Yawn...

It takes some doing to make a miraculous cure seem boring. Yet every time I’ve heard this Gospel passage read in worship it sounds as dull as a financial report. Something like this: “There was a leper who asked Jesus to heal him, and so He did.” The end.

Yawn.

That’s clearly not how the experience struck the fellow who was healed. He didn’t tell the story of his cure as if he were testifying before a Senate committee. No, for him it was so thrilling, so unbelievably wonderful that he simply could not shut up about it. He went out and told everyone he saw.

The leper’s tale deserves to be retold with that same kind of enthusiasm, and I’ll tell you why:

The Real Story

To begin with, the central character is a leper. A leper. This, in itself, should get our pulses racing. You think the zombies and vampires in the movies are scary? You ain’t seen nothing.

Barely recognizable as human, this creature’s skin was covered with sores and scabs; his body was bent, his face misshapen. The leper was terrible to behold; his appearance so ghastly that most people averted their eyes. Just seeing him was scary.

And what he had was contagious.

Worse than Cooties

We’re not talking about imaginary “cooties,” here; it wasn’t simply that the leper looked icky. The disease was not only distasteful, but downright dangerous.

The risk from contact was greater than catching a cold or developing a poison oak rash. Once contracted, it rarely went into remission; the illness — and its scars — marked the person forever.

In addition to enduring the pain and suffering, once the signs of the disease appeared the victim became a social pariah. Set apart as unclean and unsuitable for society, the leper lived in exile, excluded from everyday life in the community.

Away from friends, family, and looked upon as somehow “not right,” the leper was the ultimate outsider. One of us, and yet no longer one of us, the leper was an object of terror — and I suspect that was not so much about the disease itself as for what it represented.

An Outward Sign

Beginning with the interpretation of Miriam’s “whitened skin” as the result of disobedience to God’s will (Num 12:10), religious authorities understood various forms of skin disease as a sign of misconduct. In other words, the leper had brought this on himself; through some behavior or attitude, he had earned divine disfavor.

The man was in this terrible condition because he deserved it; it was a punishment sent by God. The disease was an outward sign of an inward sin.

Now that is scary. Imagine how things would be if our exterior appearance revealed our inner attitudes.

If our bodily health reflected the condition of our souls a stroll through the town square would turn into something out of Night of the Living Dead: streets filled with beings with grasping talons instead of hands, sharp and biting beaks in the place of mouths, skins aflame with angry red welts or blotched in a sickly envious green, many carrying crushing weights upon their backs. Everywhere around us we would see hideous deformities that no amount of make up could cover over, no expensive clothing could disguise.

And who can guess what we might see when we looked in the mirror?

Skin Deep

“Beauty is only skin deep.... but ugly goes clear to the bone.”
    ~ Dorothy Parker

It is a frightening notion that our true feelings — our deepest nature — might show through. We spend a lot of time and effort hiding who we are. That our accumulated nasty impulses and unkind deeds might one day be written upon our skin for all to see is a worse Nightmare than any horror-filmmaker’s dream.

You certainly wouldn’t want to risk catching a disease that would show the world your real self — warts and all, as the saying goes. What is ugly in ourselves we cast aside, ignore, deny, or disguise. We treat our failings and foul-ups like lepers from long-ago: hidden away and avoided, too awful to even look upon.

Healing and Hope

But for Jesus this is not a problem. Fearlessly and without hesitation, he reached out to a person who was counted as “unclean” in spirit as well as body.

The Lord is not afraid of diseases without or horrors within. Nothing we have ever done is beyond his compassion, mercy, and healing grace. Nothing about us is so terrible that the Beloved would ever look away or cast us aside.

God’s love reaches out to us — at our lowest moments, during our worst behavior, in the midst of our ugliest attitudes — offering the gift of healing and renewal.

A Whole, Holy Life

When we are touched by the Redeeming Spirit all that has gone before — that which alienated us from others, destroyed our hope and soured our spirit — is cleansed. It is transformed: what was harmful and hurtful has been washed away; wisdom, compassion, joy and gratitude remain. We are restored to life, restored to our community; able to love, to laugh, and to bless freely and fully.

Is it any wonder that the leper-that-was was so delighted that he told everybody he met?

May the irrepressible delight in the Good News abide in you, too.

Virtual hugs and real-time blessings,

Deborah +

This Week's Suggested Spiritual Exercise

Imagine how things would be — and how you would look — if your exterior appearance revealed your inner attitude. Then focus on the Christ who dwells within you: imagine how that inner Presence can shine forth in all that you do and say and hope for and believe.