Worship for Sunday, February 12, 2012

February 12, 2012

Morning Prayers
Gracious and loving God, we come to you today in from the cold--stinging from the touch of winter on our faces and bodies. We come to you in this warm and friendly place to give you thanks and praise, confess the ways in which we have fallen short of your aims, intercede on behalf of others, and petition you for our own needs.
We praise and thank you for all you have given to us--and especially today for this congregation and the warmth of its embrace. We thank you for all of those who have gone before us in the faith, and pray you will help us to use their lives as examples on how to live our own.
We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, and pray that you will forgive us, and empower us to change our lives.
We pray for those whose names we have read and those whose ailments are known only to them. Bring them healing and wholeness with your touch.
We pray today for our state and its leaders: especially for our Governor John, our Senator Kris, and our Representative Jay. Give them your wisdom and mercy for the difficult jobs they do.
We pray for our church. Remind us that it is your church. In the face of adversity, give us hope. In the face of financial pain, give us generosity. In the face empty pews, make us people of invitation, willing to share this best kept secret with the world.
We gather today with things on our hearts which we dare not bring to our lips. Hear us, even in our silence.
We pray these things in the name of Jesus, and by his grace. Amen.

Mark 1:40-45

40 A 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.

“The Power of Touch”

Our skin is an amazing thing. It is the largest organ of the human body. It renews itself constantly by making new cells by the millions every day as the old ones are sloughed off to become dust. It renews itself specifically after cuts, bruises, surgery--and can even be grafted into place. Skin is the first thing we see or notice about a person and registers in our brains whether or not someone is beautiful. Is the skin clear or creamy? Or is it leathery and dry?
One who has an internal ailment could pass unnoticed in a social situation, but that would not be the case for anyone with an obvious skin ailment.
Skin has been the basis for some of the division and hatred between peoples--especially skin of a color different than one’s own. What was the song we sang as kids about skin? Oh, yes.
Jesus loves the little children,
all the children of the world:
Red, brown, yellow, black, and white;
they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Persons of any skin color may be prejudiced against those of a different color--that’s how important skin is.
When something sickens or frightens us, we say it makes our skin crawl.
Teenagers (and grown-ups, too) will hesitantly reach out and touch the hand of a date, hoping she will hold his hand and let the touch be prolonged.
Skin plays a role in our early development. The value in skin-to-skin contact between mother or father and babies is only beginning to be explored.
Such is the power of touch.
Skin ailments were a problem for people in Israel in Jesus’ time. There was a catch-all word to describe any number of skin conditions--leprosy. People with leprosy were not permitted to live in towns with non-lepers, hence the beginning of so-called leper colonies. No person with leprosy could ever even approach a non-leper. If such an approach were unavoidable, the leper was to stand off to the side of the road and shout, “Unclean, Unclean!” And that was at the heart of the matter. It wasn’t so much that leprosy was contagious, but that it was a state of uncleanliness. A close encounter with a leper could render someone unclean--and therefore unfit for worship. It meant that no leper could participate in the learning of the faith in the synagogue, or in the worship of God in the temple. Some first century rabbis wrote of them as “living corpses whose cure on the same difficulty level as raising the dead.”
In this environment, Mark tells a story of a leper’s encounter with Jesus. We learned last week that Jesus was on a mission to preach the good news of the kingdom of God--going from town to town, leaving behind his adoring fans back in Capernaum. He was going from town to town in Galilee, preaching in the synagogues. He must have been out in the middle of nowhere--between towns--because no leper could ever be in a town. And here comes a leper with the audacity to seek healing--not just healing, but cleansing--from Jesus. Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, we’ve seen Jesus perform healings of fevers, unclean spirits, and other diseases, but leprosy was something else.
The unnamed leper kneeled down in front of Jesus and said, “if you choose, you can make me clean.” Notice the choice of words--not healed, but clean.
And here’s where the text gets tricky. Most versions of the next sentence say something to the effect of, “moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” But that may not have been the way Mark originally wrote it. Some ancient manuscripts of this verse in Mark use a different word--one which would not be translated pity, but anger. “Moved with anger, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” That has a whole different feeling to it, doesn’t it?
We might not like having Jesus being depicted as angry, but that just might be the way we’re supposed to see it.
But what is it that makes Jesus angry?
Well, it might be that he didn’t want to be interrupted on his preaching tour. We know that he didn’t want to go back to Capernaum to deal with the mob that had come out to be healed. He had a kingdom to proclaim. He was moving quickly (everything in Mark happens quickly) between towns and didn’t want to be delayed. He’s left those needing healing behind and was off to preach. And here kneels a leper wanting healing. Moved with anger, Jesus reaches out to touch him. And the leprosy left him.
I’ve got to tell you that I find this a very unsatisfying view of Jesus. He reminds me of a doctor I knew when I was a chaplain. He treated his patients as if they were interruptions rather than the focus of his calling. I just can’t see Jesus being angry at the leper.
More likely, if this translation is correct, Jesus’ anger was directed at the pillars of society who treated people with leprosy as subhuman. Jesus’ anger is not at the leper, but on behalf of the leper. Jesus takes on the suffering of these victims of social cruelty. That’s more in keeping with the Jesus I know. Jesus was not angry about the diseases, the demons, or even the interruptions. What angered him was the social deprivation of the people with leprosy--the neediest of the needy, deprived of basic human fellowship, unable to fulfill the most basic of needs f the heart, unable to receive acts of loving kindness that are part of normal human wholeness. That’s what made Jesus angry.
When I was a hospice and hospital chaplain, I worked with a number of people with AIDS. I remember one patient whom I visited who told me of his experience at another hospital in town. He liked our hospital because we didn’t “come at him wearing moon suits.” After I took his hand to pray with him, he said to me, “I know what it is like to be a leper that Jesus touched.”
And that’s what our call is today--to touch the world in Jesus’ name. To reach out to those who society says don’t matter, but they matter to us because they matter to Jesus. In our world, we unfortunately have good touch and bad touch. The world is hungry--aching-- for good touch.
I came across this poem by Rosemary Brown, a minister in Nashville. It struck me in a profound way.

The skeptic stood at the foot of the cross and asked,
"What happens now to the work you've done?"
And Jesus whispered, "I've my disciples to carry on!"
"Well, what happens if they fail you, Son of Man?"
the skeptic sneered.
"I have no other plan," Jesus sighed,
And then he died.

We are Jesus’ only plan for cleansing the world of leprosy, and all the things that push people to the margins of society. And like the leper made clean, we will need to tell everyone about this Savior and touch their lives--and their hands--in his name.

Offering Invitation
“[A]n angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you” (Mt. 2:13). Did you ever pause to wonder—how did Mary and Joseph survive in Egypt for so many years? They had no money. They were mountain people sent into the desert. Somebody must have helped them along the way. God often sends us helpers—and often calls us to help others. This is the nature of God’s plan. Let us give generously to help fulfill God’s plan.
Offering Prayer;
God, we can’t see the future, but we know that you are going to take care of us. We have faith that when we need help, it will come. And that when others need help, we will serve. Please use our gifts today to help us serve others. Amen.

Benediction
Go in peace
knowing that God wills life for you, a good life, a life lived in love,
May his love make you wise and joyful,
may his mercy make you compassionate and kind,
and may his strength sustain you and uphold you,
both now and forevermore. Amen