Homily for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 14, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 1:40-45. Theme: Be Cleansed of the Leprosy of Fear
In today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a leper, enabling him to return to normal life in society. As you probably know by now, leprosy was the most feared of communicable diseases. For the leper, this meant a life cut off from community, an existence of isolation from those who were healthy, and the constant humiliation of having to publicly self-identify as a leper. For the healthy, it meant alienation from loved ones and the need to consciously and bravely reject the attitude of fear and hatred that many directed at the lepers.
You know, when you think about it, we have some of those same dynamics today in our virus-infected and politically-charged world. People are shunned by the healthy, not because they are COVID-positive, but simply because they might be! Some are ridiculed and feared because of their political positions, cancelled from social life like the lepers of old. Obsessive fear, such as the people had of leprosy back in the day seems to be alive and present today, making its way through the population like a deadly emotional virus. It causes people to turn in on themselves, to isolate and become suspicious of others. And this fear, like that which once surrounded leprosy, if left unchecked, can even grow into hatred.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! We have much hope for change because Jesus came to heal the inside even more than the outside. His words and touch healed the leper offering him so much more than simply physical wholeness. The man was liberated to return to community, released from social isolation and set free to no longer identify himself in terms of his illness. And I think that like this leper, we need to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus and beg him to set us free from our own self-imposed alienation and fears.
This is the way of humble and honest surrender to God in trust. It’s not easy but it is effective. It begins by owning up to our fear, naming it for the false threat that it really is, and then learning to intentionally hand this fear over to God, step by step, bit by bit, throughout one’s day. It’s a surrender that is made to God in faith, confident that He watches over us and loves us and wants us to be happy from the inside out. You see, the infectious virus of fear can only grow within us when we begin to think and act as if we are in control of our lives. And so, to consciously turn ourselves over the care of God is the perfect response, the best medicine, the most effective vaccine against this emotional infection.
And we can make this surrender of ourselves with confidence, because we see over and over again in the gospels, how Jesus is deeply moved by compassion to reach out and touch us in our need. Whether it’s a father begging for his daughter’s life, a widow who has lost her only son, a man tormented by evil spirits, the blind asking for sight or, as in today’s gospel, a leper asking to be made clean, Jesus feels what they are feeling and is moved to the depth of his heart. He’s not moved because he is the all-knowing powerful God, but because he is 100% human in all tihngs but sin. So, he knows what it’s like to be afraid. He knows what it’s like to be rejected. He knows that it means to worry about those we love. And yet he assures us that we have no need to be anxious, fearful and paralyzed emotionally.
Through the Gospel and the Eucharist, Jesus offers each one of us personally, this inner healing of the mind and soul. Through his word and his touch today, he can banish fear and replace it with trust in him as the healing remedy to worry, anxiety, and panic. He is moved with as much love and compassion for each one of us as it had for the leper. The Heart of Christ overflows with tenderness towards all who are ruled by fear because he knows the disturbing effects it has on our peace of mind and quality of life. And he wants us to be free of such deep dark oppression so that we can leave our isolation and return to community with the same rejuvenated and joyous heart as the former-leper in today’s Gospel, who went off and told everyone about the amazing Man who had set him free!
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