Sermons

Feb 12, 2006 - Daniel Gutierrez - A Touch

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

Father, your name is holy. May I live and act so as to hallow your name in the sight of all. Last week, Father Brian spoke of detachment and compassion. In today’s Gospel, compassion becomes acceptance and through acceptance, we become whole. All through the hands of Christ, the same hands guiding forward to act on his behalf.

In Galilee, a select few hold power in religion and politics. Interpretation of scripture and purity codes determine who is acceptable in community and therefore worthy of God. If you challenge their policies, you are a traitor and godless.

Lepers are pariahs. Told their condition is God’s punishment for sin, they are banned from the city and prohibited from coming near the temple. Theirs is a lonely life, isolated from society and excommunicated from religion.

Absolute power and the politics of fear allow this cruelty to flourish. It would be easy to claim that lepers are different and dangerous. They are sinners and society needs to be protected from them. It is about God, morals and Galilean national security. It worked - until Jesus arrived.

Word has spread of his miracles in Capernaum and people want to see him. Jesus is in front of the temple. People crowd around and ask for healing and favors. Some pull at his clothes, while others claim to know more about him than anyone else. Suddenly, a sore infested and disfigured outcast hobbles toward Jesus - a leper.

Now, people have not changed much over 2000 years. The reaction to the leper is extreme. The crowd condemns and cries blasphemy. The leper is pelted with rocks and spit upon. Some in the crowd just walk away.

We ask, how could they? I know. The other day I was rushing to some important meeting. A homeless man approached me and I stopped talking on my cell long enough to hand him a few dollars. As I continued down the street, there was a soiled, unkempt man speaking to a trashcan. Without thinking, I moved to the other side of the street. Didn’t I just given money to the other homeless man.

As I started across the street, his eyes caught my action. I was ashamed. Who I am to decide worthiness? In that instant, I walked away from Jesus and missed an opportunity to be in his presence. Instead of recognizing this man’s existence or silently sharing his pain, I took the easy way out. What if Jesus walks away? What if he is too busy? It caused me to think of the instances we walk away for the leper.

Do we expect others to fight for justice when human rights are violated and abuse occurs? Do we overlook the small, the shy, and the powerless? Do we forget the invisible, the meek, and the lonely?

But we cannot walk away from the leper, we need to ask for his faith. It is the most profound in all the gospels. Jesus always uses the most broken to make the greatest impression. The leper is abused and taunted - yet he continues toward the Lord. He is marginalized and exiled – yet he wants Jesus. On his knees he asks “If you choose, make me clean.” Not – heal me, but “make me clean.”

Why? Because being clean means he is no longer different. He will be accepted, allowed to worship, no longer an outcast. He belongs.

Is it a selfish request?
He wants what we want – to be loved for who we are.
He seeks what we seek – acceptance without judgment.
His request is universal and timeless. He wants community, understanding, and love. He wants to be welcomed at the table and the ability to sit there without judgment.

We will soon be celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist. If we adhered to the same rules – man made rules, the leper could not join us. When the leper asks “Make me clean” he is not only asking for himself but for millions of believers for millions of years to come. Jesus knows this and the leper’s request is a belief in God’s goodness.

I relate to the leper, because at some point, we are all lepers.

We are lepers when we stand against hate. We are lepers as immigrants looking for a better life, as the elderly sitting alone, or physically imperfect in a society obsessed with a body’s perfection.

We are lepers as a teenager looking for understanding, the divorced imposing blame on themselves or being gay, lesbian, or transgender and wanting to live as god intended all of us to live.

We are lepers when we are addicted to a substance, tormented with mental illness, or a family that lives in poverty. We are lepers as the single mother who struggles with bills and childcare, the spouse who suffered the pains of a partner’s infidelity or the victim of physical, mental, or sexual abuse. Jesus – If you choose you can make me clean in my eyes and the eyes of others.

Does Jesus appease the authorities and condemn the leper?
Does he ignore him? Cross the street? Heal from afar without touching.
Is he moralistic and judgmental?
Or does Jesus touch the leper, thereby breaking laws, challenging society and thus making himself the leper?

With a gentle touch and smile, he says, “I do chose, be made clean.”

Everything changes. Jesus is telling us that his will and the will of the majority are not always synonymous. The hands that cleanse, bless, and bleed allow anyone who approaches him in faith to be received. No exceptions, questions, or hesitations.

Envision that touch. Was it the full hand healing touch as we see on TV? A 1-finger stretch like the painting of God creating man, or a quick head tap. No, I believe it was an open hand, touching the side of a face, welcoming and loving.

I read a story of a young seminary student who did work in a home for children with severe needs. There was one little girl who especially touched her. Unable to see, hear, speak, or walk, she simply lay in her hospital bed, day after day from her birth. Every visit to this child plunged the student into an angry confrontation with God. “You tell me what purpose this life serves.” One day, wondering what good she was doing, she reached out and brushed the little cheek, touching it very gently. The little girl smiled. From darkness, from the recesses of her soul, this child acknowledged the gentle touch of love. It is reflective of today’s gospel. There is no one love cannot touch and no touch more meaningful than love.

How many people have we touched today? How many smiles have we generated from the recesses of ones soul? A smile given or acknowledged, a heartfelt hello, or telling someone who loves you what his or her loves means to you. Jesus is nudging us to touch and act on his behalf.

St. Therese of Avila wrote. Christ has no body now but yours No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks Compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

Be Christ’s hands to that irritating coworker or neighbor. Extend them to your child who is seeking your heart. Embrace someone you love and hold them a few minutes longer. Use them to stop injustice and discrimination. Reach for the forgotten in all the forgotten places. Remember yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the entire world.

Bendiciones y Paz

Amen.