”Christ – In the Mess and the Muck” Epiphany 6 Lectionary 6 February 15, 2009

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 1:40-45)

It’s great to escape, isn’t it? On a cold day like today, don’t you love those advertisements, for resorts or airlines, showing a beautiful person in a bathing suit, on a deserted tropical beach? Don’t you think: “Hey! That could be me! I’d enjoy that beach! I’m that beautiful!” (Of course, that last thought illustrates our tendency to escape into fantasy.)

It’s great to escape – especially when our days are full of anxiety. Indeed, some look at Sunday morning worship as a time for an escape into some sort of fantasy, to pretend that the mess and the muck of daily life just isn’t out there. But then we read a story such as this morning’s, from the gospel of Mark. We see that Christ is right there, in the mess and the muck. And we remember that Jesus the Christ is our model of human life as God created it to be lived. We are not baptized into escapism.

This is actually a shocking passage from Mark! We read, A leper came to [Jesus] begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."

There’s lots to pay attention to in that one verse. Notice that the leper does not say, “If you choose, you can heal me.” No, it’s “you can make me clean.” That’s because leprosy was not only a disease of the skin. The disfigurement was bad enough. But, even worse, a person with a skin disease was shunned and isolated by religious people who wanted to be clean. Someone with any kind of a skin disease was unclean, and anyone who came into physical contact became unclean himself! Those with skin diseases certainly were not permitted to enter a place of worship. For an example of such a teaching, here are some verses from Leviticus (21:16-21): No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near,… or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs….[S]ince he has a blemish, he shall not come near…

You and I understand who God is through Jesus, and so we dismiss teachings like this from the Holiness Code in Leviticus. But Jesus himself confronted religious leaders who thought that the purity instructions in Leviticus were the word of God! And the leper who approaches Jesus must be a member of the chosen people. He wants to be made clean.

What comes next is what’s shocking. We read: Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Here’s the offensive thing: Jesus touches this unclean man.

When Jesus does that, he makes himself unclean!

Jesus is the Christ – in the mess and the muck. Right there.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Because, in reality, that’s where you and I are: in the mess and the muck. Indeed, this is a time of great dis-ease. These are weeks and months of high anxiety. We need to be giving special attention to our health – our physical health and our spiritual health and our emotional health.

But we cannot escape if we are to remain faithful to the ministry God the Holy Spirit calls us to. That’s because Jesus is the Christ – in the mess and the muck. Right there. And here I’ve added another dimension to the title of this sermon. Not only does Jesus come to us when we are in the mess and the muck of our daily lives. That’s where we encounter Jesus, too, in other people who are struggling!

St. Francis is our model. Doesn’t Francis look angelic up there, in our stained glass window? There he is, frolicking among the deer and the birds. What a beautiful flower that is, blooming at his feet. That’s our romantic picture of him, isn’t it? Let me read you a description of Francis’ own encounter with lepers, from a biography by Johannes Jorgensen (St. Francis of Assisi). This episode comes from a time early in Francis’ life, when he is living in luxury. He is the son of a rich merchant. This is before God converts him to do the work that God has in mind for him.

"The [leper] hospital lay midway between Assisi and Portiuncula … On his walks in this place, Francis now and then passed by the hospital, but the mere sight of it had filled him with horror. He would not even give [money] to a leper unless someone else would take it for him. Especially when the wind blew from the hospital, and the weak, nauseating odor, peculiar to the leper, came across the road, he would hurry past with averted face and fingers in his nostrils.

"It was in this that he felt his greatest weakness, and in it he was to win his greatest victory.

"For one day, as he was as usual calling upon God, it happened that the answer came. And the answer was this: 'Francis! Everything which you have loved and desired in the flesh, it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun thus, all that which now seems to you sweet and lovely will become intolerable and bitter, but all which you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.'

"There were the words which … showed him the way he was to follow…" Jorgensen writes that, one day, Francis encountered a leper in the road. "Here was the time to take the Lord at His word – to show his good will … And with a mighty victory over himself, Francis sprang from his horse, approached the leper, from whose deformed countenance the awful odor of corruption issued forth, placed his alms in the outstretched wasted hand – bent down quickly and kissed the fingers of the sick man, covered with the awful disease, whilst his system was nauseated with the action …"

Well, the story continues. The description becomes even more disagreeable. (This is a “PG-rated” excerpt from the biography of St. Francis!) What’s important is that Francis has undergone a conversion – to see Christ in that leper! By becoming a servant to this despised person, Francis is serving his Lord. By kissing the leper’s fingers, Francis is showing love to Jesus the Christ – even though “his system [is] nauseated with the action!”

This is a dramatic description of encountering Christ, and serving Christ, in the mess and the muck. It makes me think of my own hesitation, when first serving a parishioner who was dying of AIDS. This was 12 or 15 years ago. When the young man contracted AIDS, he was ostracized by those in his law-oriented church because that’s when they discovered that he was gay. And so, led by God the Holy Spirit who creates faith, he had found his way to our congregation. He had even joined the choir. But only months later, he was homebound, and I would visit with Holy Communion. I would share the bread and the wine. I would hold his hand tightly when I offered prayer. I knew, in my head, based on scientific fact, that I would not contract AIDS by such physical contact. But, in my heart, I had to overcome my fear that I still felt. And so I focused on the fact that I was encountering Christ in that young man who was despised and rejected by many, including those in the church where he had grown up! They had lost sight of the fact that there is Jesus the Christ – right there, in the mess and the muck.

The mess and the muck is frightening! Not long ago, many were afraid to touch someone suffering from cancer. Some of you are old enough to remember that. What about when death is approaching? The mother of a 20-year old about to die from cancer told me of long-time friends who had withdrawn, as Samantha’s disease progressed. She told me this, her eyes filled with tears of anger and pain. I said it wasn’t because those people didn’t love her. It’s that they were frightened by illness and death. This is the mess and muck at its worst.

But that is precisely where Christ encounters you and me, and it is where we encounter Christ: in the mess and the muck. Right there. In whatever anxiety we are feeling. In the fear. In the depression. In the anger. In the dis-ease.

Into all of that God the Holy Spirit sends us – to be Christ for each other.

How much we need each other during these days! How much we need the community that God the Holy Spirit creates among us in baptism; the community of resurrection hope; the community of people who welcome each other and support each other, living by the fruit of the Spirit; helping to form each other in what St. Paul describes: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

For that baptismal community that is created, thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia