A Person Of Mercy Is Approachable And Welcoming
The Gospel reading for today January 8th, 2016, is taken from Luke 5: 12 – 16. It is one of those stories that you would have heard quite a number of times but almost every time it is read, something about it touches you. In this year of mercy, we will take a close look at this passage to see what it says to us especially in relation to God’s mercy. The passage reads as follows:
Now Jesus was in one of the towns when a man appeared, covered with leprosy. Seeing Jesus, he fell on his face and implored him, Sir, he said, if you want to you can cure me. Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, of course I want to! Be cured! And the leprosy left him at once. He ordered him to tell no one but go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering for your healing as Moses prescribed it as evidence for them.
His reputation continued to grow, and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their sickness cured, but he would always go off to some place where he could be alone and pray.
This is the Word of the Lord!
To fully understand what is going on in the story as we put it in the context of the Year Of Mercy, we need to have an understanding of what happened when someone contracted the dreaded leprosy in Jesus’ days.
Leprosy is an infectious disease that causes severe disfiguration of skin causes sores and it damages the nerves in the legs and in the arms. It is a disease that has been around from since ancient times, and from ancient times had quite a negative stigma. Persons who contracted leprosy were treated as outcast. Their family would disown them and they would have to live outside of the city, far away from where everyone else was. So negative was the stigma of this disease that anyone who had it, and for any reason had to come into the town where other people lived, the leper would have to do so by ringing a warning bell, while shouting unclean, unclean!
In ancient times, there was no cure for leprosy, and as such, persons with the disease lived a very painful and lonely life, destined for a slow painful death, one that was hardly ever noticed. I should also add that someone who is covered with leprosy is not a pretty sight at all. Lepers were so scorned, that other people would do almost anything to keep them away, even stoning them.
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So it is against this backdrop that this story takes place. One can imagine the initial tension that the leper must have felt when he saw Jesus. He must have thought that maybe he should stay away for fear of being stoned or ill-treated. Maybe I should take out my bell and ring it, shouting loudly, “unclean, unclean!” Maybe I should run over to the other side of the street. Maybe I should just simply run away, for I have been abused so many times; so many times have I been hurt and scorned and laughed at, I don’t think I can take another one. Sometimes the hurt of being an outcast, of being scorned and disowned by my own family, far outweighs the pain I feel in my body from this disease; this cursed disease! When will it end? When will this all end? The pain is too much. When will my liberation come?
“But wait a second! There is something different about this man. He doesn’t look at me like the others do. In fact he seems to beckon me. Maybe he’s blind. Maybe he cannot see my ugliness. If he did, he would surely chase me away. Could he be the one, the one called Christ? Could he be the one they call Mercy? Could he be the one who heals the sick? Could he be the one who casts out even demons!? Could he be the Christ!? I overheard the people talking about him. They say he is, he is merciful and very kind. They say he is loving and makes you feel so welcomed in his presence. They say he makes everyone feel at home, even the tax collectors and sinners. This must be Christ the Merciful One, the Mighty One! He seems to be beckoning me with his eyes!”
“Sir, you must be Christ, the merciful one; the great healer, for I feel so welcomed and at peace in your presence. I was told that you will not treat me as the others do, but rather you will treat me with kindness and with dignity no matter how ugly I may look.”
In his Apostolic Exhortation – The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis writes, “Consequently, an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!” In his writings, the Pope is exhausting us to be joyful bearers of Good News. This is really the only way that we can be effective evangelizers since people would pay attention not so much to what we say, but rather to what we do and how we live.
All through the Gospels, we see that people are attracted to Jesus. It is as if he is a magnet, and they are steel. Just as Jesus is the face of mercy, the face of God’s mercy, He has commissioned us to be joyful bearers of this mercy into the world; to be as Saint Paul writes, his ambassadors. This can only happen when we allow the love and the mercy of God through Jesus Christ, to so consume us, that we ourselves become love and mercy; that we become approachable; that we make others feel comfortable in our precence. This I believe is a very important aspect of being a person of mercy.
