Who is this guy?
AM Psalm 97, 99, [100] • PM Psalm 94, [95]
Hosea 4:1-10 • Acts 21:1-14 • Luke 5:12-26
In today’s reading from the Gospel, Jesus heals two men: one who has a skin disease, and another who is a paralytic.
Even though the story of Job is not technically in the lectionary for today, it still seems worthy of revisiting. It is the first story that comes to mind as I reflect on today’s reading from Luke. It is also no small thing that at the moment I am recovering from the excision of a basal cell carcinoma from my nose. It is natural enough to compare the resulting wound (temporary, I hope) with Job’s “loathsome sores,” the Job’s situation was more serious.
A local dermatologist once reminded me of Job’s story. Accepting the challenge of a wager proposed by “the Accuser,” whom we will call Satan, God destroys Job’s land, his livestock, his servants, and his family, all to see if Job will lose his faith. When Job remains steadfast, Satan pulls out his ace in the hole. Job wouldn’t be so faithful, Satan argues, if you were to physically hurt him. God tells Satan: you can afflict Job’s body any way you like, as long as you spare his life.
Scripture continues: “So the accuser [Satan] went out from the presence of the LORD and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7).
It’s not just that God has allowed Satan to smite Job with those loathsome sores. Satan, with the acquiescence of God, has saved the best (i.e., the worst) for last. We suspect God knew that what Satan would do to Job would be the ne plus ultra of afflictions.
Some have identified Job’s skin condition as leprosy. In fact, according to Wikipedia the Hebrew word, tzaraath does not indicate leprosy per se, but “describes various disfigurative conditions of the skin, hair of the beard and head, clothing made of linen or wool, or stones of homes in the To Bible. All variations are mainly referred to in chapters 13-14 of Leviticus.” To be disfigured is to exhibit characteristics of violating the norm, and violating the norm risks disaster.
Aside from Job’s loathsome sores being mighty uncomfortable, they are out there for all to see. The community can infer, in the prevailing world view, that Job is not just unclean, but ritually unclean. How convenient that someone ritually unclean can be so easily identified! It would be fair to assume that Job, this former pillar of the community, must have been doing something really really bad to merit such a condition, including not observing proper rituals. Rituals, among other things, are meant to keep the community together. Someone who is obviously unclean because of violating rituals is a threat to the community, and, who knows, could bring the wrath of God down on everybody.
* * *
Jesus’s apparent disregard for ritual is an important theme in the New Testament. God forbid you start eating without washing your hands! In today’s reading from Luke, a man with a skin disease is so ashamed that he cannot bear to look at Jesus, even as he begs Jesus to cure him. “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (5:12). Jesus requires no payment, no ritual, no sacrifice. At least not at first. Luke continues: “Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I am willing. Be made clean.’” (5:13). Immediately the skin disease left him” After encountering Jesus, It is as if the disease has its own identity, and was never really a part of who the man is. And the disease is no longer welcome. It is only then that Jesus does indeed send the man to find a priest and make an offering. But notice that the ritual was not required first. It is not that Jesus is against ritual, but rather he believes that ritual has it’s proper place.
Notice, too, that Jesus heals the man with touch. Perhaps Jesus uses touch as part of an evolved ritual based on those two greatest commandments (you know what they are).
Further in chapter 5, a paralytic has been dropped through a hole in the roof so that Jesus may heal him. That the man’s friends have somehow made it through the crowd to accomplish this is no small matter. Luke says, “ When he [Jesus] saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend,[f] your sins are forgiven you.’ We are not told whether Jesus touched the man or not. But perhaps without having seen the man previously, Jesus establishes a bond by calling him “friend.” Perhaps his being willing to heal the paralytic—making the paralytic his “friend”—as he was willing to heal the man with the skin condition, is itself a kind of touch
More importantly, the paralytic’s recovery depends not just on his faith, but also on the faith of those who brought him through the crowd, up on the roof, and back down through that hole.
As usual, the Pharisees want to add their two half-shekels: “Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, ‘Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’”
Jesus responds: “’Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk?’ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed— “I say to you, stand up and take your stretcher and go to your home.” Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God” (5:23-25)
In other words, Jesus is saying that so that you know I have the power to forgive sins, which is the point of all this, anyway, I’m going to make this paralyzed man walk.
And once again, Jesus has not required any ritual up front. For that matter, the friends carrying the paralytic man to see Jesus may in itself be evidence of a ritual. It’s an example of the kind of thing that can hold a community together.
Yes, I can hear the doubters. Sometimes I am one of them. Sometimes we suffer, and God doesn’t clean up the mess as he did for Job or these two men we read about in Luke. People of good character and strong faith suffer hardships no matter how hard they pray and try to live a virtuous life. Those whom we love and who are bed-ridden with awful conditions don’t just take up their bed and walk. Several of us in this parish recently lost a dear friend who was a heck of a writer and family person—and whose faith put mine to shame. Depending on the context, the promise of making lame people walk can sound more like a cheap confidence game (and all the better if televised from a place the size of Walton Arena) than it does a true miracle. Why doesn’t it work for everybody? While I do not claim to know everything on the mind of the Almighty, it seems to me that to say that some people die because they don’t have enough faith is just plain, flat out, wrong.
So once again we reach the point in my reflections (our reflections?) where we are left with a mystery. The mystery. In the meantime, we might ask ourselves: what would we be willing to do for that paralyzed man? Would we care for him? Bring him food and water and magazines? Just sit with him? Would any of this be a kind of touching?
And what of the man with the loathsome sores? Would we turn away from him, accuse him of some moral failing, or just stay by his side, knowing that perhaps what he or any of us want and need from time to time is some sort of healing touch?
Written by James Gamble
James Gamble’s Ph.D. studies in comparative literature at the University of Arkansas included aspects of comparative religion, mythology, psychology, and international languages. He recommends The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels (New York: Random House, 1995) for an interesting discussion of where our idea of Satan comes from and how it has evolved.