Sermon Exegesis and Manuscript: Unclean! Unclean! Crossing Unjust Social Boundaries! Mark 1:40-45



Sermon on a Gospel Text
©Cynthia Serio

Intro to Preaching/Spring 2009
Dr. John C. Holbert

“Unclean!  Unclean!  Crossing Unjust Social Boundaries” (from Mark 1:40-45)



SERMON EXEGESIS

            In his book, Reading Mark, Engaging the Gospel, David Rhoads states, “The New Testament is a profoundly social document.”[1]  Rhoads encourages the reader to realize that “we encounter phenomena that are strange to us”[2] as we enter the narrative.  In simply reading the text, the modern reader crosses the threshold into a cross-cultural experience to find “that the forces of purity and pollution pervaded the whole culture”[3] of early Christianity.  The core value in the purity system was holiness manifested by the perfection, or wholeness of creation.[4]  This is a righteous endeavor until it becomes a glorified way of determining who is in and who is out by creating elaborate social boundaries.   In order to read the text in the appropriate context, one should pause at the threshold with anticipation and respect in order to understand the culture and the social boundaries within which Jesus and the leper lived and both ultimately confronted. 
When the leper approached Jesus, he crossed a social boundary.  The word translated leprosy is “3014 le,pra lepra {lep'-rah} which is a most offensive, annoying, dangerous, cutaneous disease, the virus of which generally pervades the whole body, common in Egypt and the East.”[5]  In her book, A Healing Homiletic, Kathy Black indicates that many common non-contagious skin diseases, such as psoriasis or eczema, would have been considered leprosy in biblical times.  Because the condition of impurity was passed to others and because leprosy was specifically considered to be a result of sin, a “divine curse”[6], the leper was shunned by the community and highly restricted in his movements.[7]  The leper was barred from the temple and the camp, was not able to interact with his family, was supposed to tear his clothes, mess up his hair, and shout “unclean, unclean” as he walked near the people.  He was an outcast, living on the margins longing desperately to live within the community that had cast him out because of his leprosy.   Living in emotional isolation and abject poverty the man was looking for more than alms[8] when he violated purity laws and gave Jesus the healer a “choice” to make him clean. 
The leper challenged Jesus to action.  The leper says “If you choose.”  The word translated as choose is 309 qe,lw thelo {thel'-o} which can also be translated as “will” or “want to” means “to be resolved or determined.”[9]   The TDNT says this word also “expresses resolve as free or weighted decision, sometimes with the idea of choice or preference, and religiously with the nuance of resolute willingness.”[10]  Jesus replies, “I do choose.”  When the word translated as “choose” is used in regard to the actions of Jesus, it can denote the will that commands God’s rule and purpose in creation and history[11]    
Jesus chooses to “stretch out his hand and touch” the leper in order to heal him, which is one of only three places that Jesus speaks and touches to heal (Mark 5:41 & 7:33).[12]  When he “stretches out his hand” we can see the hand of God in the Greek 5495 cei,r cheir {khire} which means figuratively applied to God symbolizing might, activity, and power.[13]    Join that to the word translated as touched 680 a[ptomai haptomai {hap'-tom-ahee}which is a rather intimate word  which means to adhere or to cling[14] and one can envision the very emotional human Jesus making a choice in the sense of doing the will of God.   He makes the leper clean.  The word translated “make” or “made clean” is 2511 kaqari,zw katharizo {kath-ar-id'-zo} which means to make clean … a leper, to cleanse by curing.[15]
When Jesus made a choice to touch the leper in order to make him clean, he crossed a social boundary.   When he touched the leper he became impure, “polluted … unclean” [16] according to the ritual purity system.  With his healing touch, there is a reversal of social fortune.  Jesus enters the life of the leper and becomes the outcast.  Rather than obeying Jesus and presenting himself to the priests in order to become accountable to the system that had cast him out, the healed man ignores the directive. He begins to proclaim his experience of healing and liberation. Ophelia Ortega says, “The leper is the first of the evangelists.”[17]  When the people hear the word, they come to Jesus and “the social order is disrupted.”[18]   Not only disrupted, Gary W. Charles says that Jesus “shatters the traditional boundaries of purity and in the process rewrites the book on the nature of God’s beloved community.”[19]  These are strong words referring to what many scholars simply consider to be “a basic healing narrative.”[20]
 Mike Graves argues with those scholars as he says that “on the surface, we see a leprous man with a measure of faith approach Jesus.  Jesus moved with pity, restores the man with a touch … [but] for those who have studied the story closely, there are so many questions.”[21]   Graves addresses several of these questions in his article, but for the purpose of the sermonic exploration of this text, I will concentrate on an unusual textual variant in verse 41 which causes the reader to wonder about Jesus and what he is feeling and thinking as those social boundaries are crossed.    
That textual variant in verse 41 revolves around the commonly translated Greek: 4697 splagcni,zomai splagchnizomai {splangkh-nid'-zom-ahee} which is translated “moved with pity” or “filled with compassion.”   Strong’s Dictionary agrees with this translation:  to be moved in the inward parts, i.e. to feel compassion.[22]  The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) also agrees:  Although in a few instances this verb refers to human emotions, “elsewhere in the Synoptics the verb has messianic significance, for it is only Jesus who shows compassion, as in Mk. 1:42; 6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Mt. 14:14; 20:34.   In each case what we have is not so much the description of a human emotion as a messianic characterization.”[23]   However, there are many other sources in which human emotion are believed to play an integral part in the translations.  Contemplating these emotions impacts the way we read and understand this seemingly simple yet deeply complex healing episode.
Only a few translations acknowledge, with a footnote, that some of the early manuscripts use the Greek: 430 avne,xomai ¿avne,cwÀ anechomai {an-ekh'-om-ahee} instead of splagchnizomai. Anechomai is translated “moved with anger.”     It may not seem important, but as Pheme Perkins states in the New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, “how [the verbs in this passage] are translated plays an important role in the tone of the passage”[24] and leads us to many questions that Graves believes are worth exploring if we’ll look and listen to the text.  
·         Is Jesus moved with pity for the leper or anger with him? 
·         If Jesus is angry, why? 
·         Could he be angry that the unclean leper dared to approach him? 
·         Could he be angry that he knows he’ll be unclean and be forced to stay in uninhabited areas?
·         What about anger at a religious system that declares some people in and some people out? 
These questions and other like them help the reader delve more deeply into this moving passage in which Jesus makes a choice to cross an unjust social boundary, heal by touch, and accept the consequences.  


SERMON MANUSCRIPT
(Enter dressed as an Outcast – In character as the leper)
UNCLEAN!  UNCLEAN!  Yes, there once was a time that I was unclean … impure … untouchable … separated from my family …
cast out from my community …
destined to wander in the desert places. 
It started with a small rash. 
I tried to hide it but before long I was covered with open sores. 
I suffered every day with the searing pain of my leprous skin.
But it was nothing compared to losing everything
and everyone I ever loved. 

Then one day … I met a man named Jesus and everything changed!
Unfortunately for Jesus … I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
A man named Mark wrote a story about Jesus and me …
You’ll find it at the end of Chapter 1... in verses 40-45. 
This is what he wrote:  

40A 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.  

This is the word of God for the people of God …
Thanks be to God!
       

At first glance, this seems like a basic healing narrative … As a matter of fact, that is why I chose this passage.  (One hand) Leper approaches Jesus.  (Other hand) Jesus heals leper.  (Hands together)  One idea!  The only problem is that this is not your basic healing narrative.  This passage is about crossing unjust social boundaries.
When the leper comes to Jesus, he is begging but he’s not asking for healing.  He is asking Jesus to make him clean.  This is an issue of ritual purity.  It isn’t about pain and suffering, at least not physical pain and suffering.  If it was, the leper would simply ask for healing.    It is about isolation and separation.  It is about a system that has expressly created isolation and separation.  The unjust social boundaries created by the ritual purity system allowed some people, like the good Jewish rabbi Jesus, IN and kept other people, like our disgusting sinful leper, OUT.   

When the leper comes to Jesus, he crosses that unjust social boundary.  He should never have approached Jesus.  He should have been shouting “unclean, unclean” and should have kept his distance.  But he didn’t.  Instead, he presents Jesus with a choice and a challenge.  “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 
        “If you choose …” can also be translated “If you are willing …”   This is Jesus.  Of course he’ll be willing … He has been “moved with pity.”   Some translations say he is “filled with compassion.” Why wouldn’t this compassionate Jesus that we all know and love be willing to heal this man and restore him to the community?   This encounter just isn’t as simple as “Leper approaches Jesus.  Jesus heals leper.”  The footnotes say, instead of pity or compassion, Jesus was “moved with anger.”  
        Why in the world would Jesus be angry when he stretches out his hand, touches the leper and says, “I do choose.  Be made clean.”  Does anger make sense? 
Remember this is an issue of ritual purity.  Jesus crosses an unjust social boundary when he stretches out his hand and touches the leper.  Do you know what happens when Jesus, who is clean, touches the leper, who is unclean?   There is a reversal of fortune.   The unclean leper is made clean through the healing of his disease … but at the moment Jesus crosses that unjust social boundary and touches the leper, he becomes unclean according to the ritual purity system of his day.
        This ritual purity system sounds like a harsh way of categorizing people.  It didn’t start out that way.   The core value in the purity system was holiness … a gift of God … manifested by the wholeness of creation made in the image of God.  The pursuit of holiness is a good and honorable journey unless it becomes a glorified way of determining who is in and who is out by creating elaborate social structures with unjust boundaries.
        While we mock these ancient written laws which define the boundaries of clean and unclean, we ourselves have unwritten purity laws with which to keep the “good” people in and the “bad” people out.   We often draw invisible unjust social boundaries along cultural, racial, economic, sexual, gender, generational, political and religious lines, just to name a few.  Let’s face it: our unwritten boundaries make us feel safe because people who are different, people who don’t fit our standards are encouraged to be compliant.  Or they are rejected and encouraged to leave.
        Once upon a time, I had a friend.  He was an incredibly talented young man.  And he was one of the most loving persons I have ever known.  But he was different.  Consciously, I didn’t know what was “wrong” with him.  However, I think unconsciously I did.  You see, my friend was gay.  He never told me that.  He never told anyone as far as I know. 
It was 1978 and you didn’t talk about things like that … it was an unwritten unmentionable thing.  I knew he had problems with his parents but I didn’t know why.  I knew they kicked him out of the house after high school but I didn’t know why.   I only knew they told him not to come back.  I heard that he went to New York.   One day he did come back.  His parents, who really were good people, took care of him as he lied dying of AIDS.   I have heard that his dying was very beautiful and he was surrounded by the love of his parents.  I have always been very sad that we couldn’t talk about his homosexuality.  And I have always been very angry that we couldn’t talk about his homosexuality. 

        Is it possible that Jesus was filled with compassion for the leper and also moved by anger?   I think it is.   Is it possible that we will be confronted by unwritten unjust social boundaries in our ministries?  I think it is.  Is it possible we will struggle with compassion and anger just like Jesus did?  I think it is.    

In the end, I think it doesn’t matter how we feel. 
In the end, I think it only matters that we stretch out our hand and we touch the untouchable. 
That’s the real miracle.
                  
               
       
       
       
       


[1] David Rhoads, Reading Mark: Engaging the Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 140.
[2] Rhoads, 153.
[3] Rhoads, 153.
[4] John C. Holbert, “Levitical Holiness Code” in The New Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson, et al eds. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 88.
[5] Strong’s Dictionary in BibleWorks™ Copyright © 1992-2005 BibleWorks, LLC.
[6] Pheme Perkins, “Mark” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Leander C. Keck, et al eds. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 545.
[7] Kathy Black, A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1196), 130.
[8] Black, 131.
[9] Strong’s Dictionary.
[10] Kittel, Gerhard ; Friedrich, Gerhard ; Bromiley, Geoffrey William: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans, 1995, c1985, S. 1068
[11]TDNT
[12] Black, 134-135.
[13] Strong’s Dictionary.
[14] Strong’s Dictionary.
[15] Strong’s Dictionary.
[16] Ophelia Ortega, “Mark 1:40-45 HomileticalTheological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, et al eds. (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 360.
[17] Ortega, 360.
[18] Ortega, 360.
[19] Gary W. Charles, “Mark 1:40-45 Exegetical ” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, et al eds. (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 359.
[20] Black, 132.
[21] Mike Graves, “Mark 1:40-45 Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, et al eds. (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 357 & 359.
[22] Strong’s Dictionary
[23] TDNT
[24] Perkins, 545.

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