HOMILY FOR 6TH SUNDAY Ordinary Time -YEAR B

 

Deacon Jerry Franzen    CATHEDRAL – FEBRUARY 11, 2024

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46       1 Corinthians 10:31-11,1    Mark 1:40-45

 

Praised Be Jesus  Christ.  Good Morning.

In recent weeks  in the Gospel we have heard of healings by Jesus:

Last week it was curing the sick including St Peter’s mother-in-law

and driving out demons.

The week before it was, also, driving out demons,

and today its the curing of a leper.

Three Gospel selections out of four from St. Mark’s Gospel on 

miraculous signs and we haven’t even left the first chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel.

The second Chapter begins with the healing of a paralytic.

It seems that from the outset St. Mark wanted the community

that he wrote for to know that

1. Jesus was the Son of God because He could do amazing things,

2. and that He took on human form to cure people.

In the first reading, the thirteenth chapter of Leviticus speaks to how one

 type of ill person seeking a healing should behave.

A suspected leper had to travel to the Temple to meet with a priest

who had the final say on whether he truly had leprosy.

If the priest judged that the person truly had leprosy, the leper had to

 indicate his repentance by wearing shabby torn clothes, shaving his head

 and covering his beard.

He had to live away from the community, maybe partly because the

people thought his condition might be contagious,

but mostly because he was considered to be unclean.

He had to declare that he was unclean

to ward off any that approached him.  

I

Why was a priest involved?

In the Jewish community, in order for a person to be a member of the

worshipping community, that person must be clean and pure.

The belief was that the body must be whole, not diseased,

in order to fully worship God.

There were various circumstances which would make one unclean.

The priest made the judgment of whether the person was

“clean” and welcomed as part of the worshipping community

or “unclean” and have to live apart.

Leprosy, as we know it, probably did not exist in the Mediterranean

region in the time of Jesus.

It is thought to have originated on the Indian subcontinent

at about 1200 AD.

The word “leprosy” is of Greek origin and in that language meant a skin

condition that produces the scab, pustule or blotch described in the first

reading.

So the condition that this “leper” had is probably not leprosy as we know it.

But I want to focus on the use the word “unclean.”

Most think that this was the way the leper warned people to stay away

 because this condition called leprosy was contagious.

That is true; leperosy as we know it is contagious,

but that requires repeated contact over a period of time.

However, recall the parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man was accosted by robbers who left him for dead.

Both a priest and a levite passed that man by,

but the Samaritan ministered to his needs.

The actions of the priest and levite are explained as their concern that,

if they touched the injured man, who might have even been dead,

they would be declared “unclean” and could not worship with the community.

According to Mosaic Law, touching a corpse made the person “unclean.”

If an “unclean” person was cured, then he would have go to a priest

to be declared to be unclean,  do whatever the Law described for the

person’s purification  and then be declared as “purified” by the priest.

So people had to avoid the lepers, not so much because the condition was

contagious, but because the disease was thought to be bringing about the

death of the leper.

Contact with a person whose death was imminent

was apparently as bad a contact with a corpse.

  II

 With His cure Jesus made it such that the man could return

  to his normal relationships with his community, his family and with his God.

He was no longer forced to be an outcast.

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that Jesus touched him.

The very act of one human comforting another in touching

is supremely important in the ministry of Jesus.

It illustrates splendidly why God took on our flesh, walked the earth and

died our death to be able to touch humankind, to restore our proper

relationship with God and with others.

I see the “leper” in the Gospel as a metaphor for us as sinners.

When we sin, we weaken our relationship with God.

Serious sin removes us far from God.

Sin also puts up a barrier in our relationship with others.

When we are in the state of serious, that is mortal, sin, we are separated

from the worshipping community, because we cannot receive the

 Eucharist with the others.

This healing, like so many others that Jesus did, went beyond the

 physical to heal the relationships of the leper with God and with his

 community.  

Jesus can still touch us.

There are a considerable number of accounts in scripture

 where Jesus touched a person and the person was healed.

Last Sunday, we heard how Jesus touched Peter’s mother-in-law –

 took her hand, and she was cured of her fever.

God has given us the sacraments as the means by which Jesus can

 continue to touch us.    

The sacrament of Penance, in which the priest stands in for Jesus,

is the means by which we can feel the cleansing touch of Jesus.

It is a means by which we can go back to zero and be truly “cleansed”

from our sin, to be once again declared “clean” of all sin.

 III

 Today’s Gospel reading is not just a lesson about what God has done for us;

 it can also be a lesson on what we can do for others.

If we do an about face and move from being in the role of the leper

to being a disciple of Jesus, we should be asking the question,

“Who do I consider to be “unclean” and "how can I touch them to help

 to make them “clean?”

Who are the outcasts of today? –

 the homeless, the immigrants, the poor, the imprisoned, the addicts,

the unwed mothers, the criminals who have served their sentences.

They are ostracized, considered to be “unclean” for one reason or another.

We might tell our children, our friends and ourselves to stay away from some of them.

BUT, might you hear some of them saying to you, as the leper did to Jesus,

“If you want to, you can cure me.”

“If you want to, you can help me.”

As a follower of Jesus, what is our response?

Is it “I will do it” as was Jesus’ response or at least “I will help.”

or is it more like “Go away, I can’t do that?”

Do we turn a deaf ear to these cries for help?  

There is much that we can do to help build in them

a relationship to God and His community.

There are soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters to support

with contributions and volunteer activities.

There are programs to help immigrants to be acclimated

to our environment.

There are agencies like the St. Vincent de Paul Society,

Rose Garden Mission, Mary Rose Mission, Care Net and the New Hope

 Center, Welcome House, and Be Concerned.

We have Catholic Charities in all of its various ministries.

All of these serve the poor and marginalized in a variety of ways.

They can always use contributions both material and monetary

AND volunteer help.

Efforts in jail ministry can have a big effect on the imprisoned.

The same is true for programs aimed at relieving persons from the

 scourge of addiction.

People in these programs need help to restore their right relationships

with their families, their friends,  their community and their God.

Lent, which is fast upon us,  is an ideal time to

*“Listen to what God might be saying to you

–  (this is) the God who took our flesh and blood, our mind and heart,

to begin making all relationships right.”

 

* Taken from “Bring the Homeless Poor into Your House?” in “To Be Just is to Love - Homilies for a Church Renewing” by Walter J. Burghartd, Paulist Press New York NY 2001 p103