Today's lessons are about healing and Gordon has chosen hymns that reflect the many ways in which that can happen. And soon it will be Valentine's Day, a day many in the West choose to proclaim their love for one another - Valentine was an early Christian martyr who is believed to have healed the daughter of his Roman jailer.

Again, I will address the text in Mark from the perspective of Ched Meyers in his book Binding the Strong Man and from a series of articles he prepared a number of years ago for Sojourners magazine. Mark's gospel has set up a distinct portrait of Jesus as a messiah who proclaims a realm of God that will be in opposition to the powers of the day. In today's public healing of a leper we will see him claim the role of priest, as one who restores an exiled one back into the social community.

In the time of the 2nd temple illness was understood as something to be quarantined lest it taint the integrity of the community; restoration from an exiled status belonged to the temple priests who controlled the ritual of restoration. While we often hear this lesson as a miraculous cure from a physical pathology, part of what is happening to the leper is affecting the whole community; illness of any sort was a socially devalued state. [1] Later in Mark's gospel we will hear people question Jesus about illness [blindness] as a consequence of sin.

Jesus' healing of this man highlights his mission of exorcism and healing, of proclamation and confrontation. He begins to move power away from the ruling elite into a radical freedom of a holy and chosen people. Some saw his work as lawless disobedience and defiance of institutionalized structures; others saw it as liberation. I will frame a little of that and then discuss those parallels that we see in the lesson from 2Kings of the healing of another leper, Naaman.

The leper is an archetype of the social outcast; the man is considered impure. Only priests at the time could determine what was pure or impure. A change in that status came about through ritual, controlled by the temple priests - that was how healing and restoration to the community happened. When Jesus touched and healed the leper he challenged the power of the religious elite. He assumes the role and power of priest. Literally, by touching the unclean and ritually impure Jesus would himself be considered unclean, yet he is able to declare the leper whole. His stern response to a system of constraint is to send the leper to the priests not so much for a ritual that does not now need to happen but to challenge and confront the authorities, as a witness against them. We know that very soon, in just the third chapter of Mark, they will plot to get rid of someone who usurps their power.

Naaman is someone used to power. He has decided how it should happen and we watch how those on the margins, his servants and his wife's servant, speak to him about a prophet from a country whose king he defeated in war can heal him. He is prepared to pay a tribute for his healing - that is the way the powerful can buy what they need. Elisha will refuse the tribute and will not even touch the leper himself but direct Naaman to a river washing of a ritual seven times. Naaman is incensed - what river is better? His own or someone else's? What healing is free and not purchased? What do servants know that the rich and powerful don't? Is the advice of the marginalized worth less?

Naaman learns that it has taken a community to heal him. Perhaps his internal dis ease will be healed as well. Many of us know that sometimes it takes a community to heal - like 12 step programs or the COSA groups. Sometimes it occurs with just one healer and helper. Always there is a journey of humility and vulnerability. Canadians seem to believe that all deserve healing and help but there are problems of access and timeliness. For a while in the United States there was a debate about limited resources and who deserved care - were some more innocent and therefore more moral? People with lung cancer or those living with AIDS; you can fill in the blank .We would treat the truly deserving.

Sometimes we think that resources are limited - like money for instance. A friend of mine had a magic pitcher that she would use in her stewardship campaign. Most people thought that there was only water enough for a few glasses but her magic pitcher kept pouring out more and more, like God's grace she said, like blessings that continue to come our way. What goodness God has in mind, in store for us is without limit; we can count on that love for us and for all. God truly does love all people - those who have power in our society and those who have none. In Naaman's story those traditionally seen without power show the way to healing .This is seen as subversive power, the kind of power that Jesus knows about.

The Rev. Dr. Thea Browne is a priest of the Episcopal Church. In her reflections on this text she says,

" in human society we position some people in the center of power. We measure people's value by their relationship to what we consider to be the center of the action, whether it is based on material wealth or complexion or culture or geography or national origin or gender or age or orientation or profession or whatever determines who's in or who's out But divine action - the healing, transforming power of God - is sometimes found among the rejected." [2]

Part of healing is generosity, an extension of what has been given to you that can be shared freely with others. This week I had the opportunity to preach at St. Paul University for the feast day of a Canadian saint, Mother Hannah Grier Coome. She founded the sisters of st. John the Divine in Toronto. The rise of monastic orders in the Anglican Church began in England as part of the Oxford movement. Their dedication to the spiritual life and catholicity in worship was matched by their service among the poor, usually in cities. In 1884 Mother Hannah having spent her novitiate in the United States after the death of her husband in Chicago, came North and was met with harassment. Perhaps it was anti-Catholic feelings, perhaps the constant tension between the French and the English, perhaps it was because she was from 'away.' The Civil War had ended just 20 years before in the United States and she and her nuns cared for the wounded of the Riel Rebellion in field hospitals. Her healing extended across difference and she and her nuns continually spread healing to others - in hospitals, in one of the first homes for the elderly, and in schools for girls. Their work was always rooted in the spiritual life, disciplined worship and reading of scripture and prayer. This has meant that before I came to Ottawa I was told that should I want to go on retreat I should travel to Toronto and be immersed in their loving presence.

Mother Hannah, Valentine, Elijah, Jesus moved I think in subversive ways to heal. We can choose to be healers in the same ways, reflectors and bearers of the image of a generous God in the pattern of Jesus whose self offering had no limits. Jesus in particular is asking us to re-examine the barriers we create to ensure that only the right people come into our fellowship."The Holy Spirit is calling us to remember that the systems o f power that we construct do not limit the power of God's action to heal and transform this world. The Scriptures teach us time and time again that Jesus comes into the world not to support the centers of the powerful but to touch and heal the people on the margins - the powerless, abandoned, excluded, degraded, exploited, and disregarded. These are the ones the right people do not associate with but the righteous people recognize as fully God's own. The challenge of the gospel is not to include them into our circle but to allow God to expand the circle as fully as possible until it most fully reflects the richness that God alone has created." [3]

I am going to invite you today into a subversive action of healing. Some of you are aware that your Bishop has been heavily criticized for his kindness in licensing me on a temporary basis to exercise my ministry here. He has a bruised heart right now and is feeling a little unloved. The chief pastor is usually the one who urges the diocese to live in the love of God through mission and ministry. He is usually seen as someone with lots of power. In a little exercise of subversive power would you send him a Valentine this week? Just because healing happens for everyone, in a variety of ways. He has tried to love all; perhaps you could love him back just a little in a time in this diocese when much healing is needed.

Perhaps you can take your power as agents of healing.

For three weeks you have been praying for my grandson Billy; his platelets are now stronger than they have been for a year. I think there is power here, of the Spirit, of the risen Christ. I thank you for seeing the hand of God at work here in this place and I ask you to send some of that grace and blessing to the house at 71 Bronson St. Because you have extended it to many of the least powerful.

The Rev. Linda Fisher Privitera

Footnotes:

[1] Ched Meyers,"Obedience and Upheaval in the Gospel of Mark, " Sojourners magazine, 1990.[Return]

[2] The Rev. Sr. Thea Joy Browne, Worship that Works, www.episcopalchurch.org.[Return]

[3] Ibid.[Return]