Are You Willing?
February 11, 2018
Epiphany 6B
Mark 1:40–45
Brookside Community Church
Mark 1:40–45 (NIV)
A man with leprosy came to him begging him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
Jesus Was Angry
“We may not be all infected, but we are all affected.”
— Musa W. Dube
Have you ever been confronted by choice of whether to risk your reputation, your business, or your job on the one hand, or to compromise your spiritual and moral integrity on the other? I think that was the situation Jesus faced in our passage today.
The text doesn’t give us any indication why Jesus was angry. We only know that the man had leprosy, and that he made a conditional statement about Jesus’ abilities: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Is it a request? A dare? “You know you could do it, Jesus, if you really wanted to.” If you are willing…
Jesus was angry! According to the translation I read just now, “Jesus was indignant.” You might not know it from most of our English translations of this passage. Indeed, Mark 1:41 is one of the most interesting passages of the New Testament for those who study Textual Criticism. If you are interested, I’ll get you a copy of Bart Ehrman’s essay “A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus.” Rather than get into all of that this morning, I’ll just tell you that Ehrman’s argument is pretty compelling. Jesus did not just look at the man with leprosy and have pity on him. He was angry at him!
Are You Willing?
I think the challenge for us from the gospel this morning does not come from Jesus’ teachings, but from the leper’s request: “Are you willing?”
The context of the story here in Mark seems to suggest that the leper came to Jesus as a result of Jesus’ healing ministry and his preaching at the synagogue.
For the last few weeks, as we have been reading through Mark together, I’ve been drawing on Parker Palmer’s essay, “Now I Become Myself.” I said that Jesus’ ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing was a call to see Creation become what it was created to be. I suggested that in Jesus, people did not encounter an external voice pointing out the gap between who they are and who they should be, but that Jesus connected with a divine internal voice, a voice deep within them. In Jesus, they discovered their true identity — who they truly were.
For the Fishing disciples, this meant leaving behind their old careers and way of life and completely changing course, using the skills they had learned to be a part of helping the world become what it was created to be — a place of healing and wholeness where all of creation can thrive together.
Then Jesus goes into a synagogue and begins stirring things up. Jesus was awakening them to their true identities, and in the context of religious domination, this looked like disruption. Following Ched Myers, I argued that the exorcism of the “unclean spirit” was really symbolic of Jesus’ freeing the people from the sway of the religious domination of the Scribal Authority.
Next, we learn that Jesus goes off to be alone with his disciples and finds that a large crowd followed him home from the synagogue. Jesus has connected with something deep inside them — and they want more of it. People who were broken, hurt, needy, and outcast, they all wanted to see if Jesus had something that could address their hurts, and speak into their situation, too.
Jesus was wandering the towns in Galilee, and the leper came to Jesus on his knees: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” So why would this make Jesus angry at him? Wasn’t this consistent with what Jesus had been teaching. “You have helped others, freed others. What about me?”
I have no doubt that Jesus was willing to “make him clean.” That’s the very next thing that happened. But it was not an action that would be without serious costs. Perhaps Jesus knew he would not contract the disease. But if word got out that he was performing religious services — like declaring a person clean, a pronouncement only the temple priests could make — it might put him in direct conflict with the religious communities he has been trying to win over. Perhaps, Jesus expected that engaging with the man with leprosy would put him further on the margins, thus potentially compromising his future and the future of his movement. This is exactly what happened, by the way. As our passage says, “Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places.”
I believe that Jesus was angry at the man with leprosy because of his challenge, “If you are willing.” He presented Jesus with a challenge that anyone in the early stages of a public career, a campaign, or a movement has had to confront at some point. That is, whether to stick to the integrity of the message or to sell-out to satisfy expectations of the wider world. When the leper approached Jesus, Jesus was forced to choose between compromising the integrity of his message or compromising his reputation and possibly future of his ministry.
The Costs
I believe Brookside wants to be a place where everyone is welcome. I think we want to discover our deep identities, but we also want to be a community that helps others learn to live into who they truly are. And I have no reason to doubt that you desire to be an “open and affirming” space where others who are rejected by the world are able to feel at home here.
But just like it was for Jesus, this isn’t a position you can take without incurring serious costs. That’s because it’s counter to the Domination System, the evil that has infected the world all around us — even deep within us. Perhaps there will be members of our community who disagree. If word gets out that we are a place that welcomes and affirms the dignity of every human person, it might put us in direct conflict with the religious communities in our surrounding area, and even some of the folks we might have been hoping to win over. Perhaps, we are afraid that engaging with those who have been demonized, demoralized, or dehumanized, would put us further on the margins, and keep us from growing — possibly risking the future of the ministry here at Brookside. And like Jesus, that might make you angry!
But the question I hear the Gospel asking us — even daring us — this morning is, “Are you willing?” Are you willing to become a space where everyone is treated as the Beloved of God? Are you willing to become an Open and Affirming space, where those who the wider world has rejected are welcomed and treasured here among us? Are you willing to be a space where people can discover who they truly are, where can learn to treat others with dignity and care? This is, perhaps, the scariest of all questions. And asking it just might make us angry.
If we are not willing because we are worried about what others in our community and surrounding area will think of us, then we need to be clear about it and change our message. Otherwise, someone might get the wrong idea and folks who others treat as “lepers” might discover us by accident, and stumble in here only to learn that we didn’t really mean it. But if we are willing, let’s not be naive about it and assume that it won’t cost us anything.
The leper came, begging Jesus, on his knees: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Did You Know? Are You Willing?
Did you know that at least 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide? Maybe there is a voice speaking to us from the gospel this morning, “Brookside can be a space of change, for learning and growing and welcome and healing. Are you willing?”
Did you know that still today, women earn significantly less than their male counterparts? In 2009 only 24 percent of CEOs in the US were women and they earned 74.5 percent as much as male CEOs. Did you know that the school where I began seminary in Kentucky is still publishing articles in its news paper arguing for complementarianism — the belief that men should be the “head” of the home and that women must submit to men in all circumstances. Maybe there is a voice speaking to us from the gospel this morning, “Brookside can be a voice for change, for learning and empowering and welcome and healing. Are you willing?”
Did you know that the incomes of Black and Latino households in America are drastically lower than in White households? One Forbes article points out that, “In absolute terms, the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings in 2011, compared to $7,113 for the median black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household.” Did you know that in 2015, there were 40 known hate groups in New Jersey, ranking just below California, Florida, and New York as the fourth highest number of active hate groups in the country? Did you know that there is a Coptic Christian Church here in our very own community that I have personally heard people refer to as “terrorists” because they were “Middle-Eastern!” Maybe there is a voice speaking to us from the gospel this morning, “Brookside, you can be a space for change, for learning and growing and justice and peacemaking and healing. Are you willing?”
My prayer, this morning is that we can hear the Gospel asking us — even daring us, “Are you willing?” And while this may at first make us angry, I pray that we can respond as Jesus did, with a resounding “Yes! We are willing!” I pray that we can follow Jesus to become a space where everyone is treated as the Beloved of God. I pray that we can follow Jesus to become a truly Open and Affirming space, where those who the wider world has rejected are welcomed and treasured here among us. I pray that we can follow Jesus in our own day and context by addressing issues of homophobia and transphobia, sexism, misogyny, and racial injustice, among other things. I pray that Brookside can become the kind of faith community where people can discover who they truly are, where we can all learn to treat each other with dignity, compassion and care. Following Jesus may at times be scary. And at times it just might make us angry. But the Gospel challenges us this morning to be people who reach out and touch the world and transform it. We can…And in the name of Jesus, I pray we are willing.
— Amen
