The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – February 12, 2006

Mark 1:40-45

Have you ever noticed those lists they publish in the newspaper around the end of a year? They list who or what was “in” during the past year and what or who is now “out.” Bell-bottom slacks for men were once “in” and then “out.” Sonny and Cher were once “in” and then “out.”

The interesting thing about our gospel lesson this morning is that the leper at the beginning of the story is out and by the end of the story is in. Jesus, on the other hand, experiences just the opposite. He goes from the “in” list to the outsider.

The incident that is the cause of these role reversals is the cleansing of the leper by Jesus. Lepers had certain rules and regulations to follow: According to Leviticus 14 they were to wear torn clothes, have disheveled hair, cover their upper lip and cry out, “unclean, unclean…” They also were to live outside the camp and stay fifty paces from other people. Now, if you followed these rules, no matter what skin disease you had, the rules guaranteed you isolation. You are on the outside looking in on society.

So, the outsider, the leper comes to Jesus to be made clean. He comes much closer to Jesus than he should. He certainly breaks the fifty paces rule. He kneels and begs of Jesus cleansing, saying, “If you choose you can make me clean.” Indeed Jesus has the capacity to make the leper clean. The word used by the leper that is translated “make” is actually the root word we use for “dynamite.” You know dynamite is very powerful. So, what the leper is saying to Jesus is that he has the power to make the leper clean. The leper begs, knowing Jesus to be the God of power and might, the one who can cleanse even his leprosy.

When you have the power, you are the “in” person. Jesus has the power and is in control. What happens next is the very act that reverses the roles for the leper and Jesus: Jesus touches him to cleanse him. In that act the leper is cleanse and Jesus is now dirty. You do not touch a leper. If you do you are now considered to be an outsider with the leper. You, now, are as unclean as the leper. Jesus voluntarily places himself in that role: the very person of power became isolated, the diseased outsider. In doing this he cleanses the begging leper.

Have you caught on that this is the story of the cross? Jesus, the very Son of God, the ultimate insider, becomes the humiliated One of the cross for all of us who are on the outside of the kingdom? It is on the cross that the greatest power of God is displayed in weakness. It is on the cross that God dies so that we may know mercy and forgiveness, so we may go from being on the outside of the kingdom to being citizens of God’s kingdom with a place set for us at the Table of our Lord.

Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “Well, I don’t have to worry. I am such a nice person I could not help but be on the inside. I could never be like that leper that Jesus trades places with in the story.”

Are you sure? Janet and I recently watched the movie, “Glory Road.” It is a ‘docudrama’ about the 1965-66 Texas Western University basketball team. Coach Don Haskins takes his team from this little known basketball power to the very final game of the NCAA tournament. There Texas Western faces Kentucky with their legendary coach, Adolph Rupp. It is a ‘David and Goliath’ moment.

What is significant about this encounter is that Coach Haskins starts and plays an all African-American team. Every player was black. It was unheard of to do that at the time. Kentucky was an all white team. Texas Western won the game. And it is this game that is considered the turning point in basketball history as the color of your skin no longer mattered. What mattered is how well you could play. The ‘outsiders’ whose skin was too dark were finally part of the ‘insiders’ by sheer athletic ability.

Racism is the theme of the movie “Glory Road” and I cannot help but know that prejudiced can easily find its way into our hearts. If it is not the color of the other person’s skin perhaps it is their different religion. It has become a bit too easy these days and too fashionable to place Muslims on the list of people to hate because of their religion.

When we fall into prejudice we place ourselves in the position of the leper: we are outside God’s kingdom. The gift of the cross is that we are even forgiven our racism. We who are outside are made insiders, not by our effort, but by the grace of God.

And being insiders, we know have the great delight of being able to look past the color of another persons skin, or whatever it might be that has separated us, and invite them into a loving relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

It is fascinating to me that the leper in our story is deliberately disobedient when Jesus tells him to say nothing to no one. Instead, the cleansed leper goes out and immediately starts telling everyone. Here, this disobedient cleansed leper becomes one of the first to tell the good news to others.

We who have been cleansed by the cross know the calling of Christ to go and proclaim. May we who are inside because Jesus was willing on the cross to be the ultimate outsider, invite others, saying “come and see.” Amen.

• Pastor Robert F. Holley