Sermon for St Edyth's

Sermon for St Edyth’s Church, Sea Mills, Bristol

Sunday 13^th February, 6.30pm

Readings: Psalm 13, Ephesians 5:1-7, Mark 1:40-end

Jesus said: “I am willing. Be clean!” +

Zimbabwe is a place where poverty dominates those who live there. Between 1990 and 2003, the poverty level rose from just 25% to over 80%. The country has one of the highest levels of HIV/AIDS in the world, and now one of the worst water and sanitation systems in Africa. The education system was one of the best in Africa, now it struggles to be recognised at all.

Amidst the poverty and pain of all the things happening in that country lies a people group who remain forgotten: those with leprosy. In 2009, I visited a leprosy mission in the country and had my comfortable ideals of the Gospel shaken and challenged. I guess you could say I feared leprosy because I knew very little about it, it was unknown to me and I knew that it is pretty much incurable. The Jews feared lepers because of the strict laws of cleanliness given in Leviticus about skin conditions. A number of times in the bible we see lepers standing at a distance. This really played on my mind during my visit to the camp.

As we drove up to the mission, I noticed just how far away from everything the lepers lived. Behind mountains, behind trees and tucked away behind metal fencing. The Jews of Jesus day saw those with leprosy as unclean, dirty, unholy and even possessed, and in 2009, in Zimbabwe, not much had changed. I was fearful as we entered the camp. I could see little huts, the size of garden sheds, coated in black from the smoke of the fires outside. We went in to one of the huts and, huddled in the corner, quite happy, was a little man. He actually looked quite “normal”. He struggled to his feet, grabbed two crutches and walked over to us. It was then I saw that leprosy had been eating away at his face – his nose, ears and mouth. I reached to shake his hand and realised he had no hands. Feeling like a fool I took a deep breath and prayed: ‘Lord, just show me how to love this man’. God answered: ‘Greet him how I love you’. So, I flung my arms around him, knocking down one of his crutches. I don’t think he was best pleased! I’d never met anyone with leprosy before. That day, I met over 50 lepers. I ate with them. I entered their houses. I even helped change the bandages of a leper’s wound. I guess it was a privilege.

Actually, we are not sure if the man in Mark 1:40 was a leper, because the Greek word means a broad range of skin diseases and problems. Also he was alone, and usually the lepers, as they are today, were banished to groups, beyond the camp or away from the streets. What we do know is that the Leviticus law in chapters 13 and 14 instructed that if people came near a group of lepers, the lepers were to shout ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ so no one approached. It was therefore an isolated life. Lepers were not permitted to travel on the roadway, nor could they have any social contact with "clean" people. Luke 17 has the account of Jesus healing the ten lepers. The ten were in a group together, and as they saw Jesus from a distance, they shouted over to him, have mercy on us, probably too, ‘unclean, unclean!’ We also know that only priests could declare someone unholy or unclean. They could also declare them clean again however. This is why Jesus tells the diseased man in Mark’s story to go and show himself to the priest, so he can declare him clean again. The priest would offer a sacrifice of a bird in an earthenware vessel under running water. The priest’s ceremony and actions are important in helping us understand what Jesus was trying to achieve. This ceremony made those who once had leprosy clean again. The word ‘running’ is from a Hebrew word meaning ‘living’, so we have living water. The Jewish people believed that the living water from a priest in this holy sacrifice was the only way to be classed as ‘clean’ again. In John 7, Jesus claims to be that living water: ‘whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ Jesus claimed that he could cleanse and heal those people in the world who lived in uncleanness and death in the same way that the living water from a priest in the temple could. In Jesus’ time, leprosy literally separated you from God – you were unclean, you could not worship.

While I was at the leprosy mission in Zimbabwe, a man with the disease told me via an interpreter: Carl, millions of people around the world are suffering from leprosy, not of the skin, but in their hearts. He was right. Who are the people in this city who Jesus wants us to touch? How often is it that we exclude or condemn others just because they are different to us, because they don’t like the things we do, they think differently to us or don’t quite look the same as us. The man went on to tell me that he knew exactly what it meant to be excluded and pushed aside, but he was so thankful that Jesus still wanted to love him. I also heard of miraculous stories of lepers being healed in that camp.

In Mark 1, Jesus is making a very clear point! To heal this man, Jesus didn’t have to touch him at all. We know elsewhere in the gospel that a simple brush past Jesus’ cloak would have done, somewhere else that Jesus just says the words from a distance and they’re healed! To understand this story we have to look at it from a Jewish perspective. Those who touched this man would also be unclean and unholy. Jesus reaches out and touches him. It was just a few months ago we reminded ourselves of the incarnation of God on earth – Jesus, a baby, so pure and perfectly holy. Now we hear about him reaching out to touch the most despised and neglected people in that society. The Jews thought this was shocking, repulsive, that the clean should touch the dirty. But, Jesus gives this man a fresh chance to worship God. Jesus ministry was shocking and it should be today. People are crying out, as our psalm said tonight: ‘How long O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?’ In the midst of that cry should be us, the Church. We should be where people are excluded and isolated.

What I think is most remarkable about this story is the request of the leper. It’s not ‘heal me, I’m ill’ or it’s not even ‘if you are willing, you can heal me.’ It’s something much more profound: ‘if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ The man knew that his disease meant he couldn’t worship God; that his leprosy was more than just a physical thing – it was something spiritual. In others words, this man is saying ‘I want to worship God! I want to be able to touch others again! I want to be part of God’s people.’ The Gospel of Christ was speaking to this man in exactly the same way it continues to call and speak to us today; that Christ can declare us clean and holy because he has provided all that is necessary to cleanse us. In the same way that this man had marks of leprosy on his body, we too are scarred with sin. Jesus can declare ‘be cleansed.’ ‘I am willing, be clean’, says Jesus, ‘and immediately the leprosy left the man and he was cured.’ The man was able to go away and be touched by others! In the temple he would have had a large and long ceremony to be made clean and whole again. Complete healings like this had not been seen for a long time amongst the Jews. The last recorded incident of a Jew being healed from leprosy was Moses’ sister, Miriam.

It’s funny that this man’s response is to disobey Jesus and tell people who Jesus said not to! I guess, painfully, this man is more like us than we imagined. How many times have we been healed or cleansed or forgiven and then gone and ignored God’s commands? Jesus, on the cross, heals us from what was thought to be an incurable disease – sin. For that to happen, Jesus had to leave his splendour and glory and enter into our world. God goes out of his way to touch those who were deemed ‘unclean.’ That’s us. He calls and invites us to come before him so that he can make us whole.

The Church is to be ready and spotless for the return of Christ, without blemish and blameless before God. That means our leprosy has to go. The only way that that can go is if we fall before Christ in complete faith, and surrender our lives to him. That also means leaping to tell others about what he has done, and what he can do. Those outside the Church see us with leprosy – our fighting and divisions, the way we hurt one another and proclaim it in the name of God. They remember our past – our wars, crusades and battles. Wouldn’t it be nice if they saw us going from here, healed, maybe with scars, but with scars that are healing. Healing because here we encounter a healing and loving God who wants to bring all people into his presence.

You may be thinking this is great! I want us, as the Church, to get rid of our leprosy, our sin, the things that hold us back from God. You may be thinking that there are things in your life that really need attention, that you don’t feel quite whole, that sometimes the whole world is caving in on you. But how do we get there? Well our reading from Ephesians chapter 5 tells us the answer.

We are to imitate God, who is made known to us perfectly in Jesus. That means to live in love, even if it leads us to dark places – like leprosy missions, prisons, working with prostitutes and other groups who are pushed aside and seen as unclean in our society today. Love and total surrender of his life led one man called John Bradburn to found the leprosy mission I visited. They now regard him as a local saint. An imitator of God, clearly marked as one of God’s dearly loved children. This calling is not above us and we too are called to be saints. Love like the Father has loved us. Forgive like the Father has forgiven us: “live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” Jesus’ love for us, for the leper, for the poor and the unclean, led him to death. But, his love for us also led to resurrection – a chance to shatter our sin and our filthiness, so that we, like the leper, can learn to love God again.

Tonight we gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate the Eucharist. In which, we are reminded of the love that Christ has shown to us, that he is here, now. Whatever leprosy we have, the Eucharist reminds us that Christ’s love is a love without limits and a love that cleanses. Communion also reminds us that deep down we actually know that Christ is willing to cleanse us. So, as we go to receive communion, I wonder how many of us can say ‘Lord, if you are willing, make me clean’? We need to leave this building tonight, nourished by the body and blood of Christ and knowing that Jesus is whispering to us ‘I am willing, be clean’.

Let us pray,

Father, thank you for being here now, for making your love known to us this evening. Keep us mindful that we cannot save ourselves, that we need your healing and love. Amen.