Jesus as God’s emancipation proclamation

I enjoy Sundays when events in chronological history resonate well with themes in our Revised Common Lectionary.  Today is one of those Sundays.  

On the surface of our assigned readings, we have two stories about miraculous healings from diseases of the skin – the liberation from affliction and isolation leading to the restoration within society of those once considered unclean outcasts.  

On, or about, this day (February 12) in history, we can remember disciples who fought the good fight of faith in Christ’s name to overcome racist stigmatizations based on the color of our skin, leading to the redeeming of human dignity.

And, as we relate ancient stories about the healings of leprosy in the Middle East to more contemporary memories of abolitionists in our country’s history, hear what the Sprit is saying to us about our call to continue in God’s will and Christ’s call for liberation from all forms of slavery – things that bind and separate us - literally, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Jesus is God’s emancipation proclamation.

First, let’s consider some of what we hearing in our two readings about healing from leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-14 and Mark 1:40-45). 

The first story is a tale healing, humility, and hope emerging from a system of military domination, social entitlement, and nationalist arrogance.  Prompted initially by the small voice of a slave, a commanding dominator is lead through a process of submission and surrender to the God of those he considered ‘less than’ in order to be healed of his skin disease. If you continue reading the story beyond the verses we’ve heard this morning, you’ll hear how transformed this great man paying attention to the faith of a slave as he risks appearing naïve and gullible in following what seems to be simple and silly instructions about cleansing the waters of the Jordan – he is healed.

In the second story, we hear about courage, passion, and prophetic pronouncements of restoration emerging from a system of social isolation, stigmatization, and religious traditions that segregated people based on conditions of their skin.  Prompted by the begging of a leprous man who had nothing left to lose, our Lord is moved with deep passion to cross social, political, and religious boundaries to not only make physical contact with the man considered unclean, but to redeem and restore him to standing in the community… our Lord knowing that this action of liberation would jeopardize his own freedom and standing in the eyes of the ignorant.

Interestingly, although this story of Jesus healing the leper is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it’s only in Mark’s telling that we hear the passionate emotion motivating Jesus’s action of healing and social justice.  We heard that Jesus was “moved with pity” and then sent the man away with “stern warning”; and, indeed, that’s how several translations render some of the Greek words.  However, other translations of the same Greek words render more passionate, intense emotions motiving Jesus’s actions, suggesting that Jesus was moved with anger (the same word/phrase is used by those who scold the woman for wasting valuable oil when anointing Jesus) about this situation and even snorts with indignation as he sends the healed man back to the temple priests, perhaps to shove in their faces proof that God’s kingdom has come and people are to be united in health, not separated in sickness.

Jesus has cast out demons in worshipful gatherings, and lifted illness from someone in their home, but this act of public healing is about to send a strong message to the religious establishment – his mission and movement is about more than just miraculous healings, it’s about transforming society and the status of everyone in it. By reaching across so many boundaries in his action, and through the testimony that the healed man is about to spread throughout the land, a message is being sent - times, they are a changin’… the Kingdom of God is at hand and shall overcome and overturn the expected social order.  The children of God will no longer be oppressed and held captive by the powers of evil.

This brings us to some of our own recent and timely history about abolishment of slavery and the emancipation of people held captive based on their skin.

• On the heels of the 151^st anniversary of “Bleeding Kansas” being recognized as a ‘free’ state (January 29, 1861) and approaching the anniversary of “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka” (May 17, 1954) which declared separate is not equal
• February is African American History month (which we’ve been observing for nearly a century now in our country) 
• This week we remember several births of leaders influential who shined lights of freedom and dignity on the darkness and leprosy of slavery: President Abraham Lincoln (Feb 12, 1809), The Rev. Absalom Jones (Feb 13, 1746), and Frederick Douglas (c. Feb 14, 1818)
• Also, it was also on this day nearly 150 years ago (February 12, 1865), only a few years after he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves, President Lincoln, on his 57^th birthday, invited a Presbyterian pastor, The Rev. Dr. Henry Garnet, a former slave himself, to be the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives – Pastor Garnet delivered a sermon on the deliverance of our country from [my words: the sickness of] slavery (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/garnet-preaches-to-house-on-slavery-and-civil-war)

·         Focusing for a moment on Absalom Jones, America’s first black priest…schooled by Quakers and originally a lay leader in his church, Fr. Jones’s entire ministry was about liberation and restoration of those who had been marginalized based on the color of their skin.  Not content to simply minister separately to blacks, he fought for bringing them as a group into the Episcopal Church, established benevolence societies to help African Americans with insurance and housing, petitioned Congress to free slaves 65 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, and dared touch the untouchables during a yellow-fever outbreak in Philadelphia, organizing nursing and burials teams amid people and communities that everyone wanted to avoid.  The Episcopal Church remembers The Rev. Absalom Jones tomorrow in our cycle of Feasts (http://www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history/exhibit/leadership/jones.php)

Whether during the passionate abolitionist movement in the 19th Century, the Spirit-lead struggles for civil rights in the 20th Century, or the heated debates we continue to have in this century about dignity, humanity, and relief for other groups of people, both foreign and domestic, may we be humble before God in our recognition that there are still many brothers and sisters in need of both liberation from stigmatization and healing – this is our work, our race to run, in Christ’s name.

What is the Spirit saying to God’s people today?  Perhaps we’re being asked to revisit some questions: Who do we consider unclean today?  Why?  Do we truly believe that Christ compels us to participate in breaking the chains between sins of prejudice, presumptions about who is unclean or unworthy, and the ills of social stigmatization? What would Jesus have us to about this, even in the face of risk to our own social standing? 

If the Spirit hasn’t spoken to you through the homily, then listen for what the Spirit is saying in the hymns today.  They’re all from the same era as President Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, Pastor Garnet, Bishop Jones, and the Kansas being declared a free state (early to mid 1800’s).  During the offertory, we’ll be reminded in the first verse of hymn 552 to “fight the good fight with all they might, Christ is they strength and Christ thy right….”  And, in the second verse of our closing hymn 371, as we prepare to go back into the world out there, together we’ll be singing, “Thou didst come to bring on they redeeming wing healing and sight, health to the sick in mind, sight to the inly [inwardly] blind, now to all humankind, let there be light.”

Let there be light.

“A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with [passionate emotion], Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’” 

AMEN.