Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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• One of the commentators I consulted on today’s gospel said that the translation ‘feeling sorry for him’ is not nearly strong enough, and that the same word could be translated as ‘Jesus, feeling angry’; there seems to be a fair bit of agreement on this, with other translations saying, moved with compassion. I had a look for myself, with my inadequate Greek and it does seem to be a strong expression.

• Jesus is upset: he is upset at an exclusion way beyond anything justified on health grounds, an exclusion so strong that the leper himself, while believing that Jesus could cure him, is not so sure that he would want to, though the fact that the leper is prepared to come forward at all shows he is at least prepared to have a go. “Of course I want to!” Jesus says, “Be cured!” But not just that. Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him, technically incurring defilement, technically rendering himself unclean, breaking through the barrier in deed as well as in word. There is a kind of strength to the reaction which almost needs swear words to display it properly.

• This is part of a pattern, part of Jesus’ mission to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, a pattern of barrier breaking and of radical inclusion, the demon possessed, the poor the sick the blind the lame the prostitutes tax collectors and sinners, the outcasts, the lepers, the outsiders.

• But it is even more than that, more than just making a bigger pile, including more people in the group, and this is something that the leper story in particular serves to illustrate. Jesus is not just making a bigger group, which will in turn have its insiders and outsiders, he is eventually contesting a certain whole way of doing business. This is a way or complex of ways of doing business that is so endemic to us human beings and to human society and culture as such that we hardly know we are doing them, and can hardly understand it when an alternative possibility is suggested. This is the technique of definition by exclusion, also self assertion by way of other denial.

• Philosophers tell us that we are all into a game of recognition, that we all want to be someone, and be recognized as such, and that this process is almost always implemented as a process of pushing ourselves up via pushing other people down. They also tell us that on the group level this takes the form of assertion by exclusion, that even when there are no lepers as such there will always be some group or groups in the leper slot, and that if you want to know a culture’s own self-conception and what makes a culture tick at a deep level, the thing to do is to see what the culture excludes, who or what are the outcasts, who fits into that leper slot, which individuals, which groups? And this is something we can ask not just past cultures but even our own culture, one might think nowadays especially our own culture. Who are the outsiders, the outcasts, the people or groups in our ‘leper’ slot?

• But Jesus is more than just including also those people. He is contesting the whole way of doing business of assertion by exclusion in the first place, whether the group be big or small. It is not just a matter of making or being part of a bigger group. What he does, eventually, is to make the leper slot redundant. Disciples of Jesus start in another place. The problem of recognition, the problem of being someone, is already solved, for them and for everyone else: we are the much valued, much loved sons and daughters of the Cosmic Creator, the One who makes the sun to rise and the rain to fall, whose work is depicted all around us in this cathedral among other places, whose beloved Son, moreover, has come among us and will give his life for us. We may still engage in the old games, the habits are so deeply ingrained from childhood on and by everything in our culture, but technically they are otiose, unnecessary, irrelevant. The problem now is not to be someone, we are already someone, definition by exclusion and self assertion by pushing other people down are no longer necessary, the problem now is to be faithful to who we are! And that’s probably the main burden of the Sermon on the Mount, the parables of the kingdom, who we are and what being faithful to that might be, and eventually the condition of possibility of it all, the free gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s like saying, we are heroes: and implicit in that is a certain call and certain real possibilities. And given that reality, that call and those possibilities, there is no need for us to play silly games.

• The second part of the gospel adds something interesting, and eventually also vital. A certain paradox emerges. In the beginning of the story, the leper is the outcast, living apart, living outside the camp. At the end of the story it is now Jesus who is the outcast. The man, sternly admonished not to say anything, went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even there, people sought him out.

• At the moment it is more of an inconvenience. He has become too well known. He can’t go anywhere without getting crowded out. He has to go out into lonely places to get any peace at all. And even there people seek him out.

• Eventually it will be rather more than an inconvenience. The person who receives the outcast, and seems to be taking on the very practice of making outcasts, himself gets to be made a real outcast, betrayed, denied, rejected, tortured, crucified outside the city between two criminals.

• But then there is the coup de grace, the Resurrection, God’s vindication, God’s coup de grace, which makes it clear that they have cast out God’s own Beloved Son, they have crucified the Lord of Glory, the Just One. The one who in the crucifixion itself is identified with all the outcasts, the continuation of the pattern of his whole life. And so the very practice of making outcasts is put under judgment.

• We will still do it, we can hardly help it, self-assertion by other denial, definition by exclusion, it’s part of being human and living in human culture. But for believers in a crucified and risen Christ, we can no long do it with a clear conscience, and we are continually called into a new reality, a new pattern, that of the sons and daughters, whose recognition problems have already been taken care of, even more so than in the ministry of Jesus, sons and daughters for whom Christ died, whose only real problem in life is to be faithful to who we are, and who have been given the Holy Spirit so that day by day and bit by bit we may do just that.

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For possible insertion in between two parts of the above homily (I’m afraid this might needlessly distract people):

• I think St Paul in today’s second reading, read in context, may well be on a similar wavelength. And for people looking for some biblical guidance on what to think about a certain lot of cartoons, it may even give some worthwhile guidance, or at least some principles to apply, even though it seems to be dealing with something very different. Namely the question of whether the disciples should be eating meat sacrificed to idols. Idols have no existence, so meat sacrificed to idols is just meat, so people can go ahead and eat it with a good conscience, it’s lawful, and we have a perfect right. But whether we do so in particular circumstances we may well decide using other principles and taking account of other factors, like what is most beneficial, or like not wanting needlessly or gratuitously to offend or scandalize our weaker brethren, rather than always affirming our rights. Once again, maybe there is no need for fully-fledged self-confident Christians any longer to play silly games.