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Once upon a time, far away and long ago, a newspaper in San Diego printed the story of a woman who had a parakeet she affectionately called Chirpy.

"The Stretch of the Master's Hand" Feb. 15,2009 Cicero United Methodist Church

                Text: Mark 1: 40-45         The 6^th Sunday after Epiphany Jack Keating

Once upon a time, far away and long ago, a newspaper in San Diego printed the story of a woman who had a parakeet she affectionately called Chirpy. The little bird brought all kinds of song and beauty into their home.

One day while vacuuming, she thought, "My, the bottom of Chirpy's cage in dirty. I'll just vacuum the bottom of his cage." While she was vacuuming the telephone rang. So when she reached over for the phone, she lifted the vacuum cleaner and it sucked in little Chirpy, all the way down the tube, down to the bottom of the little bag. Of course, she opened the vacuum cleaner and cut the bag open and there was little Chirpy inside trying to survive. She breathed a sigh of relief. But then she thought, "Oh, he's so dirty." So she put him under the faucet and ran water all over him. And then, when she finished with him under the faucet, when he was about to drown, she dried him with a blow dryer. A newspaper reporter asked, "Well, what's he like now?" And she replied, "Well, he doesn't sing much any more."

Once upon a time, far away and long ago ....

That's what life was like at the time of this week's scripture reading. At that time people made a direct connection between a physical ailment and sin. If a person was afflicted with an ailment, in this case leprosy, it was presumed to be a punishment for some sin the person or their parents had committed.

So sickness - especially a sickness like leprosy, carried with it a double whammy - not only were you and all that you touched presumed to be physically contagious, and to be avoided, but also you were seen as morally or spiritually inferior, as cursed, -- and therefore to be dealt with cautiously indeed.

The community, after all, needs protection, not just from the possibility of physical corruption, but from the moral corruption as well.

So it was, once upon a time, far, far away and long, long ago those with leprosy or any skin disease that might turn out to be leprosy, were expelled from the community. Lepers were to "dwell apart". They were to live outside the camp of the people.

To live where they are not allowed to touch, to hug, to embrace those they know and love.

To live in such a way that anything that they touch, or carry, or work on, can only be shared by others in the same position as they.

To be utterly dependant on the charity - provided from a safe distance - of others.

To have to announce their presence to others, their danger to others, by crying out "unclean, unclean" whenever they draw near.

When lepers - or those suspected of leprosy - recovered from their disease, they had to go through elaborate rites of purification so that they might rejoin the community - and in rejoining the community recover their identity, their sense of being one of God's people, their sense of being loved and of being worthy to be loved.

One commentator has suggested that maybe one reason Jesus responded to the leper's cry in today's scripture is because he identified with the man's condition.

Jesus, too, would be an outcast from his family and people. He will, in effect, be declared "unclean" and cast out of the city to be executed.

When he, at the end of his ministry, is "examined" by the priests, he will be found to be unacceptable, to not be a true member of the people, to not be worthy of either God's love or the community's.

Just as the lepers dressed like corpses in their "treatments",  ritually dying and being reborn, so Christ will die, and be wrapped in a shroud, and after a period of time be reborn to new life, a new life with a new community of believers gathered around him, a community that not only accepts him and loves him, but is loved and accepted by him.

In the gospel reading today Jesus cures the leper with a word and a touch.

But in other miracles that we read about in the gospel narratives we see that a word is sufficient for a cure. And surely it is here as well. But in this story concerning the leper - Jesus bridges the gap between what is clean and what is unclean - making himself, in many eyes, unclean along with the leper.

By his touch Jesus makes himself one with the leper - indeed his touch identifies him with all the lepers and with all who are unclean in any way. He is one with them - in effect, because of his touch he bears their sin, he bears their disease, he claims their uncleanness - as his own.

Yet, as we know, with the word and the touch, rather than Jesus becoming unclean, the leper became clean.

But before saying more about that - I'd like you to think about how, at the time of Jesus - and at the time of Moses - a superficial blemish or rash might end up with you being judged a leper, at least until it cleared up.

Your life could be destroyed for a period of weeks - if not months or years - on the basis of what people think that they see - on the basis that you may have a particular kind of disease.

So my thought this morning is .. .Is our society any different that that of ancient Israel? Is this really only a story from "far away and long ago" or is it a story from today as well?

A story about who is touchable - and who is untouchable. A story about who is part of the community, of the accepted, and who is not.

A story about how we judge others. How we treat others. On the basis or appearance - both real- and supposed. Doesn't it seem that in our society, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, "Looks aren't everything, they are the only thing".

Not that long ago I was standing in the checkout line at Wegman's looking at the magazine covers on the rack next to me. Boy, you sure could get an inferiority complex looking at those young, trim, attractive models and superstars!

Not one of us in that line came anywhere close to looking like them. We were too old, too short, too fat, too tall, too young, too bald, or too hairy.

We - or our types at least - are not good enough ... we are not the ideal type, we lack something ... something maybe we could purchase at that store?

But there are other, perhaps more serious judgments that we make, judgments that can cause people to become outcasts and to suffer from that - even when the judgment later proves to be false.

Who can live down the accusation of child abuse? Who can live a normal life in the community when he or she is known to be HIV positive? Who can really walk about as one of us in this age of the war against terrorism ... if they come from the wrong ethnic group - or if they wear the wrong clothes - or have the wrong skin color?

But Jesus love, exhibited in today's miracle, offers us something different from the usual way we are treated and judged.

We are accepted, not because our skin is perfect or our spirits unblemished, but because he has entered our condition and he knows both our needs - and our weaknesses. We are accepted because he knows us as God's children, as his sisters and brothers, no matter what facade - what exterior - is present, no matter what sin, what fear, what interior blemish has come to exist.

And he reaches out to us - he reaches out to make us whole - to restore the relationships that we should have, the relationship that we should have with God - and with ourselves - with our community - with our neighbors.

That is what Jesus is all about. He touches us, here he makes us clean, here he restores us to one another.

I notice these days how many people hug when greeting one another.

Not just in this church - which is exceptional for it's hugs, but beyond these doors as well.

And I particularly notice it among men. Now it's far from universal, but it is more than I remember when I was young. Men used to only shake hands, now they give each other a hug, men and women. And that is wonderful.

But there are lots of people who never get touched ... let alone hugged.

People with AIDS report that they don't get touched as much as they used to before they became HIV positive. Many of them have taken to calling themselves the new Lepers - those that are regarded as unclean - those that everyone wants to cast out of their community lest somehow the community become physically and morally contaminated.

There are other people we avoid touching in other ways. Church workers and volunteers tend to steer clear of teenagers. It's hard to get people to work with them. Their awkward stages of development make a lot of us uncomfortable. Their music, their dress, their attitudes and thoughts are sometimes viewed as alien.

Older people say they don't get touched as much as they used to by friends and family members. Are we put off by touching hands that are twisted with arthritis, blemished by bulging veins or overly dry and wrinkled? I have a friend who recently lost her husband and now lives in elderly housing who relates that the thing she misses most is the touch of human skin.

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." And filled with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

And Jesus reaches out to each one of us today. And as he stretched out his hand to that leper and touched him and made him whole - so he stretched out his hands on the cross to make us whole.

He took upon himself the sin and moral impurity that we have, and he became unclean in the eyes of the law that we might be made clean, he allowed himself to be rejected so that all those who are rejected might be accepted.

The point is this: we are forgiven. Every last one of us. God's love is there, waiting for us, at all the times of our lives. His arms are reaching out to us, he will - he chooses - to make us clean.

William Ward has written these words for us to consider today. .. We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. But we are most like God when we forgive.

But we don't have to persuade God to forgive us. His forgiveness is offered freely. All we have to do is call out to him. All we need to do is kneel at his feet and ask him. "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

Jesus reaches out to us today. He bids us to come to him. He chooses to touch us and to make us a part of his family, his community, his church and he calls us to touch others with his love, to touch them and to bring them into communion with him and with all who call upon his name.

Be at peace with God - and with one another. Take the hands of the people near you - hug your neighbor -let them know, that God loves them - and that you love them, and that together you are forgiven - together you are one body in Christ.

   Let's be in prayer together. ................ Amen.