February 15, 2021
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on February 14, 2021, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Psalm 32; 1 Corinthians 10:31 – 11:1; Mark 1:40-45.
At the heart of Christianity lies the mystery of the Incarnation – the belief that God is not a remote being. Jesus Christ dwells among us, whether we’re here in person or watching online. As Paul wrote so eloquently to the Romans, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Often, our experience of the love of Christ is mediated through our interactions with other people. When human beings experience separation from one another – like the physical separation we’ve endured during this year of pandemic, exacerbated this weekend by freakishly horrible weather here in Central Texas – we often feel as if we’re separated from God. This year of human separation has inflicted losses on each of us. Death. Grief. Illness. Fear. Loss of connection. Loss of joy. And for all too many in our community, loss of the interpersonal support networks that we humans need to flourish.
Even the well-intended leprosy laws of Leviticus led to profound human loss. Because lepers were cut off so completely from the rest of the community, leprosy was called “the living death.” This year, we are all lepers, cut off from the very people who are the face of God to us. As we prepare for our upcoming Lenten journey, let us take a few moments to recall the times we’ve contributed to unnecessary separation and division. And then, let us ask God for mercy.
We’re pretty sure that at the time of Moses and Leviticus, the term “leprosy” referred to any malady that caused human skin, fabrics, or building materials to become whitish in appearance. The Israelites thought that this loss of color indicated the beginning of the loss of life. They also thought that it was highly contagious. For the safety of the community, those with leprosy were kept apart. They were required to dress differently and shout “unclean, unclean” whenever anyone approached them. It’s not clear if the treatment of lepers in the Mosaic Law was scientifically sound, but clearly, the people believed that it was, and that it was ordered by God.
When Jesus touched the leper, we don’t know if he was taking a health-related risk, but he surely was establishing connection, rather than separation. His touch was sacramental – a moment when we are certain that God showers us with grace. Most of our sacraments involve tactile experiences: anointing oil on a forehead, laying hands on a head, placing a ring on a finger, even depositing Eucharist in a hand. Our safety concerns during this pandemic distance us from the grace-filled, sacramental, healing power of human touch.
Life is stressful and lonely for many of us right now, even if it’s not as stressful or as lonely as for those living in leper colonies. I have two questions for us in Central Texas to consider on this most physically-distanced, loneliest of Valentine’s Days:
- What positive things can we do to nurture our emotional connections and reduce the separation?
- Before the pandemic began, were we already treating some people as lepers?
If we can’t rely on our preferred ways of connecting, it’s tempting to give up completely and claim, “I don’t want to be a bother.” Instead, we must deliberately and creatively connect with our loved ones. The temptation to put up emotional barriers between us and people we barely know is even greater: we harbor unresolved anger about our suffering and heightened anxiety over scarce resources. It’s easy for me to become resentful that I can’t get a vaccine yet, but there are very legitimate reasons why other people have a higher priority for getting it than I do. The temptation to wall ourselves off from complete strangers is greatest of all. Very few of us in this country seem concerned that almost two-thirds of the world’s nations have not been able to procure any vaccine!
Who else do we inadvertently treat as outcasts? Before the pandemic, some of us didn’t come into regular contact with people with physical or mental disabilities. Very few of us visited people in prison. It didn’t take a pandemic for us to refuse to make eye contact or speak with people begging for money on street corners. Even in the middle of a pandemic, we still don’t see the faces of the sick and the homebound unless we make deliberate efforts to do so. Many of us continue to treat our fellow Americans with different political views as if they belonged in a leper colony. Do we remain ignorant of the policies that separate Austin into racially- and economically-isolated neighborhoods? Would Jesus want us to separate ourselves from people with different colors of skin or with different sizes of bank accounts?
Even though Jesus asked the man he healed not to tell anyone, the man proclaimed his cure far and wide. But who can blame him? As we anticipate the day when the pandemic is over, we imagine that we’ll probably be shouting from the rooftops, too!
Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Convincing others of that depends on how we think and on what we do. If we want people to believe in the unifying, healing power of Christ’s love, we must stop living in fear and act in Christ’s love. We need to demonstrate that all people – including our neighbors in need, our fellow citizens with whom we disagree, and those who live on the other side of the world – all of them are worthy of Christ’s love.
Brothers and sisters, if we wish, we can reverse the divisions in our families, in our cities, in our nations, and in our world. Do we wish it? Do we will it? I return to the questions I posed earlier:
- What positive things can we do to nurture our emotional connections and reduce the separation?
- Before the pandemic began, were we already treating some people as lepers?
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or pandemic, or social distancing, or the lack of human touch, or political differences? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor racial differences, nor economic differences, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And that’s something to shout about!