6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

The popularity of Christ’s healing ministry is brought to fore through the healing of the leper. Beyond the act of restoring the leper to his place in community is Christ in the mission to further the Kingdom’s boundary.

Man being a finite creature naturally needs boundaries. He is not made up of pure spirit but instead is a composite of spirit and matter. Finitude by nature requires definition. To be known, we need to be known as someone and not just anyone. Anybody here who is organising lunch or dinner knows the frustrating feeling when the answer to the question “What do you want to eat?” is met by the response “Anything”. In terms of knowing, we generally want to describe or define things right down to its minutest details in order to be precise.

The act of separation is also a form of definition. For example, racial identity is so important in this country. The forms that we fill in always have this question: Race. Sometimes when we hear a crime committed. The next question we ask is: Race? And almost instantly, if the “correct” race is identified, the racial stereotypical markers will kick in. This race is like this or that race is like that.

In the Gospel, leprosy was a major social marker. The taboos surrounding leprosy not only function as a form of identity but they act as a boundary to secure the general population from the infected. The instructions regarding lepers were draconian. The diseased had to tear off their clothes and shout “unclean, unclean”. This form of isolation or segregation might just remind us of our own experience when Covid exploded onto our scene. Remember the drastic measures taken against those who came into close contact with the infected? They were treated like they were the infected. Recall the “two lines, two lines” of our Covid tests?

When Christ approached the lepers, He did two things for us. Firstly, in crossing prohibited boundaries and entering into the disfiguring territory of the “Leprosarium”, He enlarged the Kingdom. Think about it, the Kingdom that Christ came to proclaim, is not limited by our narrow notions of “wholeness” and “security”. Moreover, we confess that He came to gather all nations unto the Father’s Kingdom. It is another description of the idea of recapitulation. In other words, He did not come to gather only the saved. He came to redeem also the unsalvageable or the unlovable.

Secondly, He deepens our appreciation of the full impact of His Incarnation. When we recite the Creed every Sunday, we can just glide over the fact without grasping the true meaning of the Incarnation. Soon we will enter into Lent. The journey of Lent leads toward Calvary. Again, such an idea sounds quite run of the mill. But when Christ entered into the territory of the lepers and touched the leper, He made Himself unclean. In other words, He became like a leper Himself. He really took our sins upon Himself which means that in the enterprise of recapitulation, nothing, meaning that no one is outside the realm of salvation.

Today we have lines that we do not cross or breach. Uncrossed lines often fade and this is where our challenge lies. They fade or disappear into the background. Or simply we become insensitive that they are there. To give an example, EVs or electric vehicles. Governments around the world are pushing EVs and even Laudato si is pushing for the transformation of our environmental engagement. We have to diminish our carbon legacy, meaning that we must make sure that we leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. All these initiatives are good for the planet. The “uncrossed lines” that may have faded into the background, are the destitute in poorer countries who have to pay the price for our “environmental concerns”. The raw material, like rare metals, are mined from these impoverished countries. The poor often never benefit from this carbon initiative.

Our social exclusion extends further than just the medical outcasts. The reconciliation that both Laudato si and Fratelli tutti are aiming for calls us to a greater consciousness of the frontier, to grow more aware of the walls that hem us in. Our sight must cross into the socially discriminated of today. Social media for example is a divide between those who are “saved” and those who are not. There are many who are left behind in the chase for digital proficiency. In our rush towards electronic integration, imagine those who are not tech-savvy. They become victims of scams and frequently they suffer quietly because they do not want to be seen as stupid or electronically illiterate.

The poor we will always have with us. This is not a canonisation of the poor but rather one way of thinking about them. Meaning that we must never forget them. A thought that might help us to bring to fore what may have become hidden from us is to remember that when we give it is not because we have more. When we help it is not because we are more capable. Rather, every endeavour we take on behalf of the poor, or the socially outcast, it is because we need them. We need them to help us go to heaven. Sometimes we think of the poor as deserving of our pity. It is like a one-way street but the truth is that the poor teach us to rely on God. They show how to be compassionate. They help us enlarge the border of Christ’s Kingdom.

Finally, the extension of Christ’s Kingdom, the enterprise of recapitulation often goes further than what we are comfortable with. We are creatures of habit and when we are comfortable in our blindness, we become complacent. However, if last Sunday, Christ by praying showed that prayer is not an extra duty laid upon our shoulder, then today, in crossing boundaries, Christ shows us that He is truly the Saviour of all and not just a few. We cannot be complacent about our blindness if we want to follow Him.