In Mark’s Gospel Jesus’ deep sensitivity to human suffering is quite obvious. He suffers ‘with’ the broken people he encounters. His emotions are real, visceral. He can be angry, sad, surprised and indignant, just like us, and when he is ‘moved with pity’ his own heart is wrenched, and tender compassionate acts follow. In her commentary on today’s reading, Mary McGlone says: “the [leper’s] request for healing stirred Jesus to his depths. Even before he could speak, his hand was reaching out, touching the man’s spurned and suffering body, transforming it with tenderness. Then, pronouncing the words that explained his gesture and made his will effective. Jesus said, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
I also imagine Jesus must have had a sense of humor. He couldn’t possibly feel such deep compassion without also experiencing the comical, even hilarious aspects of ordinary life. I like to think of Jesus out in the desert having a belly laugh with God after his encounter with the leper in Mark’s Gospel or over some ridiculous experience he’s had while preaching in the town. The leper story surely must have given them a laugh. Here’s this guy who has been isolated from family and friends for who knows how long, possibly with sores all over his body, and he gets up the courage to do something that is absolutely forbidden. He comes right up to Jesus, comes within inches, in fact, and begs to be healed. He must be pretty desperate, right?
And when Jesus sees him his own insides convulse with empathy. He reaches out his hand, does another forbidden thing by touching the man, and says with deep feeling, “yes, I do will it. Be healed.” And the leprosy vanishes. Then Jesus STERNLY orders the man to tell no one, but to go immediately to the priest and do what is required by law to prove he’s clean so he can return to his family and friends. And what does this guy do? He runs around town telling everyone he meets what just happened to him. He didn’t follow the rules before and doesn’t follow Jesus’ strict orders now. I can almost see Jesus rolling his eyes and shaking his head in disbelief as he watches the man take off running, wildly excited, not for a minute remembering what he was just told to do! Now Jesus can’t go anywhere, can’t freely walk in and out of the city without people falling all over him! So he goes out into the desert to get a little space and tells God what just happened. They both have a good laugh. “Geez!” says Jesus. “What have I done now, dad?”
The leper’s excitement is understandable but his behavior throws even more attention Jesus’ way at a time Jesus didn’t want to be so available. Jesus wanted some space. But Spirit, working in and through the leper, apparently had other plans. It was a great marketing tool, so to speak—a great way to get the word out! People all over Galilee heard the news. When Jesus returns to town a few days later and people find out he’s home, Mark writes that “So many gather at the house there is no longer room for them, not even around the door!” Maybe Jesus thought the excitement would die down if he left for awhile, but it didn’t. The place is now crowded. His time in the desert talking and laughing with God has prepared him, though, to re-enter his work with new energy. He starts talking, telling them God is HERE, NOW, and if they ‘change their hearts’ they will see it’s true. He sits, walks, cries and laughs with them—the messenger and the message.
The world we live in is even more complex than the people in Jesus’ time knew. It requires more intentionality, more effort, on our part to really BELIEVE God is present, real and active in our world and in our lives. The only way I know to get there is through prayer and deliberate attention to the subtle movements of Spirit, of Wisdom, of Goodness itself in the circumstances of our days. Our ideas about the Divine have been fracturing for decades. As we continue to explore the galaxy with our sophisticated space craft and hear from our brilliant astrophysicists that the Universe not only contains billions of other galaxies but is continuing to expand by incomprehensible measures, we also are being challenged in our conceptualization of God. Our planet is barely visible from the photo beamed back from Voyager I on Feb.14, 1990. Carl Sagan’s book titled “The Pale Blue Dot” refers to that image of earth taken as Voyager was about to leave the solar system. Sagan had requested one last photo of earth, and there it was—a tiny pale blue dot. That was 28 years ago. Today earth would be over 10 times dimmer, rapidly disappearing from view from the vantage point of interstellar space.
Who are we and Who/What is God? It is a modern question that is stretching our imaginations and causing many to throw away belief in a personal God, a God who cares about creatures less than the size of microbes in the limitless expanse of space.
God is so much more than we have ever imagined or could ever imagine God to be. The Cosmic Energy pulsing through the Universe is the same energy beating our hearts and creating the rise and fall of our breath right now. God is within us and within it all. We now know that simple observation affects the outcome of an experiment. How can we know that and not know that the Divine within all things is ‘listening’? that God is present? closer than our breath? That God cares?
As we begin Lent this week Jesus tells us to change our hearts and believe the good news of God’s Real presence in our lives and our world. We change our hearts by reaching toward mercy rather than blame, toward humor rather than anger, toward self-understanding and compassion rather than exclusion of those we fear. Jesus is our model and guide as we navigate the transformation God is asking of us. Perhaps we can learn to appreciate these challenges by being more fully present in our lives and by learning to laugh again. Finding the humor in everyday experience can be a form of prayer. It may be this season’s entryway to the kind of change we most need, the kind of change that can help us bring peace, goodness and joy into our world.
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