disease and the diseased and the move to break the rule of not touching by
doing that itself comes out clearly in this passage. While we concentrate on
the miracle and the curing of the person, there is much more in this passage
than meets the eye.
Today, leprosy is curable
and leper colonies and absolute stigma is not there anymore. But disease itself
still has a stigma. People are reluctant to discuss their sickness and disease
and reluctant to ask for prayers because they are judged. Others weave theories
of why someone fell sick and the theories themselves are judgmental. Instead of
holding people close and telling them that God loves them, we push them away
and hope we never get the sickness. Skin diseases and diseases whereby the face
is affected, hair loss happens, people lose weight and look different are still
handled with discomfort.
Jesus only repeats what
the person asks for. The person affected by leprosy asks to be made clean and
Jesus answers in the affirmative. But the person does not ask Jesus to touch
him. He is repeating what society would have told him. “You are not clean. So,
stay away.” He then requests Jesus to make him clean. Jesus does not disappoint
him but then adds the main thing, which is touch. The people did not want to
touch the person and Jesus touches him. This is the essence of the miracle. It
is not that Jesus made him clean but that Jesus touched him.
During lent, we are asked
to purify ourselves and to make ourselves clean. These usages are dangerous and
an antithesis to lent and the kingdom of God. Even today, people belonging to
lower castes and women as a whole are kept away from churches and the altar.
The idea behind it is purity and cleanness or shall we say, the notion of lack
of purity and cleanness. Many women do not come to church or even if they come,
do not come forward for communion or blessing, if they have their menstruation
(menstrual cycle or period). Women are also kept away from the holy of holies
due to this concept of impurity.
It is sad that the very
own sons of such women argue for exclusion of their own mother because of this
notion of impurity. Lent should be a time when we shed the impure and unjust
thoughts in our mind and not in our body. It is a time when the church and the
church community should be open and accepting to everyone. No one should be
kept out on the basis of such wrong thoughts of impurity, disease and stigmas. Amen.
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