HE CONTINUES TAUNTING JESUS

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mk 1:40-45

A leper approached Jesus and said, “If You want to, You can cure me.” What exactly did the leper mean? Depending on the tone of his voice, there are, at least, four possible meanings of what the leper said to Jesus.

First, the leper was expressing faith in the healing power of Jesus. He wanted Jesus to know that he believes in Him. This is the safest interpretation.

Second, the leper was encouraging Jesus to use His healing power. “If You want to, You can cure me” was another way of saying “Go ahead, Jesus, You can do it. You can cure me. Cure me!” This kind of interpretation may sound rather unlikely, but, just the same, it is among the possibilities.

Third, the leper was allowing Jesus to heal him. He was welcoming Jesus into the privacy of his leper’s “world”, a “world” where no one wants to enter as either a dweller or a guest. He was granting Jesus the privilege to touch him in his vulnerability. This interpretation gives importance to the role that the leper played in his healing. After all, healing happens only when the sick allows the healer to heal him.

Fourth, the leper was taunting Jesus. This is the most disturbing possible interpretation. Listening more keenly to how, and not only to what, the leper told Jesus, one cannot miss even at least a slight tone of sarcasm in the leper’s voice. Notice that the “if” was placed before the “want”: If You want…. While the leper believed in the healing power, the leper seemed to be doubting the goodness of the Healer Himself. The leper’s statement sounds like a question rather than a declaration: “If You want to, You can cure me. But do You want to?” It gives the impression that the leper was not sure if Jesus really wanted to heal him at all. The painful years of being a religious and social outcast taught the leper the lesson that no one would ever bother about him, that no one would ever care enough about him, that no one would ever give a damn helping him and alleviating him from his misery: Was Jesus a different guy after all? Would He give a damn about me and my misery? Would He break the Law that prohibits any good from touching the leprous? Would He do it just to free one poor soul like me? Truly, cynicism can be a disease more difficult to heal than leprosy.

We do not doubt the healing power of Jesus. And, more than His power, we never doubt His compassionate love for all, most especially, the least, the last, and the lost. We believe that Jesus can. We are certain that Jesus cares. But the leprous man in the gospel today seems to be not so sure about Jesus – if not about what He can, perhaps, what He cares about. And Jesus was not happy about that. The gospel says that when the leprous man told Jesus, “If You want to, You can cure me”, Jesus felt sorry for him. But the original text, which is written in Greek, says that Jesus became fuming mad. And stretching out His hand, touching the leper, He said, “Of course, I want to. Be cured!” Thereupon, the leprosy left the man immediately.

Jesus did not only feel sorry for the leper; the original text says that He became indignant. Indignant – quite a strong word, expressing a strong emotion. However, the original text is quite unclear as to whom Jesus got angry with. Was He fuming mad at the leper himself or was He indignant with what has become of the leper – cynical about the goodness of his fellow human being? And what made the leper a cynic soul? The inhumanity of man to his fellowman. Worse, such inhumanity was sanctified by a religion that considered the leprous practically dead even while still living. Worst, the same religion judged as unclean not only the lepers themselves but also anyone who touched them. Thus, Jesus had every reason to fume in righteous anger.

The leper in the gospel today was cured. But the cynicism that many have learned from the way they have been treated by their fellow human being has yet to be healed. Until such healing happens, a leper continues taunting Jesus.

THE GOOD NEWS: JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mk 1:21-28

After they heard His eloquent preaching and witnessed His powerful casting away of an unclean spirit from a man possessed by it, the people commented about Jesus’ teaching: “This is a new teaching!” At first, I immediately thought that the people’s comment on Jesus’ teaching was wrong. Should they not say “new Teacher” instead?

“New Teacher”, not “new teaching”, I thought, was more accurate because Jesus was literally a new Teacher in Israel when the people gave Him the comment they have for Him in the gospel today. Indeed, Jesus was barely starting His public ministry that time. This episode is still in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark: Mk 1, 21-28. Jesus was yet a new face among the many rabbi of His time. This must also be the reason why people kept asking one another who Jesus was.

“New Teacher” instead of “new teaching”, I thought, was more correct because Jesus was not only a new face among the teachers of Israel but His method was also new. Was it not that at the very start of our gospel today, Jesus was already being compared with the Scribes in Israel? And the people had only one verdict: Jesus taught with authority unlike their Scribes. It is, therefore, clear to us that as far as the listeners of Jesus were concerned, Jesus was a Teacher better than their Scribes who were supposed to be experts in the Judaic Law.

“New Teacher” not only “new teaching”, I thought, was more exact because, in His teaching, Jesus did not only repeat what the prophets and teachers ahead of Him already said or wrote. Daringly and with full confidence, Jesus used expressions like these: “Amen, amen, I say to you” or “I tell you solemnly” or still “You have heard it said…,” then Jesus would conclude with “but what I say to you is….” Very clearly, Jesus was not only a new Teacher but a daring one as well because by these expressions Jesus was literally claiming that He was greater than the prophets who spoke the Word of God to them and even greater than Moses who gave Israel the God’s Law. Jesus’ word stands on its own because He Himself is the Word of God, the very fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Thus, Jesus was not only a new Teacher. He Himself was, is, and will always be THE Teacher; other teachers simply share in His teaching.

“New Teacher” instead of “new teaching”, I thought, was more appropriate a comment from the people in the gospel today. But that was what I thought at first because soon enough I realized that the people were actually right and precise with their comment on Jesus: Jesus Himself was indeed a new Teaching. His very Person is the lesson; thus, giving a lesson meant for Jesus giving Himself away. That was what made His teaching new. In the very Person of Jesus, the Teacher and the teaching are one. And there are two important points supporting this claim.

First, Jesus did not only teach the people about the Kingdom of God and its qualities; He showed them this Kingdom and its qualities. Thus, Jesus spoke about fullness of life in God’s Kingdom, and so He cured the sick and the handicapped, restoring life not only to the body but to the soul as well. Jesus spoke about the first being last and the last being first in the Kingdom of God, and so He openly mingled with the least, the last, and the lost. He said that the God in that Kingdom He preached about was forgiving, and so Jesus forgave every sinner who approached Him with a contrite heart. He said that the God in that Kingdom sets people free, and so He freed those who were possessed by unclean spirits, as we have in the gospel today. He also said that the Kingdom of God was like a buried treasure or a priceless pearl whose worth could not be anything less than everything in one’s life, and so He Himself left everything behind for the sake of that Kingdom. And He also spoke of the God in that Kingdom as a Father to all, and so He called God Abba and, teaching His disciples how to pray, He said, “When you pray say, ‘Our Father….’” In a word, Jesus Himself was the new Teaching because what He taught was Himself.

Second, and closely related to the first, Jesus gave humanity not only a new teaching but a new experience as well. Vis-à-vis His teaching on the Kingdom of God, for example, was making people experience already that very same Kingdom right here, right now. He did not only point to the Kingdom of God to them; He gave them an experience of that Kingdom. He did not only show them the Kingdom; He gave them the Kingdom. Is this not so beautiful even for us who live in the present age? For we have not only known about the Kingdom of God; we are actually experiencing it even now unto its fullness in the life to come. We have not only seen the Kingdom; we already receive it from Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Jesus showed the Good News He preached to humankind and, in doing so, He gave humanity the experience of that very news. This must be the reason why the first words of the gospel according to Mark are “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). These words do not simply serve as an introduction to or a title of what Mark wrote; rather, through them he already gave the summary of what he wrote: The Good News. And that Good News is Jesus Himself!

So, the people in the gospel this Sunday were right after all: new teaching, not new Teacher. And the same can be true to our own teaching if we ourselves, in imitation of Jesus, would serve as the lesson for one another. Let us show to one another the Good News of Jesus Christ and give one another an experience of that very news.