Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
February 12, 2006


What does the TV show Trading Spaces, and today’s gospel have in common?

Most of you know the premise of the low budget TV show, Trading Spaces. Two families with homes in need of renovation swap houses, and while occupying each other’s house, alter them to their idea of what the house should look like. And then the camera’s roll as the families move back into their ‘newly renovated space.” Sometimes there are squeals of delight. Other times, disappointed sigh’s and ‘what were they thinking…” And perhaps the success of the show is based on the desire of people to live someone else’s life for a while.

Jesus and the leper in the gospel could not have had more different lives. Everyone wanted to be a part of Jesus’ life. No one wanted to go near the leper. Jesus could invite anyone he wished to dine, to conversation, to companionship. The leper had to warn people away. Lepers in the time of Jesus were physically shut out from the community, so great was the fear. And though most people might have only had severe acne or eczemas or some sort of rash, the fear that people had created a whole cast of people who were shut out from the community.

And what does Jesus do? He trades places with the leper. In touching the leper, he becomes outcast. In healing this one who was wounded, he himself became impure. The leper was restored to his place in society. (show yourselves to the priests…) Jesus, on the contrary, became unapproachable by any devout Jew. Because of his compassion, because he knew what it was like to be alone (temptation in desert) because of his understanding of Human nature, Jesus tells the man, “I do will it… be healed.”

Mark the story teller would have us identify with the leper. Because he sensed that perhaps at one time or the other, we all have been lepers. The leper longed for what Jesus had. Communion. Conversation. Human compassion and bonding. Because the leper longing is deep, he approaches Jesus, which as you just heard, was forbidden for him to do. Minimally he would have had to shout unclean. Yet his desire to be well is great. So he makes the first step to Jesus. Which is an important part of the lesson Mark would have us learn. Maybe some of here tonight feel like the leper, or have felt like him. An emotional scar from a failure or a lost love or a broken relationship has you isolated or alone. The danger is to cling to that understanding of oneself. I’ll nurture the wound, I’ll play the victim, I won’t forgive, I won’t try again. We offer a thousand excuses to stay exactly where we are. The leper could have done the same. But he chose not to. And when he did, Jesus responded with an amazing grace and compassion. Can we risk any less?

The invitation is clear to us tonight. Stop living on the fringe. Stop living as if the world has wronged you. I know that not everyone has the same hand dealt to them at birth. It doesn’t matter to Jesus. And though coming to Him won’t change the parents you have, or the job you don’t or the boyfriend who left you or the mistake you can’t let go of, it will allow him to ‘trade places with you” – and to do some internal rearranging of the soul. And that is what Jesus is best at.

Tonight, that is the opportunity that awaits us at this altar. Jesus trades places with us. Jesus desires us to be ‘fully human and fully awake” as those on retreat heard on Friday. And there is nothing that he won’t do to make sure we know that truth in our hearts and lives. May we, like the leper, approach him with great confidence and great love, trusting him to restore us to fullness of life and love…