12 February 2012

“Living letters of recommendation”
2 Corinthians 3:1-6 / Mark 1:40-45
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
12 February 2012


Our Epiphany season long journey through the first chapter of Mark’s gospel comes to an end today with the third story (in three weeks) of Jesus healing people.
Two weeks ago it was that outspoken man in the synagogue in Capernaum, from whom Jesus cast out an “unclean spirit,” while last week’s text told of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother in law, as well as “casting out demons” from many people.
Ah, but in both of those stories, the people involved behaved much as would have been expected of them, in that place and time. Jesus – the healer – he encounters … he has brought to him … people who were sick or suffering some kind of debilitating condition which prevented them from living life as God’s good and gracious will would have it be for them, for us … full, rich, abundant. And so Jesus acts, to restore this life to them.
But there’s been this interesting comment thread, in the Gospel text, the past two weeks. That man who came to Jesus, saying “I know who you are … the Holy One of God” … Jesus wouldn’t let him keep speaking, but ordered the unclean spirit to come out of him. The demons which were cast out weren’t allowed to speak, either, because as the text says, they knew Jesus.
Now this week, in our final healing story of the chapter and of this season, Jesus heals a leper from his dread skin disease … and once again, tells him to say nothing to anyone.
Why all the secrecy, Jesus?
Perhaps it’s all a matter of supply-and-demand. If the word got out about Jesus, he’d be overrun by people wanting to be healed, cured, dis-possessed. By keeping things quiet, he wouldn’t get slammed by the sick, dinged by the demon-carriers.
The Gospel last week, at first glance, seems to bear this out … it says he cured, not all, not everyone, but that vague word many.
So does Jesus want to put limits on himself … put a qualifier on his opening words in Mark’s gospel that “the kingdom of God has come near” … I- Jesus- I’m just near to some, FOR some, but not for all? Does it mean that he wants to be deliberately vague, slipping in and out of town like a spectre, healing, de-demonizing one minute, gone the next, leaving people asking and wondering, “hey, who was that guy?”
Well, if that’s the case, then why does last week’s Gospel text end with these words: And Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons?
Something else must be going on here.
And so we must return to this week’s story of Jesus and the leper.
Now, as it begins, we probably don’t hear this story as anything particularly strange, out of the ordinary. Why wouldn’t a leper beg Jesus to heal him?
Ah, but that’s precisely the point. The leper, by simply coming to Jesus, asking, imploring, daring Jesus to heal him … If you choose … if you are wishing / willing / wanting / desiring … you can make me clean …in saying, in doing this … the leper is going outside the legal code of Israel, outlined in Leviticus 13 and 14, which is very clear about how the leper is to conduct him or herself:

• A leper is to wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head be disheveled.
• A leper is to cover their upper lip and cry out, “unclean, unclean.”
• A leper is to live by themselves outside of town, and remain alone and apart from other people.

So right here, in the very first chapter of Mark’s gospel, this leper crosses the boundaries, steps outside the Law … he calls Jesus to his side and dares Jesus to heal him … though, still giving Jesus the “out” of his religion … leaving Jesus room to escape, through observance of his Jewish ritual rule system, to just walk away from this leper.
But he still dares Jesus.
And Jesus – he doesn’t take the easy out. Jesus takes up the leper’s dare. “I do choose! Be made clean!”
And the leper is healed, and made whole.
Though … note that, as in the earlier healing stories in this first chapter of Mark’s gospel … Jesus remains consistent. He tells the leper not to say anything to anyone, but to remain within the rules and laws of the religious system.
Go, show yourself to the priest.
But this doesn’t happen. The leper goes out and tells everyone about what happened to him. It’s a natural reaction to this leper’s supernatural encounter.
And so this is the outcome … Jesus could no longer go into a town openly.
So why does Jesus want this leper to remain silent?
Because this leper has only a one dimensional picture of Jesus … to him, he’s simply the rabbi who healed him. And that’s what he goes and tells everyone, so that people came to him from every quarter, wanting to be healed or to see him heal others.
It’s a one sided letter of recommendation for Jesus, that the former leper gives in his healed body.
Now we know something about letters of recommendation. Especially these days … especially at this time of the year … with college and grad school applications due … with more people trying to come back into the job market, to find a new job or just get employed.
I’m glad to write letters of recommendation for people. And I often get asked to do just that.
Most of the time, the one asking me to write a letter of recommendation, I know them well, so it’s not difficult to write a well-rounded letter. Occasionally, though, I’m asked to write a recommendation for someone I don’t know well at all, a community member, an acquaintance, and that’s tougher … you can only write truthfully about what you know, and if that knowledge is limited or one sided … well, the letter shows it.
The Apostle Paul in our reading from 2nd Corinthians today is writing to his friends in the congregation in Corinth about their recommendations of him and for him. Itinerant missionaries at that time needed to carry letters of recommendation from one place to the next … in much the same way pastors and congregations today provide references to and for each other, as they engage in that delicate dance known as the call process. When you interviewed me eight years ago, you provided me with some character references for this congregation, and I did the same for you.
What Paul is saying here in these verses from 2nd Corinthians, though, is something like “letters … schmetters!” You, people of Corinth, you are my letters of recommendation, letters written on your hearts … and more, you, people of Corinth, you are living and true letters of recommendation to the world of the love and grace and forgiveness and peace given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Paul could say this because he knew that they … through Paul … had more than a one-dimensional image of Jesus. He knew that, through his … Paul’s … preaching and teaching, the Corinthians had seen the Christ of the Cross … the cross, The Defining Moment for Jesus, his life, his ministry, everything he said and did. And so Paul could confidently say, if you’ve seen and heard me, seen and heard me bear witness to this Jesus, you know him in the One Way you need to know him … as Paul wrote to that same Corinthian congregation in an earlier letter, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Truth-telling. Honest. Brutally convicting. And awesomely freeing.
And so back in Mark’s gospel … the most clearly cross-shaped of the Gospels … everything in this Gospel is meant to be seen, and be heard, through the Cross.
In the next few weeks, as we end this season of Epiphany and begin the season of Lent … we’ll see this play out … in next Sunday’s Transfiguration story, as the disciples see and experience Jesus in yet another, new way, high on the mountaintop, standing and talking with Moses and Elijah, and the voice from heaven proclaiming Jesus my beloved Son …
… and, in the following week’s start of our Lenten journey, the story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness and his Temptation … all of these are little glimpses, vignettes, previews, steps in the journey to the Cross.
We who live on the other side of Jesus’ cross, we have the advantage of knowing already how the story turns out. But the people in these stories, early witnesses to these pieces of Jesus’ story … they only saw one side of him, so Jesus asked them to stay silent … they didn’t have the whole picture of Jesus, so they couldn’t be those “living letters of recommendation” for him … and as they spoke, the world got the wrong impression about Jesus.
Today … that struggle continues. Some would try to limit Jesus to one or another aspect of his life … their “letters of recommendation” for Jesus come off one sided … “Oh, he’s a great moral authority” … “he’s my best friend” … “he’s a healer” … “he’s a judge.”
But it’s only through the Cross that we see, that we experience, that we receive the whole Jesus … the depth of life’s emptiness, and the fullness of God’s salvation … and it’s only through these cross-shaped gifts for us … Baptism … Holy Communion … that we receive all of Jesus into our own lives.
Through the cross-shaped gift of baptism … we receive Jesus, as he calls us to die to what we’ve been and then, he raises us up to what we shall be, in him, once, and every day of our lives …
Through the cross-shaped gift of Holy Communion … we receive Jesus, forgiving, freeing us from our diseased, distressed, even demon-riddled pasts … here, this and every week, Jesus comes into our lives, into our very bodies, and he makes us new …
And then, made new, dead and alive, buried and risen, we are sent out, watered in the Word, walking wet in the baptismal hope and promise Jesus gives us, fed and strengthened in his meal, we are given grace and peace for life … his cross, planted firmly in the crossroads of our lives, as the questions of life come upon us … Jesus, his cross, stands squarely in the gap for and with us.
Why illness? Why are the bad things of life happening, to me, to us?
Only in the Cross do the disturbance, and peace, of life meet for us … total abandonment, and full reclamation … utter despair, and highest hope … and only in the Cross, Jesus standing in the gap there, with and for us, are we given the strength, wisdom, power and authority … to be his “living letters of recommendation” … to and for others, our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers and families … to and for the sake of the world.

Jesus asked the leper to remain silent, because he didn’t have the whole picture.
But you do. And to you he’s given a name, a charge, a calling … beloved child of God, my living letter of recommendation … go and show, go and tell, go and proclaim, go and be … for me … for life … for you … and for them.
Amen.