Outcasts
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Introduction"From leper colony to shopping mall"... so reads a headline in last Friday's Mail and Guardian. It seems that South Africa's oldest leper colony and its 125 year-old hospital is to be developed by a consortium that includes present-day residents of the colony. Homes, schools and parks will be built, and cycling paths too. There will be small businesses and micro-farms. Some 7,500 people will find employment. A wonderful transformation, so it seems from the story anyway, from a place to where people are banished, to a place where people come to celebrate, trade and play. One of the most important sites of South Africa's political transformation was also once a leper colony. Actually Robben Island, as many of us know, was first colonised by the Dutch East India Company as a place to banish political dissidents from the Indonesian Archipelago, before it became a leper colony, and then, of course, a prison. And yet, amazingly, as Anthony Sampson's biography of Nelson Mandela shows, it was there, amongst the banished, that the new South Africa was born. Now the transition from leper colony to prison for political outcasts is not as radical as we might imagine. Communities often banish people (and ideas) they consider "unclean" beyond their borders. "Dirt", a famous anthropologist once said, is "matter out of place". Cleansing is then simply putting matter (or people), "in their place". A community can pronounce someone "unclean" for medical, political, or spiritual reasons. Sometimes calling someone "unclean" is based simply on economic, racial or cultural differences that cannot be accommodated or tolerated within the community. Amongst those so banished have been people with certain diseases, including lepers. But not all who have suffered from leprosy were social outcasts. Take Naaman, for instance, the subject of our first reading this morning. NaamanHere we have a man who is highly regarded and successful, very much at the centre of things. He has a secure job and a place in his community. And yet he has leprosy. Now we can't be sure if his leprosy (or that of anyone else in the Bible for that matter) is what we today call "leprosy" or "Hansen's disease". The Hebrew word is used for a variety of skin diseases. But he must have been suffering greatly. Naaman was a general in the Assyrian army, one who had been instrumental in bringing about the downfall of Ahaziah, the idolatrous king of Israel. The story begins with a servant girl, who is actually a captured Israelite working for Naaman's wife. Aware of Naaman's distress, she refers to "the prophet who is in Samaria", in whose presence Naaman could be restored. (3) Now to speak of Samaria (which is what the Northern kingdom of Israel was called), was to speak of a place that was a minor player on the political landscape. The idea that there was "a prophet in Samaria" could have been considered preposterous. For had not Israel's God proven no match for the gods of Assyria? We get an idea of how well-regarded Naaman is, and how desperate his plight, when his king agrees to dispatch him to Samaria to investigate the young girl's claim. Figuring this to be a matter of state, he sends him to the king of Israel. But the king of Israel interprets it as a challenge to his authority, an attempt to pick a fight. After all, it is not in the power of kings to cure such a dread disease. And in the sight of the mighty Syrians, at least of this time, tiny, marginal Israel is quite vulnerable. The king of Israel is quite beside himself. Elisha, the prophet of whom the young girl spoke and a worker of great miracles, hears of this and sees an opportunity to demonstrate the power of God. Elisha, we notice, is still cautious to maintain his ritual distance, and only communicates through a servant. For to have had contact with a leper was to take the disease upon oneself. Leprosy could only be treated through a complex set of rituals, described in the book of Leviticus. Naaman, used to living at the centre and consorting with kings, is thus left on the periphery. He is "out of place", and remains at the gate of the prophet. It is only once he is made clean that Elisha meets him face to face. But Elisha has contrived something to teach Naaman a lesson. Before he can be made clean, Naaman must confront the ethnocentrism that sets up outsiders, their land and their gods, as second-class. Naaman's response to Elisha's command to bathe in the waters of the Jordan is indignation. "Are not... the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?" he asks. "Could I not wash in them and be clean?" (12) He sings a different tune after being cleansed in the alien streams: "There is no God in all the earth, except in Israel", he says. (15) He even takes away some of the soil of Israel, presumably on which to worship the God whose power has cleansed him. Jesus and the leperHow much unlike Naaman is the anonymous leper who comes to Jesus in our Gospel reading. Whereas Naaman is "a great man and in favour with his master" the king, the leper who approaches Jesus is a person so "out of place" that even the priests - the only ones allowed to help him - have turned away. In desperation, he turns to Jesus. Perhaps, like Naaman, he has heard of the great healer by reputation, or through the word of another person. But unlike Naaman, he comes directly to Jesus, and without letters of commendation. Rather, his is the approach of someone at his wits end. He comes begging and kneeling, with nothing in his hands. Whereas Naaman comes from the centre to the margins, the leper comes to Jesus from the margins where he has been banished. The first move in our story is made by the leper. He is the one who crosses the social bounds [BPS]. He also breaks the law in approaching a non-Priest for healing. In doing so, he asks Jesus to break the law as well. And he presents Jesus with another dilemma: if Jesus associates himself with the leper, then he himself will be treated as a leper by the community. Maintaining respectability, and the future viability of his ministry, is a simple thing: just send the leper away, like the religious establishment had. But that comes at a tremendous price: maintaining an unjust system that destroys the image of God. Jesus responds with compassion... or is it anger? The Greek word used here can be translated either way. Is he angry with the leper, for placing his ministry in jeopardy? Is he angry with the Priests (whom he has referred to as "them") who have turned a person in need away? Either way, his response is the compassionate one: to heal and therefore to welcome this man back into the community. Here we see the difference between Elisha and Jesus. As we saw, Elisha is careful to maintain the boundary between himself and Naaman. All communication is done through an intermediary. But Jesus speaks to the leper face-to-face. And in that face-to-face encounter, the life of the leper is transformed. His "place" is now back with the people of God. But there are consequences. The story concludes by saying that Jesus could not enter the great urban centres afterward, but had to confine his ministry to the countryside. Perhaps we can understand why. Who is this guy, anyway, who takes upon himself the power to say who can and who cannot be a part of the community? And he even has the audacity to send the man, now made whole, back to the priests. Right back in their face! But Jesus is a subversive. He turns the distinctions reigning in his day on their head. The real distinction is not the "clean-unclean" distinction but the distinction between compassion and injustice. That is the distinction Jesus upholds. It is not a matter of putting people in their place, or of dis-placing people (which happens more often), but of opening up places so that people can be restored. ReflectionI remember a few weeks ago, sitting in my mother's living room watching the New Millennium being brought in in different parts of the world. I became weary of fireworks display after fireworks display as midnight came in different parts of the world. But when the cameras switched to South Africa, what a difference. A ceremony on Robben Island, with prisoners emerging from their cells with candles, passing on their light to new generations. Robben Island... that leper colony-turned prison, which became transformed into a University for today's political leaders, is a symbol of hope for the world. For in it we see the possibilities of transformation in the prisoner-become-president, in a banishing place for the marginalised (a place of forgetfulness) becoming a place of memory, lest the world forget the lessons of racialised exclusion. What was "out of place" is now "back in place". What does all this say to us at St Paul's? Our vision statement identifies us as a place of inclusion. These stories show us just how radical the implications of that profession are. Reflecting on these stories, we perhaps must ask ourselves certain questions as a community. Are there hidden "purity codes" in our community? Do we consider certain styles of worship "unclean"? Do we resist, despite our profession, associating with people who are different? Do we believe the cultural lie that says that certain kinds of people must be kept outside our walls, because they represent danger? I know that sometimes I do. How do we respond, how do I respond, for instance, when one of the street people outside our walls actually walks into the church? Do we perhaps see them as "out of place" here? It's something to think about. The readings today suggest other questions. We rightly celebrate our traditions as Anglicans. But sometimes those traditions can become burdens, ways of excluding people, making them feel "out of place". Are we willing to let go, for the sake of the Gospel, our ties to some traditions, when those traditions are proved to be restricting and oppressive? Are we willing to go all the way with our profession, even to risk making ourselves "unclean" in our commitment to inclusivity? If we are, then our witness would have an important effect, that people would know that there is a God who looks beyond categories of "cleanness" and "uncleanness". But that is an implication of our profession which makes us - understandably - profoundly uncomfortable. For this must be the witness of St Paul's Rondebosch: not that there is a nice, friendly group of people worshipping on that little hill across from the Riverside Mall, but that there is a God whose compassion is the only source of healing. And who knows, perhaps, by the grace of God, we will see those marginal places in our lives, in our community, in our city, transformed. May God give us grace to act out our vision! |