Our Mission: See and Touch 02/12/06
Mark 1:40-45 - 2 Kings 5:1-14
It’s so easy to look at the world and sigh. The problems are huge. Third world poverty, the AIDS epidemic, a loved one’s cancer, the homeless of St. Louis, the political mess, the war in Iraq, the list seems endless. And as a good person, particularly as a Christian person, you want to do something.
But what? We write our check to missionaries. We volunteer at the food pantry. We support the work of agencies doing good work. We visit our friend in the hospital. We pray. We vote. But it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. We are slightly guilty – knowing that we live easier lives than the majority of the world. We know that our homes are big, our cars are expensive, and we buy more clothes than we need. So… what? What’s a Christ-follower to do? How do we escape this tension?
Heraclites was a pre-Socratic philosopher. He noticed about 3,000 years ago that we humans love to build nesting homes, into which we retreat from the stress and tension of the world. Building a dream home is not a new cultural phenomenon. Remember that the French have found caves with wall drawings dating back 50,000 years. We’ve been putting art on our walls ever since! Heraclites thought it was ironic that the very houses which represent cozy warmth and secure retreat are held together by stress. What we seek to escape, is that which we escape into. The stress of the roof resting on the walls, the tension of the gables on the piers, the pressure of supporting beams, is what makes a house stable.
Some of the tension we experience as followers of Christ is part and parcel of our faith. Following Jesus means living in a home filled with painful vision and challenging touch. This is our secure calling. We have a mission to open eyes we would rather close and to reach out hands we would rather protect. We find, in the life of Christ, some instructions on how to live in this house of tension. Jesus saw those who weren’t suppose to be seen, and touched those that weren’t supposed to be touched. Why? He saw and had compassion.
We’ve been reminded this week that images are very powerful. Sometimes drawings can have more power than writing. You may be among those who think that the Denmark anti-Mohamed cartoons were just free speech, or among those who think they were intentionally and irresponsibly provocative, but what we will all agree upon is that images have a power that mere words do not.
Mark is filled with images. This is true of other part of the Bible of course, but Mark is particularly rich in images. This is because he’s painting a portrait. And this portrait is filled with stories that lead to images. And here’s a very powerful one: Jesus being approached by a deformed leper and having a twofold response:
1) He sees and has compassion.
2) He reaches out and touches the man.
This is exactly the opposite of the culturally appropriate thing to do. When you see a deformity the normal response was revulsion – not compassion. This revulsion is aided by the theology which taught that disease was a consequence of sin – either his sin, or his parents.
And secondly the last thing you wanted to do was to touch a leper. There was both a concern with the contagious aspect AND a common belief that lepers were religiously unclean, and so shouldn’t be touched. Lepers were outcasts, kept in colonies.
This was common until the mid 20th century. John Tayman has just published an account of the leper colony of Hawaii. For over 100 years every leper of Hawaii was banished to Molokai – a small isolated island. This only changed in 1969.
Did Jesus know what we now know about leprosy? Did he know that it is caused by a simple bacteria and that it rarely contagious? Mark doesn’t tell us, he just makes it clear that Jesus’ compassion led to his seeing and touching a man that his society wanted so desperately to be invisible and untouchable.
The compassion of Jesus broke through the artificially secure borders of his human society and reached out to a person in need. This is our mission. And the OT story of Naaman is a beautiful reminder that God cares much more about human suffering than about our national/personal/corporate/religious boundaries.
Bible trivia: Who was Namaan? Come on, you’ve been to SS. He was a successful general for Aram. Aram was an enemy of Israel. In verse 2 this is made obvious by saying that Aram had captured a young girl from Israel. This very young girl, now made a slave, said, in obvious compassion for her captor, “if only Naaman would see the prophet Elisha, he would be healed.”
People who don’t find the Bible interesting, are just not looking at it. Here’s a successful enemy of Israel, going to God’s prophet Elisha, to ask for healing. Let’s call this oddity 1. And in response to this great man’s request Elisha doesn’t even go to the door. Oddity 2. He sends his messenger with this strange and simple request: go dip in the Jordan seven times. Namaan refuses to do something so silly, but his uneducated servant convinces the wise warrior to do the obvious thing. Oddity 3. All of this is provoked by a captured slave girl concerned about her master. Oddity 4. And after dipping himself in the Jordan, he is healed. The greatest oddity: God healing an enemy of Israel, who only after the healing believed in God.
Every one of these oddities has something in common. They all represent God moving beyond human boundaries, to bring healing to someone in need. This is our call. Don’t let the false security of social walls and artificial divisions lull you with a sense of false security. The only secure place there is, is in the center of God’s will. And this center is found in compassion and action – love and good deeds.
And our struggle is to wonder whether we can do it. Whether opening our own eyes, touching those before us in love, really matters.
Let me tell you about Benjamin Carson. Carson is a nationally recognized surgeon, among the first to separate twins who were co-joined at the head. By all accounts Carson is a successful doctor and human being, and he gives credit to his mother. Here is what he says about her (Oct. 10, 05 “I believe” NPR).
“My mother was a domestic. Through her work, she observed that successful people spent a lot more time reading than they did watching television. She announced that my brother and I could only watch two to three pre-selected TV programs during the week. With our free time, we had to read two books each from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports. She would mark them up with check marks and highlights.”
Now that in itself is remarkable, and admirable. What I know about parenting and particularly single parenting is just enough to know how difficult this has to be. However, it’s what Dr. Carson says next that makes this story one we need to hear:
“Years later we [boys] realized her checkmarks [and highlights] were a ruse. My mother was illiterate; she had only received a third-grade education.”
I began this sermon with a kind of sigh. But I’m going to end it with an expressed hope.
If you are a mom trying to raise a child, education is great, but love is greater. If you are a person who feels called to teach children’s Sunday School, knowledge of the Bible is great, but compassion for kids is greater. If you are a KBCer who hasn’t quite found your place in this new emphasis of serving with joy, some wonderful skill is nice, but a love of your faith family is greater.
And if you are a person called to follow in the steps of Jesus, having it all figured out would be nice, but loving the needy, caring for the impoverished, sick, imprisoned, embattled, is what it’s really all about.
Let’s keep our eyes open, and our arms extended. Like Jesus, in whose image we are ever so slowly being transformed. Amen
by Scott L. Stearman
It’s so easy to look at the world and sigh. The problems are huge. Third world poverty, the AIDS epidemic, a loved one’s cancer, the homeless of St. Louis, the political mess, the war in Iraq, the list seems endless. And as a good person, particularly as a Christian person, you want to do something.
But what? We write our check to missionaries. We volunteer at the food pantry. We support the work of agencies doing good work. We visit our friend in the hospital. We pray. We vote. But it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. We are slightly guilty – knowing that we live easier lives than the majority of the world. We know that our homes are big, our cars are expensive, and we buy more clothes than we need. So… what? What’s a Christ-follower to do? How do we escape this tension?
Heraclites was a pre-Socratic philosopher. He noticed about 3,000 years ago that we humans love to build nesting homes, into which we retreat from the stress and tension of the world. Building a dream home is not a new cultural phenomenon. Remember that the French have found caves with wall drawings dating back 50,000 years. We’ve been putting art on our walls ever since! Heraclites thought it was ironic that the very houses which represent cozy warmth and secure retreat are held together by stress. What we seek to escape, is that which we escape into. The stress of the roof resting on the walls, the tension of the gables on the piers, the pressure of supporting beams, is what makes a house stable.
Some of the tension we experience as followers of Christ is part and parcel of our faith. Following Jesus means living in a home filled with painful vision and challenging touch. This is our secure calling. We have a mission to open eyes we would rather close and to reach out hands we would rather protect. We find, in the life of Christ, some instructions on how to live in this house of tension. Jesus saw those who weren’t suppose to be seen, and touched those that weren’t supposed to be touched. Why? He saw and had compassion.
We’ve been reminded this week that images are very powerful. Sometimes drawings can have more power than writing. You may be among those who think that the Denmark anti-Mohamed cartoons were just free speech, or among those who think they were intentionally and irresponsibly provocative, but what we will all agree upon is that images have a power that mere words do not.
Mark is filled with images. This is true of other part of the Bible of course, but Mark is particularly rich in images. This is because he’s painting a portrait. And this portrait is filled with stories that lead to images. And here’s a very powerful one: Jesus being approached by a deformed leper and having a twofold response:
1) He sees and has compassion.
2) He reaches out and touches the man.
This is exactly the opposite of the culturally appropriate thing to do. When you see a deformity the normal response was revulsion – not compassion. This revulsion is aided by the theology which taught that disease was a consequence of sin – either his sin, or his parents.
And secondly the last thing you wanted to do was to touch a leper. There was both a concern with the contagious aspect AND a common belief that lepers were religiously unclean, and so shouldn’t be touched. Lepers were outcasts, kept in colonies.
This was common until the mid 20th century. John Tayman has just published an account of the leper colony of Hawaii. For over 100 years every leper of Hawaii was banished to Molokai – a small isolated island. This only changed in 1969.
Did Jesus know what we now know about leprosy? Did he know that it is caused by a simple bacteria and that it rarely contagious? Mark doesn’t tell us, he just makes it clear that Jesus’ compassion led to his seeing and touching a man that his society wanted so desperately to be invisible and untouchable.
The compassion of Jesus broke through the artificially secure borders of his human society and reached out to a person in need. This is our mission. And the OT story of Naaman is a beautiful reminder that God cares much more about human suffering than about our national/personal/corporate/religious boundaries.
Bible trivia: Who was Namaan? Come on, you’ve been to SS. He was a successful general for Aram. Aram was an enemy of Israel. In verse 2 this is made obvious by saying that Aram had captured a young girl from Israel. This very young girl, now made a slave, said, in obvious compassion for her captor, “if only Naaman would see the prophet Elisha, he would be healed.”
People who don’t find the Bible interesting, are just not looking at it. Here’s a successful enemy of Israel, going to God’s prophet Elisha, to ask for healing. Let’s call this oddity 1. And in response to this great man’s request Elisha doesn’t even go to the door. Oddity 2. He sends his messenger with this strange and simple request: go dip in the Jordan seven times. Namaan refuses to do something so silly, but his uneducated servant convinces the wise warrior to do the obvious thing. Oddity 3. All of this is provoked by a captured slave girl concerned about her master. Oddity 4. And after dipping himself in the Jordan, he is healed. The greatest oddity: God healing an enemy of Israel, who only after the healing believed in God.
Every one of these oddities has something in common. They all represent God moving beyond human boundaries, to bring healing to someone in need. This is our call. Don’t let the false security of social walls and artificial divisions lull you with a sense of false security. The only secure place there is, is in the center of God’s will. And this center is found in compassion and action – love and good deeds.
And our struggle is to wonder whether we can do it. Whether opening our own eyes, touching those before us in love, really matters.
Let me tell you about Benjamin Carson. Carson is a nationally recognized surgeon, among the first to separate twins who were co-joined at the head. By all accounts Carson is a successful doctor and human being, and he gives credit to his mother. Here is what he says about her (Oct. 10, 05 “I believe” NPR).
“My mother was a domestic. Through her work, she observed that successful people spent a lot more time reading than they did watching television. She announced that my brother and I could only watch two to three pre-selected TV programs during the week. With our free time, we had to read two books each from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports. She would mark them up with check marks and highlights.”
Now that in itself is remarkable, and admirable. What I know about parenting and particularly single parenting is just enough to know how difficult this has to be. However, it’s what Dr. Carson says next that makes this story one we need to hear:
“Years later we [boys] realized her checkmarks [and highlights] were a ruse. My mother was illiterate; she had only received a third-grade education.”
I began this sermon with a kind of sigh. But I’m going to end it with an expressed hope.
If you are a mom trying to raise a child, education is great, but love is greater. If you are a person who feels called to teach children’s Sunday School, knowledge of the Bible is great, but compassion for kids is greater. If you are a KBCer who hasn’t quite found your place in this new emphasis of serving with joy, some wonderful skill is nice, but a love of your faith family is greater.
And if you are a person called to follow in the steps of Jesus, having it all figured out would be nice, but loving the needy, caring for the impoverished, sick, imprisoned, embattled, is what it’s really all about.
Let’s keep our eyes open, and our arms extended. Like Jesus, in whose image we are ever so slowly being transformed. Amen
by Scott L. Stearman
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