"I Choose, Too!"
Mark 1:40-45
February 15, 2009
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John Andrew Fleming
In his book, Sowing Seeds of Faith in a World Gone Bonkers (which is just about as good a book title for our day than any other), Larry Davies tells of the day he was in a hurry at a grocery store. All of the check-out lines were filled with shoppers and overflowing grocery carts. He only had a few items and needed a human checker because he had yet to master the self check-out technology.
He tells that a register suddenly opened up. He had not been quick enough to be the first in line, but he was second. In front of him was a young lady, a girl really, who did not have a cart. She only had a basket and tucked inside of it were seven jars of baby food. Davies had lucked out. "Jackpot!" he thought to himself. He just knew that soon he would be on his way.
The clerk quickly rang up her order and gave her the total, the amount of $7.48. She pulled out her checkbook and began to write out a check. Larry smiled at both the checker and the young mother. He knew it would soon be his turn. The clerk received the check, asked if all of the information on it was still the same, and ran it through a scanner. Flashing on the screen were these words: Call Manager. The clerk tried to scan the check again and the message flashed again, Call Manager.
Larry thought to himself. "Great! I find the shortest line with someone in front of me with seven items and the register is broken." When the manager arrived, he did not look at the register. It soon became obvious that the problem wasn't with the register; it was with the young lady's check. Stress and embarrassment were written all over her face. As professional and discreetly as he could be, the manager was trying his best to tell the young mother that she didn't have the funds to pay for the seven jars of baby food.
The teenager behind the counter reached for Larry Davies' groceries and began to ring them up. As she did, he couldn't help but to think that the young mother should have managed her money better. He thought, "She probably spent the money of something frivolous," but he could not get the images out of his mind, the picture of a young girl talking with the manager and a seven jars of baby food cast to the side.
I would like to tell you that this story ends well. Larry says that he wishes he had asked how much the food cost and then paid for it, but he did not do that. He turned his head and he walked away. There was no excuse. He had a great chance to help someone, but he walked away.
Can you relate to that? Have you done that? I saw him at the bottom of the exit ramp at University not too very long ago. He held up a cardboard sign, the kind of sign I had seen held by dozens of people through my years in Little Rock. The sign told me he was hungry and homeless, would I help. I did not help. I didn't even look his way. We didn't make eye contact. I kept my eyes down and quickly hit the gas pedal when it was time. I rationalized my decision. I was on my way to the hospital. I was on my way to do a pastoral thing, a religious thing, so it was all right.
I have helped people before. Not long ago there was a young man who came to our church looking for help. He was willing to work for a little money and so I put him to work raking some of our leaves. He collected the cash while I was in a meeting and the work he was supposed to do he didn't do. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I took a picture of the leaves he didn't rake with my phone just in case he came back wanting more help. Eventually he did and I was ready for him. Now he needed some cash for a night's sleep at a local motel. I was ready for him. I pulled out my phone and showed him the picture and I heard his excuses. And then I pulled out my wallet and gave him the amount he had asked for. I hope Jesus was pleased.
Maybe I see people in need a little more because of where I work, but we have all seen people in need. Sometimes we see them at the grocery store or at the fast food restaurant or in the parking lot asking for a little help and we can reason it away, but down deep we have to wonder, "Did I turn my back on someone who really needed me?"
Reading these stories of Jesus doesn't help. As far as I can tell Jesus never turned anyone away who needed help. In our gospel lesson for this morning, a man with leprosy comes asking for healing. Jesus already had the reputation of being a healer. Word had spread about what had happened in the synagogue in Capernaum and how Jesus had healed Simon Peter's mother-in-law and everyone else who had come for help.
This news compelled the leper to leave those he was living with to seek out Jesus. When he saw Jesus on the road, he fell to his knees and begged, "If you choose, you can make me clean." I hope you see that he is showing a measure of faith. He is also showing a lot of courage. Lepers were to steer clear of everyone else. "If you choose, you can make me clean." This man knew that people had chosen to disregard and dismiss him and turn and run away. He was hoping Jesus wouldn't choose that.
Let me remind you of how dreaded leprosy was in Jesus' day. If you had the disease, your flesh would literally fall off, so lepers were covered with bandages. Worse that the disease itself was how those who had the disease were treated. Now that I think about it that may be what this passage is really all about.
Those with leprosy had to separate themselves from everyone and everything that they loved. They had to leave their homes and their families. They had to separate themselves from the church. They were not allowed inside to pray. Lepers ended up living together, in colonies, and believe it or not, there are still communities of lepers today. Lepers often could be found just outside the city wall, begging for food. The law did not allow them to live inside a walled city and if anyone got within a hundred feet of someone with leprosy, the leper had to cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!" I am even told that one rabbi threw rocks at lepers to keep them away. Wow! No disease isolated someone from their community more than leprosy.
That's the situation this man is in in our lesson for this morning. Don't you know that he was desperate for healing? Aren't we all? We get tired of the pain and we get tired of the suffering. We just want to feel good and to be whole again.
This leper just wanted to go home and hug his family. He wanted to go to church to worship and pray. He wanted things to be the way they once were. He wanted to be whole, and yet no one would go anywhere near him. So he took a chance that the healer would. When he saw Jesus, he ran towards him, fell to his knees, and begged for healing.
The real question in his mind wasn't could Jesus heal him. The real question is his mind is would Jesus touch him and heal him, thus becoming unclean himself. "If you are willing," he begged, "you can make me clean." Listen again to Mark's account of what happened, "Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said, be made clean. Immediately the leprosy left the man and he was cured."
Leprosy was highly contagious and dangerous. Why would Jesus touch this man? Mark tells us, "Jesus was filled with compassion." I like that about Jesus! Some say that this is the problem with Jesus. Some say that Jesus has too much compassion, that he is too soft hearted, that he too easily forgives, that he is too willing to accept our shortcomings. I don't know about you, but I appreciate a Jesus who has too much compassion, who has a big heart, and is willing to forgive me time and time again. I don't know about you, but I love a God who accepts me when I don't do things well. If Jesus wasn't like that, I'd be in big trouble!
So we're stuck with a compassionate Jesus and what does this Jesus expect out of us? It is simple, really, to return the favor. This is a powerful little story whose message seems to be crystal clear. Jesus cares for everyone and so should we. One of the gifts God has given all of us is to make a difference in someone's life. Will you use your gift?
This week I ran across a story a woman who battles with an illness that from time to time doesn't allow her to walk. It comes and goes and because it does, when it is gone, she gets out and walks near her house. One spring day she walked the railroad tracks near her house. She looked down and noticed a small turtle caught between the bars of the track. He couldn't move. She gently reached down, picked him up, and carried him to the woods to set him free.
Listen to what she said, "When my illness is at its worst, when I have been in bed for days, I long for someone, anyone to talk to me, to hear a voice, to be touched, to be checked on." She remembered the day when her illness hit her as she was walking. She struggled to make it home. Soon she knew she couldn't make it. One of her neighbors, one she had never met, stopped and asked if he could drive her home. She said, "He didn't give me the money I needed for my surgery. He didn't take me to his house or offer to clean mine, he just gave me a ride home. I lived in that neighborhood for years and years and so far, he's the only one who has stopped to help."
The problem is not that we cannot help. The problem is that we don't help. Is compassion a spiritual gift? I think so. If it is, then every time we use it, we make the world a better place. We are not like Jesus and so we cannot help someone with leprosy or whatever it is that makes them unclean, but we can touch them with hope, hope for a better day, hope for a better life, hope that helps them know they don't travel this journey alone.
It is harder, I guess, to show compassion to someone that we don't know opposed to someone we do, but show it we must. Let us pray.
(Special thanks to Larry Davies for writing about his grocery store experience. Thanks to the preacher who originally pointed me towards it and for an idea or two in this sermon).