Our UNCLEANESS AND COMFORTABLE
DISTANCE FROM GOD
by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ
Story of the ten
(10) lepers; everyone was healed but only one came back to thank the Lord; What learnings can we pick up from this very
rich Gospel story. Let me propose three
points for our reflection:
OUR UNCLEANNESS MAKES US STAND AT A DISTANCE FROM THE LORD.
I think it was
easiest for the lepers in our Gospel story to recognize their UNCLEANNESS. The old societies made it easy for them to
realize that they were different.
Simply, they were ostracized. As
a rule, in the olden times, lepers … those whom people of the ancient world
thought of as UNCLEAN … stood … at least 6 meters away from people they meet. This explains why the lepers were shouting at
the top of their voices: “Master, have pity on us! Imagine if there was a big crowd that
gathered … following Jesus … these lepers would need to stand farther and
farther away from where our Lord was. And
true as our Gospel implied, the lepers were standing quite at a distance
from our Lord who was passing by. Surely, again … this explains why they needed
to shout out at the top of their voices to get the Lord’s attention.
What’s fascinating
also about the lepers in our story is that despite their being outcastes …
they’ve managed to establish a multi-racial community of their own. Misery loves company … hindi ba? The lepers in our story had become a
microcosm of the United Nations of sorts … apparently. Given normal circumstances, Jews would not
wish to stay with Samaritans. But there
they were … Jews and Samaritans … all ten (10) of them moving around as a pack or
as one herd. DISEASE KNOWS NO
BOUNDARIES! Sometimes we joke around: If
you’re poor and sick … you must have TB. But if you;re rich … you may perhaps suffer simply from an upper respiratory tract infection.
If you’re poor … you must have contracted scabies.
But if you’re rich … you have what we may call SKIN ALLERGY. We do not need to fool ourselves. DISEASE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES! Whatever status you have in your life … there
is such a thing as CANCER. Rich or poor can
contract DIABETES, HYPERTENSION, a FLU or a COMMON HEADACHE. Disease knows no boundaries!
More of a problem
of society today … I think … is precisely how UNCLEANESS had become so SHARED
by all … how UNCLEANESS had become so ORDINARY … and thus not simply TOLERATED
but in some cases … even ALREADY ACCEPTED.
A case in point: ABORTION … what
the Church considers as INTRINSIC EVIL … a societal UNCLEANNESS … which in some
countries and states had been accepted as a legitimate/ legal means to deal
with unwanted pregnancies. Slowly slowly SHARED LEPROSY … SHARED
UNCLEANNESS is fast becoming a NORM more than an exception. What are the varieties of UNCLEANNESS that we
notice around us? Sometimes we do not
even know anymore! Can we begin with ourselves? What area of personal UNCLEANNESS will we
need to face up and eventually deal with?
We may wish to think about our own compulsions, our addictions, bad
habits that are hard to break or biased perspectives that are difficult to
overcome. Misery loves company. Disease knows no boundaries. How do we recognize our own personal
UNCLEANNESS? How do we see ourselves much
like the community of lepers in the story … how do we stand so far away … at a far
distance from God because of our own UNCLEANNESS.
GOD GIVES! HE GIVES MORE THAN WHAT WE EXPECT HIM TO GIVE! There is such
a thing as the UNMERITED FAVOR FROM GOD
Did the lepers know
who Jesus Christ really was … when they were standing quite a distance from
Him? Did they know that Jesus was God as
we claim so NOW! The lepers called Jesus
… EPISTATE or MASTER … a secular term which can most generically mean a
“leader” or “an official” or “a teacher.”
Here we stress the word ‘secular.’
Standing at a distance from Jesus, we can perhaps say that the lepers
didn’t quite know the Lord as Messiah, Jesus as Lord, the Son of Man or the miracle worker or He
who had raised people from the dead. If
they knew, they could have used a far more different term than the very
ordinary EPISTATE or Master. It seems
that they didn’t even ask him for healing!
Curing them of an incurable disease seems beyond the capacity of a mere EPISTATE
… an ordinary teacher. The lepers didn’t
even bother to ask Jesus that they be healed.
Jesus was simply EPISTATE to them.
What they said
simply in a LOUD VOICE was: Master, have
pity on us! Leprosy then was an
incurable disease. Who can cure it? Definitely not an ordinary teacher as they
thought of Jesus! They were asking not
for healing but rather for whatever our Lord can give them … or whatever any
passerby can give them … alms, food or whatever ... good enough only for their
needs at that particular time. “Master,
have pity on us!” was simply a refrain to seek the attention of passersby. Perhaps, they didn’t expect anything anymore other
than a coin or two. This was just a
regular day for them. They were all too
familiar with begging. They didn’t expect
to be healed. They were simply
begging. They only needed enough help to
get them by the day.
I was watching a
blind beggar once in Cogon, Cagayan de Oro City He could not
see yet he knows that people were passing by.
And he would say repeatedly: Mangayo
ra ako sa inyoang kaluoy! Mangayo ra ako
sa inyoang kaluoy! Mangayo ra ako sa
inyoang kaluoy! Day in and day out …
that blind man was there … begging … since begging perhaps is the only thing
that he can manage to do given his state.
“Mangayo ra ako sa inyoang kaluoy”
was his constant refrain. He doesn’t
ask for healing for his blindness! He
doesn’t care to know about those who are passing by. He was simply asking for the usual coin or
two that can help him go through the day.
Mangayo ra ako sa inyoang kaluoy! And he would be happy enough to collect those
few coins at the end of the day. And
this is how the miracle … I think was more meaningful. The lepers didn’t expect to be healed. But they were healed. God gives!
And He gives more than what we expect Him to give. What petty requests had we been asking our
God about lately? We know that they are
simple requests because they also simply allow us to go on with our life each
day. How do we notice God giving us more
… more than we expect to receive?
A CALL TO GAUGE THE DEPTH OF YOUR FAITH!
WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU IN YOUR FAITH IN GOD?
There are varying
levels of faith and belief in God. And I
think this Gospel shows us exactly what that means. Check this out: Jesus
tells them: "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went,
they were cleansed. Already … we can
say … wow! MAGIC! Jesus didn’t even
touch them! He just gave them an
instruction. They followed! And imagine
this verse: “As they went … or in the
process of going to the house of the priests … slowly slowly … at every step
they were discovering that each of them had been cleansed. Their lesions dried up so suddenly. Can we
imagine that? As if they were looking at
each other while walking and asking … Huy!
What has happened to you? Is the
sun extra bright today? Are you using a
new facial wash? Why is your complexion
seemingly better and brighter? And
imagine this still … by the time they reached the doorstep of the priests’
household … they had complete knowledge of how they were freed from their
physical infirmities. They had been
healed.
We must credit the
lepers for believing in Jesus and for following his instructions. To believe and to follow is an initial level
of faith. This kind of faith heals. This kind of faith cleanses (KATHARIZO – to
be healed of a disease). Can our faith
go deeper than merely believing and following?
The next level of faith inspires us to praise and
worship! All ten lepers realized that
they had been healed, but only one comes back “praising God in a loud
voice.” Remember how they all initially
called out to Jesus in a loud voice? Now
… only but one of them came back to praise and worship Jesus in a loud
voice. This resonates with what happens
to us usually I think. We pray hard when
we are in need or in distress.
How do we simply go beyond believing and following? How serious are we in expressing our acts of
praise and worship? How do we … much
like the Samaritan leper … throw ourselves most humbly at the feet of Jesus to
truly thank him for the gifts and blessings that we know … we didn’t even ask
for nor deserve. I remember my most
intimate times with the Lord in prayer … when I would kneel and as if my entire
body was praying … when I felt my entire self as fully dependent on Him. Did you have anything like that? What a good feeling ‘di ba? A deeper form / level of believing if you ask
me.
Lastly, if the first level of faith … that of believing
and following elicits an initial kind of faith that cleanses, a deeper kind of faith … associated with
gratitude and thanksgiving results to a deeper kind of healing. We hear Jesus telling the leper from
Samaria: “Rise and go; your faith has
made you well.” “Getting well” means
more than being cured from affliction.
“Made you well” is translated SOZO … or MADE ONE WHOLE … a word related
to SOTERIA or “being saved.” A deeper
kind of faith is more than that which heals us.
A deeper kind of faith is that which assures us that we have been saved. (DO YOU LOOK SAVED AT ALL?)
Friends, the ten lepers were healed. Only one of them … owing to his deeper faith
in the Lord … had been saved. WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU IN YOUR FAITH IN GOD? Do you simply stay in the level of believing
and following? Or has your prayer
deepened enough to express sincere praise and worship … real gratitude for
gifts undeservedly received? Is your faith deep enough to make you a WHOLE,
integrated and SAVED PERSON?
As we continue with
our day and our week, certain challenges had been posed for us by the Gospel. Can we reflect on the areas of
UNCLEANNESS in our lives that make us stand at a distance from the Lord. In spite this, can we recognize how God
continues to give and how He gives more that we expect Him to give. And lastly, can we gauge the depth of our
faith moving from simply believing and following to a deeper sense of gratitude
and worship that will eventually mean our own salvation.
