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There Is No One Who Is Unclean
Series “Theology of Interdependence and Disability” Part 7 (Mark 1:40-45)
Mari Ikeda
Today is the seventh in our monthly series, an attempt to re-read the Bible from the perspective of a person with a disability, based on the book by Kathy Black. Today we will read Mark 1:40-45. Since this is a short passage, I would like to begin reading it as a whole quickly.
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” 41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
This passage, as we have read, is not about a person with a disability, but about a person with a disease. In biblical times, people with chronic illnesses were considered to have the same curse or punishment from God upon them as those with disabilities. And they were excluded from the community as “unclean” and unworthy of God’s chosen “holy” community. But what this passage shows us is that for Jesus, there is no such thing as an “unclean person.” Let us consider what this means by taking a closer look at the situation.
A. Cleansing of “uncleanness”
1. What we should learn from this sick person
First of all, let us check what kind of disease this person was suffering from. The newer Japanese translation calls it a “prescribed disease,” but the previous translation translates it as a “serious skin disease,” the earlier translation as “leprosy,” and the English NIV translates it as “leprosy.” There are two reasons for this divergent translation. One is that it is not clear what the disease was that this man was suffering from. It is certain that he had a skin disease, but it is not clear whether it corresponds to Hansen’s disease in the modern medical sense.
This diagram is my own creation, but if we organize the terms used in the Bible, I think the image will roughly resemble this diagram. The Hebrew word “tsara’ath” used in the Old Testament has a broad meaning used for both people and objects, while the Greek word “lepra” used in the New Testament refers to skin diseases in general in a more narrow sense, one of which is considered to be Hansen’s disease in the modern medical sense.
The Old Testament defines various abnormalities that appear on the surface of a substance, such as clothing, or on a person’s skin as “tsara’ath.” Tsara’ath was considered an uncleanness that was contagious to people on contact, and those who possessed it had to be expelled from the community. They were also required to wear ragged clothes, not to have their hair tied up, and to continually cry out in public, “I am unclean. Only after the skin abnormalities were gone and the ritual of purification by the priests was completed, were they allowed to return to the community. The new Japanese translation translates “prescribed disease,” thus meaning “a disease prescribed in the Old Testament,” but I think it is difficult to understand.
Another reason for the shift in translation has to do with the history of discrimination against people with Hansen’s disease. Both “Raibyo” in Japanese and leprosy in English are now discriminatory terms, with “Hansen’s disease” being the more common name for the disease. The Japanese Bible used the term “Raibyo” for a long time, but in response to growing criticism from former patients, the translation “serious skin disease” was adopted for the first time in 1996. This was the same year that the Leprosy Prevention Law, which had been the basis for the inhumane isolation policy toward the patients, was finally repealed. I think the reason why the English Bible still uses the translations “leprosy” and “leper” is because they are directly derived from the Greek word “lepra,” but I don’t think they are good translations because they are discriminatory terms and, as I told you, Hansen’s disease is only a part of “lepra.”
Returning to today’s passage, this man’s illness could have been leprosy, or it could have been a different disease. Either way, the disease was feared as “uncleanness” and he was forced to live in solitude and poverty outside the community, according to Old Testament regulations.
This person teaches us many important things.
First, this man had the courage to break the rules that treated him unfairly in order for him to approach Jesus. As I mentioned earlier, according to the Old Testament rules, unclean people were not allowed to approach clean people in the first place, and when approaching, they had to keep shouting, “I am unclean,” so that the clean people could escape. But this person broke that prohibition and went close to Jesus.
The rules of society created by man are often far different from God’s wishes. When former Hansen’s disease patients took action to have discriminatory laws repealed, it was to regain their natural right to live as human beings. I once heard a former patient say, “Because no one was going to protect our human rights, we had no choice other than taking action ourselves.” Owing to the hard struggle of those who took action like that, this world has gradually been changed for the better.
There are other things we should learn from this passage. Notice what this person is asking Jesus to do. He says, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” He does not say, “Heal me of my sickness.” This is because this person’s desire, strictly speaking, was not so much to be healed of his illness, per se, but rather to be proven that he is clean and to be able to return to general society. People with illnesses and disabilities often have to suffer not only from the difficulties of having the illness or disability itself, but also from the social isolation caused by them. This person was no different, and this person wanted Jesus to declare “You are clean.”
But this person’s words are very modest. The words, “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” indicate that while this man believes that Jesus has the power to cleanse him, he leaves it to Jesus to decide whether or not to use that power. Why did he make this modest request when he had the courage to break the law and approach Jesus? Perhaps it was because this man knew well enough that Jesus was not a priest and had no authority to make a declaration of purification. Asking Jesus to make a declaration of purification would be breaking the law even for Him by making Him do something that no one but a priest is authorized to do. It seems likely that this person took care to allow Jesus himself to decide whether or not to take such a risk.
We can ask Jesus for anything we want, but there is something to be learned in this person’s attitude toward Jesus. While trusting in Jesus, we should not only ask that He respond to our petitions, but that we let Him make the decision. It is a prayer that “not my wish, but yours be done.” It is based on the conviction that no matter how legitimate our wishes may be, God has a plan that we cannot see, and that plan is always good, even if our wishes are not fulfilled.
2. Jesus healed not only the sick person’s body, but also his heart
Well, but in fact, Jesus answered this man’s request in a way that far exceeded his expectations. Jesus healed this man’s body and mind and restored him socially. Let’s read verses 41-42 again.
41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
The opening of verse 41 is another word that is subject to different translations. In Japanese, it reads, “Jesus had pity on him deeply,” but in English it is translated, “Jesus was indignant.” This is because some of the oldest biblical texts use both verbs, one meaning “deeply compassionate” and the other meaning “indignant.” It is a bit unnatural to say that Jesus was indignant in this scene, so perhaps that is the word that was originally used. If so, what was Jesus indignant about? I think it was against the situation where this sick person was excluded from society and forced to live in solitude and poverty. Jesus was angry because the man was being discriminated against as unclean, while he was still one of God’s precious children, even though he was suffering from a disease. And what Jesus did next was something that neither the sick man himself nor anyone present had expected. Jesus “reached out his hand and touched the man.” It was thought that such an action would transfer the uncleanness. Jesus himself would have been considered unclean and would have been excluded from society. But Jesus touched the man directly while he was still a sick person, giving him the message, “You are not unclean, you are a precious child.” Furthermore, Jesus’ words were very clear. He said, “I’m willing. Be clean!” In other words, he said something like this: “Your suffering is not what God wants. The loneliness and poverty you have experienced is not God’s will.” Just as he said, this man’s illness was healed. It was not merely the restoration of a healthy body, but the restoration of his awareness as a beloved person of God, and the restoration of his status as a member of society. In addition, Jesus tells the man, “Show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” This is Jesus’ consideration in order for this person to truly be able to reintegrate into society. Jesus himself had no concept of human uncleanness, and the purification ritual was unnecessary, but Jesus knew that in order for this man to be accepted in society, he needed to follow the rules of society. In this way, Jesus freed the man from his uncleanness and restored him to his original state of being. He proved with supernatural power that there is no such thing as an unclean person.
B. What is more important than supernatural healing
However, we are told that Jesus strongly warned this man not to tell anyone about this. Let’s read verse 43 and the beginning of verse 44 again.
43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone.
The verb “to warn strongly” in verse 43 is a very strong word and can also be translated “to snort in anger.” Why did Jesus warn this man so severely? It is natural for a person who has been healed of a long-suffering disease to rejoice and to want to tell others about it, but why did Jesus ask him to keep it a secret? It has to do with the consequences of this person breaking Jesus’ warning and spreading the word, and as a result, Jesus’ actions were restricted.
People were enthused by Jesus’ supernatural powers. And as rumors of Jesus spread, people not only sought his healing of the sick, but also expected him to be a military and political leader. This was, after all, just an attempt to use Jesus’ power for a purpose that suited them, without considering who He was. That was far from Jesus’ purpose.
By 1947, a cure for Hansen’s Disease had been developed and the disease became curable. Medical science has shown that Hansen’s Disease is almost non-contagious and non-hereditary. However, as I mentioned earlier today, the isolation policy for Hansen’s Disease patients in Japan continued until 1996. The patients were actually former patients who had already been cured of their disease. Even after the quarantine policy ended, many of them did not return to their hometowns and had to continue living in sanatoriums. This is because discrimination and prejudice against Hansen’s Disease persisted despite the development of a cure, the cure of the disease, and the fact that the disease was scientifically proven to be neither contagious nor hereditary.
I heard one former patient talk about this. The details of the words may differ, but the main idea was something like this. “The law was repealed and we won the court case against the government. I thought our long struggle was over. But most of the former patients could not return to their hometowns. They were told by their relatives, ‘We can’t let you come back now.’ Some were told, ‘We will consider you dead now, and we want you to be removed from the registry of our family members.’”
I believe that Jesus knew very well that healing diseases by his supernatural power would not solve the fundamental and serious problems facing this world. What Jesus wanted was to realize a world where everyone is valued as a person without discrimination, regardless of whether they are sick or disabled. Jesus’ desire is for each of us to be convinced that no one is unclean and that God loves everyone without distinction, to become aware of unconscious discrimination, and to correct our own mistakes. Former Hansen’s Disease patients also believe that the only way to change society is to move the hearts of each and every one of us, and they continue to tell us their painful experiences for this purpose. Neither supernatural forces nor the abolition of laws are sufficient to remove prejudice that takes root in people’s hearts.
We often unconsciously discriminate unfairly because of our wariness of the “unknown” that is foreign to us. Not only unknown diseases, but also unknown cultures, unknown races, unknown religions, and many other things can be reasons for discrimination. Jesus risked breaking the laws of his time to heal the sick and showed by his actions that there is no such thing as an unclean person. What we need is to be willing to understand the unknown, to recognize our own tendency to discriminate against the unknown, and to have this changed by God’s love.
(Prayer) Lord Jesus, please search our hearts. Do we know that You love a certain someone or group of people who are different from us in exactly the same way that You love us? Please guide our hearts and tell us if we are wrong from your perspective and correct us. Give us the attitude of trying to understand those with whom we feel we do not understand. You love everyone. May we love them too. Lord Jesus, we pray in your name. Amen.
Summary
<This is part 7 in a series of readings of Kathy Black’s “A Healing Homiletic -Preaching and Disability.”> The fear of unknown diseases has been common in every age, and the mistake of unfairly isolating the sick has been repeated. Not only diseases, but also unknown cultures, unknown races, unknown religions, etc., we often unknowingly discriminate unfairly because of our wariness of the “unknown” that is foreign to us. Jesus risked breaking the laws of the day to heal the sick, to show by his actions that there is no such thing as an unclean person. The important thing is that our hearts, which are tempted to discriminate against others, be changed by God’s love rather than by supernatural power to remove the causes of discrimination.
For Discussion
- Have you ever felt that you don’t want to get close to someone?
- Why do you think Jesus wanted to hide Himself?