A Church With Open Arms

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

October 9, 2005

HIV/AIDS Awareness

A leper came to him begging him,

And kneeling he said to him,

“If you choose, you can make me clean.”

Moved with compassion,

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him,

“I do choose. You are clean!”

Immediately, the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

Mark 1:40-42

Parallels: Matthew 8:1-3; Luke 5:12-13; EgerG 2:1-3

Source: Mark, Egerton Gospel

NRSV

I used to think that the stories of the healings of Jesus separated Jesus from the rest of us. He could do healings and other miracles because he was the Son of God. No one else could do it, only he. Healings and other miracles demonstrated his divinity.

I no longer think of it in quite that way. There were many healers in Jesus’ day, and it is likely that Jesus was one as well. It is certainly likely that the historical Jesus was able to cure physically some people of some things. Many primitive societies have healers or holy men and women who are able in certain circumstances to provide certain kinds of physical healing. There are healers in our own congregation. Certain individuals are more sensitive than others to the power of healing present in human body and mind, and to the healing energies around us.

Many of the stories about the healing acts of Jesus in the Gospels, including raising people from the dead, and other supernatural miracles, are in my opinion, legends that the Gospel writers attached to Jesus to highlight his significance. Those stories I attribute to the Christ of faith or the post-Easter Jesus to use Marcus Borg’s phrase.

Jesus, according to the Gospels, passed on this healing power to his disciples. We find in the book of Acts, many of his disciples curing people. In the Gospel of John 14:12, Jesus tells his followers: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

This passage from John reflects the post-Easter Jesus and the healings that the disciples perform also fall under the category of legend. However, the point is, that the early community did not feel that the power of healing ended with Jesus. They saw themselves as communities of healing continuing Jesus’ ministry of healing in their day.

I believe that from our point of view, we misread the Gospels when we focus on the healing ministry of Jesus and the early church as primarily physical healing or miracle working. In modern times, we have tended to focus on the miracle or supernatural aspect, because we read the stories at face value, rather than as spiritual metaphors, which I think was their original intent. We distort the stories by turning them into literal miracle-working events rather than healing metaphors.

As we uncover the historical Jesus, we see that his importance was not in physical healing or in magic but in spiritual or social healing. Looking at today’s story, Jesus declares a leper clean. Jesus did not cure Hanson’s Disease, which is the name of modern day leprosy. Leprosy had a much broader meaning in Jesus’ time. When we read the word “leprosy” in the Bible, it can refer to anything from rashes, acne, eczema, or dermatitis. Biblical leprosy consisted of scaly or flaking skin. Leprosy was considered contagious but not incurable.

The effect of leprosy is that it isolated individuals from the community. In ancient Israel, according to Leviticus 13:45 the person who was determined to have leprosy was required to tear his clothes, cover his upper lip and shout, “Unclean, unclean” as he went about.

Only a priest could declare that a leper was cured or clean and therefore eligible to reenter society.

A leper came to him begging him,

And kneeling he said to him,

“If you choose, you can make me clean.”

Moved with compassion,

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him,

“I do choose. You are clean!”

Immediately, the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

So was Jesus primarily a doctor or a priest? Was Jesus a wonderworker who magically cured his skin disease or was he acting in place of the religious and social system by declaring that this human being could enter human society?

It seems to me that Jesus was primarily about spiritual and social healing, not physical healing. Not only did Jesus minister (and I think that is the appropriate word here) to lepers. He found himself surrounded by toll collectors, foreigners, the poor, sex workers, beggars, sinners in general, and all others who the religious and social community had declared unclean.

Jesus welcomed them into his kingdom of the unclean. In so doing, he declared them to be clean. That is the power of the Gospel. He did what the priests wouldn’t do. He offered God’s grace to those who were the recipients of society’s judgment.

This is the type of healing that is so needed in our time.

Medical technology advances by leaps and bounds. We have the technology and the wisdom to curb the spread of HIV and AIDS. We have the technology to help prolong life and to provide comfort to those who suffer. Yet superstition and prejudice hamper our efforts to make this healing and education available to so many who need it. The church is often the problem more than the solution.

That is why I think those of us in the church, who embrace the wisdom of science, need to be bold and to take the lead in shattering the myths, the superstitions, the fears and the prejudices. We need to speak to the powers that be of the plight of the marginalized, and to be a place of welcome for those who are unwelcome. We need to declare as clean those who society and the church have labeled as unclean.

I brought a visual aid this morning. This is a Pendleton blanket. It was given to me by the mother of a young man at his memorial service. I want to tell you about him.

Barye was a young man in his late 20’s. Barye had a big smile and a big heart. He loved to write poetry and letters to the editor. Barye was gay. He lived with his partner. He also lived with AIDS. He had been living with AIDS for quite some time. When I met him he knew that he didn’t have much longer to live. He also knew that his final days would be painful.

I had met Barye at one of the other support groups in town. I found myself ministering with sexual minorities in Billings--people who had been marginalized by their families or their churches due to their sexual orientation. Barye was marginalized in more ways than that. He was a Crow Indian, which in Montana automatically makes you the recipient of prejudice and racism. And he was poor and unemployed. At one time he had been in trouble with the police. He was about as marginalized as you can get.

Barye had started to attend our Saturday night worship service and found a home there. This service was an intimate service. The sermon was interactive, we prayed for each other, we had communion every week, we had a band that played both secular and spiritual music, and we continued the service with a common meal in the fellowship hall.

It attracted people like Barye who weren’t church goers, particularly, or who had been burned by church, or who wanted a more intimate informal worship experience.

Barye had been attending for several months when I received a call that he had been killed in a car accident and that his mother wanted me to do the memorial service and asked if it could be done at the church. So we did. It was quite a service, complete with a drumming ceremony, a chant by his grandfather who wore his Crow headdress, and a smudging ceremony. An African-American man who was also living with AIDS sang a gospel spiritual; and we even played one of Barye’s favorite songs by Ozzy Osborne. It was the first time I had heard Ozzy Osborne in church, but it seemed fitting.

Barye had a gentle spirit. He was unassuming. I never felt that I or the church did much for him. We didn’t cure him of AIDS after all. No one knew too much about his life. But he did find a place in our community. He found friends and he found calm for his spirit. It is good to be in a place where people are not going to judge you--where people offer unconditionally, the grace of God.

There is still after all these years a great deal of stigma attached to HIV and AIDS. Much superstition, misinformation, and prejudice still exists. Many suffer from the effects of that in addition to the physical effects itself. Prejudice and superstition handicap the availability of medical technology to those who need it. Further, prejudice and superstition handicap effective prevention of the spread of AIDS—prevention that begins with education.

The isolation hurts the most. The loneliness. The feeling of being “unclean.”

No human being is unclean--ever.

That is the healing message of Jesus. It needs to be declared boldly. No human being is unclean. It is a message that is only believed when it is enacted—when we are not afraid to touch, to receive, and to welcome with open arms.

There were a number of things that impressed me when I read the Church’s Information Form from a congregation in East Tennessee.

One sentence I particularly enjoyed went something like:

“It has been said that we are the church who will take anyone.”

I have been told that that was not originally a compliment but since it was uttered it has been embraced as a badge of honor. Another reason why I am glad to be here.

I think that fits very well the message and the healing ministry of Jesus.

A church that will take anyone.

Jesus made the choice to embrace those whom others declared unfit.

He made that choice again and again, one person at a time.

A leper came to him begging him,

And kneeling he said to him,

“If you choose, you can make me clean.”

Moved with compassion,

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him,

“I do choose. You are clean!”