It’s been a while since I’ve run around on a school playground so I don’t know if this childhood epidemic still runs rampant, but when I was a kid girl germs were a serious health risk. One little touch (fingers) and you were infected. Judging by their screams and giggles, boy germs were equally contagious to the girls. So we all avoided any cross-gender touching.
Of course there are many viruses and bacteria that can pose a real health risk that are actually passed from person to person (fingers) by simple human contact. So in recent years we’ve learned more about the importance of washing our hands often. And now we have hand sanitizer as an extra precaution. If you’ve seen the movie “Contagion” — which by the way takes place in Minnesota – you’ll get one idea of how serious this viral transmission can be. Believe me — you’ll want to use a hand sanitizer before the end of the movie!
Now most of us keep all this in perspective but it’s easy to get a little compulsive about avoiding contamination! A few years back during the bird flu scare, fist bumps and elbow bumps became popular forms of greeting in order to reduce the transmission of germs through human contact.
There is a tongue-in-cheek Lutheran website called, oldlutheran.com and they sell something to help you avoid human touch when you come to church. It’s called the Passing the Peace Protection Packet.
http://oldlutheran.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=OL&Product_Code=1300&Category_Code=
They claim that this product gives you the confidence to actually cross the aisle and shake hands with fellow worshippers.
This 12 piece worship aid comes with
- a Peace Passing Protection mask,
- a hair net,
- 1 latex protective glove,
- 8 Peace Passing cards and
- a Post Peace Passing sanitizing towelette.
The instructions say:
Remove all items from package before the service begins.
Place all items in a place you can reach them quickly.
Scan bulletin for passing the peace to determine best time to put on passing the peace protection items.
Put all items on (failure to do so may compromise protected peace passing)
Shake or hug with confidence
Safely pass Peace Cards to unprotected worship participants
Wash hands with moist towelette – just in case
In reality, there are those in the church who have gotten very good at distancing themselves from those they don’t want to have contact with – the “unclean.” The one place where those who need healing — those who are broken — should have a place to belong is often the place where sinners feel untouchable. We think that our reputation will get infected, our standing in the community will become contaminated, our own personal status will be at risk. We justify this approach in many ways . . . tough love, taking a stand, upholding moral values . . . but the real problem when we avoid contact with those who need it most lies in ourselves and the real threat when this happens is to the Gospel of Jesus.
In today’s Gospel we have another healing miracle from the evangelist Mark – our third in a row. We saw Jesus make the demon-possessed man whole again; we heard how he lifted Peter’s mother-in-law bedridden with a fever. Today a man with a contagious skin disease comes to Jesus and asks him to make him clean.
And then Mark records these words: “Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.”
The idea that Jesus would be filled with compassion is not surprising. This is what we would expect from him. But we ought not interpret his compassion here as a “oh, poor fella, he could use a little of my help” kind of pity. This was a deeply felt genuine response. In Bible times it was not the heart that was the center of true compassion – it was lower – in the bowels. So the word used here means that what Jesus felt for this man came from his gut.
But there’s evidence that Jesus feeling in this passage runs deeper even than just compassion for his condition. Some ancient manuscripts of this text have a different word for compassion. These copies of the verse read: “Filled with anger.” That doesn’t sound right. What would Jesus possibly be angry about? He’s certainly not angry at the man needing healing. He says he is willing to heal him and he does.
But is he perhaps angry at the impact of sin that has ravaged this man’s body? Is he so upset by a broken world that has brought this man to such a desperate situation? A similar word is used of Jesus when his friend Lazarus has died and he sees the crowd grieving. Was Jesus angry at Lazarus that he died? Or was he angry at the power of death that caused such pain and misery for those he loved?
Another suggestion is that Jesus’ anger was directed at the situation that alienated this diseased man – the fact that no one else cared for him or offered help. Was he angry because this man seeking his help had been cut off from a community that refused to have anything to do with one who was broken? Was it because the man was deprived of human fellowship? Perhaps we can combine both renderings of this text and say that Jesus was filled with compassionate outrage or if you like, outrageous compassion.
It was this that led him to do the unthinkable – he touched the man. He was completely unprotected; he left all his divine protections back home in heaven – and he risked contamination. The healthy reaching out to the sick. The clean and holy getting in direct contact with the unclean and sin-damaged. This touch made Jesus unclean according to the Law, it cut HIM off from God’s people — but Jesus does not let that stop him from doing what was necessary. “I am willing,” Jesus said. “I am willing that I should be cut off from God – that I would be deprived of human fellowship – that I would be forsaken and forgotten in lonely places.” Jesus touched the man. And the gospel is in that touch.
Here was a man who, since he contracted this disease, has not been touched by another human being. Here is a man whose isolation is complete and terrifying, a man who has been cut off from God and from all other human beings. The touch of Jesus is more important to him even than his healing. His health is restored when Jesus heals him, but the gospel – salvation — is in that touch.
With his touch Jesus is saying to him, “You are no longer alone! I am not afraid of you or your brokenness. I love you, just as you are.” In compassionate outrage and outrageous compassion Jesus put his own health and well-being at risk by coming to earth. He came in contact with a contaminated humanity and went to the cross where he cried out to a God who had forsaken him. Filled with gut-level compassion for us and outrage that we would ever have to bear the impact of sin and death on our own, he took on our sickness and bore our sins in his body on that cross. He came in direct contact with the worst of human suffering and cruel death. And the gospel – our salvation — is in that touch.
We come to Jesus today as our prayer of confession puts it, “as sinful and unclean.” We know the isolation that our brokenness can bring into our lives. We try to hide the sores and scars that our sin inflicts on us but they still cause us pain and suffering. And Jesus feels deeply about out desperate situation. So he comes to us today, right now. He shows his willingness to connect with us; to share his peace with us. He reaches out and touches us here as we come before him at this one place where the Holy and Healthy One meets the sick and sinner – where no one stands alone. Here he touches us saying, “This is my body, for you! This is my blood for you.” And the gospel – life and salvation — is in that touch.
