On Not Needing Lepers

Introduction

Old Testament & lepers.

In the Old Testament a person having suspicious sores on his head was sent to the priests who were to carefully examine him. If the sores prove to be leprous, the priests declared the poor man unclean. He then had to live “outside the camp” away from others. When others approached him, he had to warn them by ringing a bell and calling out, “Unclean! Unclean!”

Look at that! Not only did the priest declare the poor man unclean, he himself now had to declare himself unclean (Lev 13: 1-46). To the leprosy that disfigured his body was now added a leprosy that disfigured his human spirit. The Old Testament did not cure lepers; it confirmed them in their leprosy. The Old Testament did not touch lepers; it declared them untouchable. In a sense the Old Testament made lepers.

The New Testament & lepers

The New Testament, on the other hand, does not make lepers; it heals them. That’s what makes it new. The New Testament touches the untouchable. That’s what makes it new. The New Testament purposely singles out lepers to heal them. That’s what makes it new.

Jesus directs his disciples to go against the culture of his day by purposely singling out lepers. "Heal the sick,” he commands them, “and, by all means, cure the lepers" (Mt 10:8). In fact, curing lepers is a very special sign that the Messiah has, indeed, come. When John the Baptist is in prison and is having second thoughts about Jesus, he sends a delegation to him asking, "Are you he who is to come or shall we expect another?" Jesus sends back a message to clear up all doubt for John. He says to the delegation, "Go and tell him what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and, yes, lepers are cured…" (Mt 11:5).

Catholic tradition & lepers

Thanks be to God, we Catholics have a noble tradition of singling out lepers--of touching untouchables. No good biography of the great St. Francis of Assisi would ever neglect to tell the story of his encounter with a leper. One day this healthy and wealthy young man was riding out of Assisi on his stallion. Suddenly he came upon a leper. As he turned his steed to flee from the hideous creature, he was overcome by a bright light of revelation. It struck Francis off his high horse and sent him to the ground (just as centuries before the same bright flash unseated Paul of Tarsus). There on the ground Francis found himself touching the untouchable. Wrapping his arms around the leper he kissed him!

It was a powerful experience for him. It marked the moment of his conversion which gave the world one of its most cherished saints. Of that moment Francis writes in his Last Will and Testament, "While I was in sin it seemed too bitter a thing for me to see lepers. But the Lord himself led me among them, and I showed compassion to them. And when I left them, what at first seemed so bitter to me was changed into sweetness of body and soul. After that I lingered a little and then left the world" (Test. 1-3; AB 154).

That embrace and kiss of Francis healed the man of the spiritual leprosy eating away at his human spirit. It healed him of the terrible self-image that he was unclean, untouchable, and for sure, un-kissable. The leper finally died but not before knowing, at long last, that he was nothing less than a creature created in the image of God, not only touchable but kissable as well. At the end of the day, the leper died cured of the worst of his problem!

Our Catholic tradition glories also in telling the story of Father Damien de Veuster who worked among the lepers in the Hawaiian Island of Molokai. At Mass one day he opened his homily by saying, "We lepers." In his ministry he had touched the untouchables and had contracted the disease!

In recent years, the whole world gloried in the remarkable story of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. With her sisters she went through the streets of the city to pick up dying people who were discarded by a Hindu culture that declared them untouchable. She carried them off to her Domus Amoris (her House of Love.) There she embraced and kissed them and sent them off to heaven, cured of their terrible self-image as disposable garbage. She sent them off to eternity believing, at long last, they were human beings created in the image of God. At the end of the day, they, too, died cured of the worst of their problem. Without a word Mother Teresa and her army of angels preached to a populous culture and to the world at large that there are no untouchables in the eyes of God.

The need for lepers!

That's the Gospel, that’s the good news: there are no untouchables in the eyes of God. But that’s bad news for those who, for one reason or other, need lepers. Yes, there’s something in us that needs lepers whom we can declare unclean and untouchable. There’s something in us that needs lepers whom we can exclude, shun, look down upon, feel superior to, loath, condemn and even mark out for annihilation. There’s something in us that needs people whom we can cast outside the camp.

Who in the world needs lepers? The biblical Jew of old needed lepers. They found the lepers they needed in Samaritans and Gentiles whom they could exclude from every facet of social life. The Nazis in Germany needed lepers. They found the lepers they needed in six million Jews whom they annihilated in the gas chambers and crematories of the Holocaust.

The extreme religious right needs lepers, and it finds the lepers it needs in “non-born-agains” (those people who don’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior), and it buries them in hell. The extreme religious right finds the lepers it needs also in gays whom it also buries in hell. The extremely religious Rev. Mr. Phelps found the leper he needed in Matt Shepard, a gay student from Wyoming State University whom two homophobic skinheads bludgeoned to death. He picketed the funeral of his leper with a sign proclaiming,”God hates fags [i.e., casts them out of the camp] and buries them in hell.”

Why we need lepers

Why in the world does anyone, do we, need lepers in the first place? Why in the world did the biblical Jew need lepers in the form of Samaritans and Gentiles? Was it because they didn’t feel good about themselves and had to build themselves up by tearing others down? Why in the world did the German Nazis need lepers in the form of Jews? Was it because they didn’t feel good about themselves and had to build themselves up by tearing down six million Jews, forcing them not to ring bells declaring themselves “Unclean! Unclean!” but to wear bands declaring themselves “Juden! Juden!” “Jew! Jew!” Why does the extreme religious right need lepers in the form of “non-born-agains” or gays? Is it because it doesn’t feel good about itself and has to build itself up by tearing down unbelievers and fags, and burying them in hell?

Conclusion

AIDS is from God

Evangelistic preachers and moralizers are correct: AIDS, the new leprosy, is from God. It is sent from God to test whether we are truly New Testament followers who do not make lepers but cure them. The new leprosy is sent from God to point a finger not at others but at our own immoral need to have lepers in order to feel good about ourselves.

At the end of the day, feeling good about ourselves is a good part of the solution to our strange need for lepers. It frees us not only from the need to make lepers but it frees us also to cure them. That’s infinitely more gratifying and rewarding, as it was for Brother Francis of Assisi, Father Damien of Molokai and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.