“Righteous Anger, Righteous Healing”

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
February 12, 2006

Mark 1:40-45

⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling, he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” ⁴¹ Moved with anger, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” ⁴² Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³ After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴ saying 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.” ⁴⁵ But 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.

I’M CAUGHT by a particular word in our Gospel reading. Did you hear it? Yes, you heard correctly – It said Jesus was angry. It’s a new twist. This same story told in Matthew and in Luke omits this word – in fact they omit any mention of a motivating emotion.. In Matthew and Luke, the leper makes the same rather astonishing request, one that does not ask whether Jesus can cure him, but whether Jesus will choose to cure him! And just as in Mark’s story, Jesus reaches out and touches him, and he is cured. But neither account says Jesus is angry. It’s a little unsettling, isn’t it? Jesus doesn’t get angry that often in the gospels. And even today, most translations use the word “pity” or “compassion.” Eugene Peterson’s The Message says “Deeply moved.” Somehow these feel safer, more in keeping with the Jesus of love and kindness. But Jesus is not just sorry or sympathetic, apparently he is angry. The Jesus Seminar translation uses the word “indignant,” and Vincent Taylor in The Gospel According to St Mark, reports that the Greek verb splangchn-z-mai, translates as anger as in “snorts” or “boils over.” The root word refers to one’s bowels, one’s viscera or guts, and is used exclusively to refer to God's response (and the response of God’s Messiah, that is, Jesus) to human suffering

Anger is a good word here. Pity can become patronizing and compassion can become a bit soft, and both these can kind of allow us “good Christian people” to feel a bit superior. But if we are required to get angry about disease, discrimination, isolation, injustice - we also have to get involved. This anger is a passionate, deep pity, seated in the fullness of Jesus' emotions. It’s the kind of anger that leads to a "how could this happen...I will change things" -- the kind of rage that might ensue when we see an animal or a child abused and neglected.

And why not? In Palestine, in the time of Jesus, lepers were untouchable. No one was to come nearer a leper than four cubits, about six feet If a leper so much as put his head in a house , that house became unclean even to the roof beams. Even in an open place it was illegal to greet a leper... One Rabbi would not even eat an egg bought in a street where a leper had passed by. Another Rabbi actually boasted that he flung stones at lepers to keep them away. Leviticus law required a leper to wear torn clothes and let his/her hair go uncombed. The person shall cover his upper lip and cry out, "Unclean, unclean!" And live alone, outside the community. Was Jesus angry that the man had broken the Law of Moses by approaching him?

After all, His very presence put Jesus in danger of being declared unclean as well. Or might Jesus have been offended by the manner of address, an underlying arrogance or manipulation? No. It seems more likely that Jesus was angered by the disease itself, and by the system that forced this man to be shunned and uncared for; punished not only because of the purity codes, but because of the persistent belief that the disease was God’s curse, brought on by one’s own sins. The social consequences of disease were far more deadly than the physical suffering and disfigurement

Matthew and Luke state the details of this encounter. Mark seems to tell us, the “rest of the story.” Jesus felt righteous anger against the system, the authorities, the priests, for perpetuating a practice that lacked any kind of mercy. Jesus' deep pity was turned into the kind of anger that asks how such a thing could happen to a human being and then determines to fight against the forces that caused the injustice

Thus, with a compassionate touch, Jesus connected himself to the plight of this leper man. Jesus did what the priests could not and would not do. He treated this outcast as a human being. Jesus didn't pronounce just a physical healing. Jesus made that man clean. No longer an outcast; not a sinner; no longer impure in his soul. He was clean, restored to true personhood --freed from the demons of separation and alienation, redeemed and restored to his rightful place. Isn’t this what Jesus came to do – When the leper cried “make me clean,” he was crying out for more than a cure, he was crying out to be received back into human community. He was pleading for a change to become fully human again. And whether he knew it or not, he was also pleading, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Not someday, but today, not in heaven but here, and now.

Jesus then sends the man away, orders him, sternly, with a warning. The Greek word is exbalo, which usually is used when Jesus casts out evil Spirits. Folks, Jesus is still angry here -- angry at the arrogance of those who think they know what God demands! When he orders the man to go and show himself to the priest, Jesus is not only acknowledges the sanctioned ritual required for such persons. He is also challenging the religious authorities and his peers to see that God’s healing grace is available to anyone who asks

Who do you know who has been utterly abandoned and shunned by “good Christian folk?” What are some of the rituals and rules that Christians still observe that would tick Jesus off? Who are the people that we hold at a distance? Drug addicts? Welfare recipients, the homeless, intrusive panhandlers or those babbling nonsense or shouting obscenities? Those with AIDS – that was certainly true a mere ten years ago? Perhaps anyone who looks like an Arab Muslim? Are you uncomfortable with people of color? How about those raucous teenagers traveling in gangs down the street? Or homosexuals? Or the elderly in nursing homes? Or the mentally ill? Or those in prison, or released on parole? Rev. Richard Fairchild tells the story about Michael Kirwan, a long time member of the Catholic Worker community in Washington, DC, on his first day of work. No sooner had he set down a large gallon jug of split pea soup on the cement block where the homeless and hungry gathered, than a rather rough looking fellow picked up the jar of soup and, in one motion, broke it over his head....sputtering and soaked,instead of running away, Michael asked the man why he had done that. The fellow told Michael he was doing nothing more than bringing food to the dogs, setting it down like feeding them out of a pet dish and then just walking away. He said, 'Talk to us. Visit us. We don't bite." It is community that saves; it is in community that we find love, and in love there is no ending

Perhaps it is not a person but a situation, a challenge, that you would rather keep at a distance – an injustice that demands your action, but is muffled by inconvenience or fear or distraction or perceived impotence. Jesus calls us to have righteous anger at any system that excludes people from the love of God, whether it stems from arrogant religious laws or rituals, or literal Biblical interpretations, or political delineations of exclusion, or economic or educational barriers Jesus' ministry, when all is said and done, was not about physical healing. It was and is about social healing. -- restoring people to their right relationships - with God, with the community, with the world itself. Just before this story in the Gospel of Mark, the writer described the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, and he wrote, the fever left her and she began to wait on them, This was not because she was a slave, this was because women were responsible for offering hospitality and hospitality was one of the most important ways that the people showed their faithfulness to God. She is restored to her rightful place in the society. He begins the restoration of her right relationship in the home as well as in the society of her time. Jesus invites us, calls us, to take our understanding of restoration and use it in our society as well as our personal lives. To address the world's problems and seek to restore harmony, to establish Jubilee, an era of grace where Love is on the move; Mercy is on the move; God is on the move

What might be your personal task of restoration? We already know that when churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened – and acted. When churches starting organizing, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted. A man named S. R. Morris began an impromptu ministry of taking bottled waters to homeless encampments. Frieda Sol came through a bout of depression and decided touch was the most powerful medicine, so she began going to hospitals and offering hugs and backrubs and hand-holding to the patients. The call to reach out and touch is not about charity, it is about justice. And justice is a higher standard. Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain..

We are learning to understand that illness is more than disease that it is caused not merely by bacteria and germs but also by the social and psychological conditions in which people live. To the degree that human suffering is the product of injustice and human cruelty, anger is a most appropriate response. Thomas Merton wrote, “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.” Are you up to it? If you are feeling timid or reluctant or uncertain, then take a lesson from a 5 year old. Timmy's Mom loved him very much and, being a worrier, she walked him to his kindergarten. But soon Timmy did not want her walking him to school every day. He wanted to be like the "big boys." She asked a neighbor, Mrs. Goodnest, if she would surreptitiously follow her son to school, to keep a watch on him. Mrs. Goodnest said that since she was up early with her toddler anyway, it would be a good way for them to get some exercise as well, so she agreed

The next school day, Mrs. Goodnest and her little girl, Marcy, set out following behind Timmy as he walked to school with another neighbor boy he knew. She did this for the whole week. As the boys walked and chatted, kicking stones and twigs, the little friend of Timmy noticed that this same lady was following them as she seemed to do every day all week. Finally, he said to Timmy, "Have you noticed that lady following us all week? Do you know her?" Timmy nonchalantly replied, "Yea, I know who she is." The little friend said, "Well who is she?" "That's just Shirley Goodnest" Timmy said. "Shirley Goodnest? Who the heck is she and why is she following us?" "Well," Timmy explained, "every night my Mom makes me say the 23rd Psalm with my prayers cuz she worries about me so much. And in it, the psalm says, "˜Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life.' So I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

Are you used to it yet? Do you get it yet? Jesus says, reach into your own heart, and find God waiting. God will not abandon us, ever, goodness and mercy will always be ours. . Then, in return, muster some of the righteous anger Jesus has on behalf of those who are at the mercy of injustice, and reach out, dare to touch someone. And in doing so, you just might affect some righteous healing. And wouldn’t that feel great?