The Touched Untouchable

       Lily Burk was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

       To quote the Los Angeles Times, Lily Burk was a “bright, bookish 17-year-old, whose future was ahead of her…She walked down Wilshire Place about 3 p.m., leaving the former Bullock's Wilshire department store that today is home to Southwestern University School of Law. Under her arm, she carried a box of paperwork that her mother, who taught at the school, had asked her to pick up.”

        Then she ran into Charles Samuel, a 50 year old man who had been in and out of prisons for decades. He was a transient with a long record of criminal activities and drug abuse.  He kidnapped Burk and forced her to withdraw money from an ATM.  Later he murdered her.       

       LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said, "This could have been you, it could have been your daughter, and that is what drives it home." 

         But we don’t really like to believe that.  When something terrible happens we try to find reasons why it happened.  What did he do wrong?  How did she bring this on himself?  “Maybe Lily Burk did something wrong and if our kids don’t do that they’ll be okay” – even though she did nothing wrong.  It somehow comforts to believe that pain is always somehow under our control.   We hate the idea of randomness because randomness might happen to us or a person we love.

Clip from “Knowing” on determinism

       Nothing is more random than innocent suffering.  So like us, the people of Israel back in the first century also hated the idea of innocent suffering.  In the story of Jesus and the man who was born blind.  The disciples ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born this way?  They want to know that someone is to blame.

       This still happens today.  A woman shared how when she was in the hospital one visitor told her that the fact that she was ill was a sign of unconfessed sin in her life.   Another told her that she was being kept from healing by her lack of faith.  So one way or another, her illness was her own fault.

       The worst of all first century scourges was leprosy. So people had to believe that someone as afflicted as a leper had done something to deserve it.  Then they wouldn’t feel vulnerable. They could have the comfort of believing that they would not get leprosy too unless they deserved it.  Of course this also meant that they blamed lepers for their own illness.   

       Leprosy in the time of Jesus was seen as a particular curse from God.  Lepers were ostracized by the law.  Here’s what it says in Leviticus 13:45-46:  “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, "Unclean, unclean." He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

       The leper wasn’t just outside the camp.  The leper lived outside the bounds of family, friendships, and employment. To be a leper was to be literally untouchable -- for fear of transmitting both the disease and the ritual uncleanness.  If you are a leper, your outcast state extends beyond people. You cannot go into the Temple to worship or to ask the priests to offer sacrifices on your behalf.  

       So a leper comes to Jesus falls on his knees and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

       Now, hold on just a minute.  Didn’t we just read in Leviticus that the proper words for a leper to say were, “Unclean, unclean”?  This leper has broken the law – because he somehow believes that he is cleanable.  And despite what everyone says about the source of his illness, he somehow believes he is worthy enough to give it a try with Jesus.

       Dr. Luke describes the man as "covered with leprosy.  The disease had run its course. None of us needs a detailed description of the man's loathsome appearance. If you have seen one picture of someone full of leprosy, it is enough.  It’s disgusting.

      But Jesus isn’t disgusted. Matthew writes that Jesus is filled with compassion.  He feels what the leper feels.  The literally meaning of the word, rechem is that Jesus’ feels the leper’s pain in His own guts.

       Jesus feels the sufferings of the leper just as if He Himself is suffering as a leper. It’s not just mind for mind, hand for hand, or even heart for heart, but stomach for stomach, blood for blood, gut for gut, sore for sore.  Jesus feels His way into the leper's needs.

       Then Jesus does something that is shocking to the people of his time.  For first century Jews this would be among the more shocking statements in the New Testament.  Jesus touches the leper.  The Greek word behind “touched” means that Jesus “fastened Himself to him.” “He adhered to him.” “He clung to him.” Jesus doesn’t just give this man a little brush with his hand. He embraces him.

       Some years ago Carol and I went to hear Tony Campolo speak in Ojai.  Tony is one of my favorite writers and speakers.  After he spoke I went forward to introduce myself.  I was hoping to maybe even shake his hand.  But Tony apparently has a soft spot for pastors.  When I told him that I’m a pastor he suddenly grabbed me in a huge bear hug.  And he didn’t let go.  He held on to me for what felt like forever.  I gave a little squirm but he didn’t let go.  Tony is Italian and his Italian demonstrativeness was much more powerful than my Presbyterian reserve.

       Well that wasn’t my first ever hug -- even as a Presbyterian.  But this is the first time this leper had been touched in years.  And boy is he touched.  And it turns out Jesus’ cleanness; Jesus’ healing is far more contagious than the leper’s disease.    Jesus says, “I do choose.  Be healed.”

       The leper wants his disease gone.  But the word “cleanse” means more. He is asking not to be an outcast.

       So after Jesus heals him he sends him to the priests. Even though his skin is clean there is no proof to everyone else that he is now allowed to participate in the community.  The man is legally unclean until he is cleared by the priest.  By going to the priest, this man will be examined and taken through an elaborate ceremony of sacrifices.  After this the man will have a his ticket back into society.

       Jesus recognizes the need for friendships and to be included in a larger community.  What good would it do the man to be healed, but still not included among his people?  We are created to be in fellowship with each other.  We are missing out on what it means to be human if we are cut off from the rest of society,

        But the man is also going to serve as a witness to the priests. The leper is commissioned to give witness not just to his healing but to the astounding reversal that brings the outcasts home again, welcomes them in, restores them to community:  “Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a testimony to them."

       The priests are going to be blown away when this man suddenly appears to them and asked for the sacrifices Moses had commanded in the Book of Leviticus. You can picture how puzzled they will be when this man comes.  This isn’t a case of bad case of acne clearing up.  This man was full of leprosy. The priests haven’t done this before. They go to their libraries get down their books from the shelves.  They thumb through them and say to one another, "What will we do? There's never been anything like this since the days of Elisha!”

        Our Lord clearly intended this healing to be a sign of the appearance of the Messiah. Everyone in Israel, and especially the priests, knew that leprosy was a symbol of the evil and sin of people and that God used it as judgment, at times, in order to bring out in vivid, visible form what evil and sin are like in us. But Isaiah had predicted that when Messiah came, he would do certain physical miracles. The eyes of the blind would be opened, the lame would leap like the deer, the tongue of the dumb would sing.   The healing is one of the signs of the Messiah which our Lord intends the priests should see as a witness to them of who He is.

     Now let’s talk about us.  Let’s talk about today.

     The leper says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Well, of course, we know what Jesus will choose. Of course, Jesus will choose to make the man clean. Doesn’t God always say “yes” to our prayers for healing?

       No He doesn’t.  Here’s where this story enters our own lives -- our own suffering, our own need for healing. Here’s the hard part of the story for me as a person and as a pastor who deals with people’s pain.

       After the first service I got a lot of feedback on this sermon. 

       One person told me that she understood that suffering is always for discipline – and since we are all sinners we all need it. 

       It is true that Paul tells the Corinthians that some of them are falling ill and some have even died because of their abuses of the Lord’s Supper.  But Jesus’ response to the question about the man born blind tells us that it isn’t always discipline.  And if it’s for discipline, why is it so unequal?  Why do some people who are obvious public sinners skate through life relatively pain free while others, who are comparatively much more righteous, catch it in the neck.   That’s the great questions asked in Psalm 73. I preached a sermon on this psalm titled, “Why Do Good Things Happen to Bad People?”

        Another person suggested that I minimized the role of faith and pointed out how Jesus told people, “Your faith has made you whole.”

         That’s true.  But there are other situations where people with great faith are not healed.  In Philippians we read about Epaphrodites who fell so ill that Paul says he “despaired of his life.”  Epaphroidites is described as a man of great faith.  He was with Paul who demonstrated powerful gifts of healing.  But for Epaphrodites his survival was touch-and-go. 

       I don’t discount the idea of discipline.  I certainly don’t discount the power of faith.  It’s just that the whole issue of suffering defies one-size-fits-all explanations.  

     The fact is that sometimes we experience healing, and we give God the glory. And sometimes we don’t experience healing, and we wonder why that is. And we don’t exactly blame God… well, maybe we do. It is a fairly natural jump to make, -- that if I am suffering, it may be because God wants me to suffer. If Jesus has the amazing power and gift for healing, why don’t we all benefit from it?  Is God selective about who will be healed? Is healing a kind of litmus test of our goodness?  How should we pray? What should we pray for?  I suspect that no one here this morning has leprosy.  But there are other kinds of aloneness. 

       Scripture constantly assures us that God wills good things for all of us -- life, and life abundant. But at the same time our pews and our homes and our neighborhoods are filled with folks who are suffering -- whether from a physical ailment, or from an emotional one, whether from the devastating effects of the current economic crisis, or from the equally devastating effects of our own poor choices. God wills what is good for us.  But how that good actually works out in our daily lives can be elusive.

      This week I came across this list of paradoxes about suffering. Listen, and see if they make sense to you.

       Suffering is not God's desire for us, nor a gift from God. The paradox is that suffering occurs in the process of this gift from God we call life.

       Suffering is not given in order to teach us something. The paradox is that we can learn from suffering, and grow.

       Suffering is not given to punish us. The paradox is that suffering sometimes comes as the result of poor choices we make.

       Suffering is not given to teach others something. The paradox is that through suffering we can learn about faith, character, endurance, hope as well as weakness, struggle, humility.

       Suffering does not occur because our faith is weak. The paradox is that our faith may be strengthened by the journey through suffering.

       Suffering can sometimes destroy us. The paradox is that it can add meaning to our lives.

       Suffering. Not God’s will. But still a part of God’s world.

       “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The words the leper speaks to Jesus are a kind of model prayer. They come from a position of humility.  He knows that he doesn’t have a claim to healing.

       Ray Stedman, late pastor of Peninsula Bible Church south of San Francisco wrote:  It is very significant that this leper said, "If you will, you can make me clean." Years ago a young man in our congregation came up to me. He had become very interested in the healing power of God and was involved in a movement which was teaching that healing is provided by God for every physical ailment we believers have, that it is wrong not to be well, and that we do not have to ask God whether he wants to heal us or not. This young man told me it is a lack of faith to pray, "If it be your will, heal me." He said we should claim our healing, and was very definite about it. I remember pointing out this incident to him—that the leper came to Jesus and said, "If you will, you can make me clean." And Jesus did not rebuke him or tell him he had approached Him in the wrong way, or that he ought to claim his healing. In fact, you never find this idea in Scripture.

       Stedman writes:  “I think this indicates something of an awareness on the leper's part of a divine purpose there may have been in his affliction… Paul came before the Lord and asked three times for the removal of a physical "thorn in the flesh." Finally the answer came, "My grace is sufficient for you." Paul understood that God wanted him to put up with it and learn how to handle it by the grace of God. So it is clear that it is not the teaching of Scripture that everybody must be healed.  Faith knows that God can heal.  But faith cannot know if the Lord in every case intends to heal.’

       Stedman writes, “We all know that.  We all finally die whether we have faith or not.” Ray Stedman fulfilled this last statement by dying himself in 1992.

        We know what God can do but we don’t control what God will do. When the leper says, "If you choose, you can make me clean," he does not mean by that, "If I happened to catch you in a good mood.”  He means, "If it is not out of line with the purpose of God, if it is not violating some cosmic program God is working out, then you can make me clean. 

       You might think I am stretching a bit here.  You might think, there’s no way a leper could be that in touch with how God works in the world.  But when was illness ever a barrier to spiritual insight.  When was illness a barrier even to praise?

       A pastor named Jack Hinton from New Bern, North Carolina, was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago during a short-term mission trip.  There was time for one more song, so he asked if anyone had a request. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around. "It was the most hideous face I had ever seen," Hinton said. "The woman's nose and ears were entirely gone. The disease had destroyed her lips as well. She lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, 'Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?'"

        Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. He was followed by a team member who said, "Jack, I guess you'll never be able to sing that song again."  "Yes I will," he replied, "but I'll never sing it the same way."

       Like this woman on Tobago, we know who Jesus is.   He is the one Paul calls the “image of the invisible God.”  And we are looking in this series at Jesus as the human face of God.  But here we also see the hands of God – reaching out and holding tight to as a loathsome a wreck of a human being as ever existed.  We also see Jesus as the human “guts” of God – fully entering the pain of this leper pain for pain and sore for sore.

       So if this is truly the face of God --- such loving hands and overwhelming compassion, I honestly don’t know why God doesn’t heal everyone of their physical and emotional pain.  I sometimes wish that healing was automatic.  There are certainly people here in this service I would bring for healing today if I could.  

      I don’t know about physical healing. 

       But I know that we live in a broken world.  I know that we are broken people this broken world.  And I know that I this broken world our greatest healing is guaranteed by the cross.   In the cross we see that whatever suffering means, it doesn’t mean that God has rejected us or doesn’t love us.  He’s already proven His love at the cross.

       The cross tells us that we can be forgiven—every last one of us. God's love is there at all times in our life. It doesn't matter how bad we are, how many mistakes we've made, how horrendously we have fouled up our lives, or the mess we have made of our relationships. The forgiveness is there. We don't have to persuade God to forgive us.  It’s more often that God has to persuade people to accept His forgiveness. We don't have to go through some elaborate ritual or religious exercise to get God to forgive us. The healing which Jesus represents is pure gift.  What we most need, according to Jesus, is what is available just as quickly, as easily, as powerfully as Jesus’ decisive response to the leper.  He reaches out and makes us clean.

       Sin controls people with two exactly opposite lies. The first is, as we have already talked about, is that they are not sinners —that nothing is wrong with them. The second is that when they do see they are sinners, they think they are so bad they are beyond help. Over the years in my pastoral ministry I have talked to a number of people who felt this way. They have recited their sins to me with the naive supposition that I will be shocked. The fact is, I cannot be shocked! I have heard it all.  And I can say that the cross of Christ is sufficient for all. One man told me, "I'm such a dirt bag—such scum. How could He ever forgive me?" He does not say that now, because he has experienced forgiveness!

      Although the Leper knows Jesus can heal him, he does not know whether Jesus will heal him. This is a reasonable hesitation. He does not know the Lord and cannot know what eternally motivates His heart.

       But where the leper has hesitation, we have certainty. We know the gospel. We know Jesus' heart. "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" So nothing is more in accord with the will of God than our forgiveness.  He enters our pain.  He touches us with nail scarred hands.  He gives us total and final and eternal healing.

       Compassion, touch, healing, restoration – forever.  That’s what Jesus gave His life for.