6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A number of years ago, a group of friends travelled to attend a family wedding in a non-Catholic Church. After the wedding they went off to the reception where it was obvious the happy couple’s families had gone to great trouble to provide a meal for their guests. The table was laden with various meats and meat sandwiches. But the trouble, you see, was that it was Good Friday, a day of fasting and abstinence. The group hesitated. What should they do? Fortunately, a bishop was also attending the wedding and he quickly gave the go-ahead to eat. “Charity comes first;” he said, “fast and abstain on another day.” He was aware a refusal would have offended, and, indeed, it would. Thus, all the guests settled down and enjoyed a good meal together as they celebrated the love of the bride and groom.

A flexible attitude to regulations over food and fasting is sometimes required, but where dangerous disease is concerned, a rigid observance of rules is very important. We’ve seen recently how food poisoning can quickly affect large numbers of people, and even kill, when food is not handled or stored in a safe manner. Contagious diseases call for quarantine in order to curb and cure the illness and protect the rest of the community from contagion.

Leprosy has, for much of the world’s history, been an incurable disease. The only treatment was to isolate the sufferer and so protect the community. The procedure brought relief to the general populace, but was a double blow to the victims: not only did they have a disease, but they were now excluded from others. They had lost their place in the world, and with it, they had lost contact with everything that promotes a happy and fulfilling human existence. They were outcasts.

Jesus, the healer of people, had the power to cross the divide that illness and disease had brought into human life. Knowing this, when the leper approached and fell on his knees to plead with him, Jesus reached out to touch him. The touch of Christ not only restored the man’s health, healing his body, but it was the first human contact of a restored human life. The man was brought back to the fold.

In a reversal of fortunes, though, Jesus becomes the leper. Just as the man is restored to ordinary life, Jesus now finds himself excluded. Fame and public demand cause Jesus to journey to quiet, country places, away from the crowd. He can no longer live and ordinary life. The public demand for drama drives him out. In the end, of course, Jesus will be driven out completely. Taken outside the city walls, he will be cast out of society, a scapegoat, executed outside the city limits. In his crucifixion, Jesus appears before the world as an outcast, and reminds us of what happens to people in every age.

In every generation many people find themselves cast out. Refugees from famine; war and civil strife; the poor and the sick, unable to care for themselves; the addicted, caught in a vicious circle; those with mental illnesses. Very often the problems of poverty and addiction are compounded by problems of crime — addicts steal to fund their addiction. Sometimes we feel so angry about the crimes, we talk of “locking people up and throwing away the key”. It is a real measure of the hurt that’s caused, but it is not a remedy for the crime of the criminal.

In all our dealings with outcasts, our first problem is usually fear. Fear of what damage they might do to us, simply by human contact. This is our problem and one we must address. Fear of one another is what drives people and nations to war. The outcast is looking for someone to touch him, someone to give him a sign of better things. When the leper approached Jesus he already knew Jesus was on his side. It gave him hope and boldness to ask. Jesus’ response is full of affirmation and encouragement. “Of course I want to cure you. Be cured!” And he touched him.

Here is our challenge: to try to touch people’s lives with kindness, compassion, and justice.

Don’t throw away the key — open the door!