When Jesus heals the visible reality of sickness is a stand-in for the invisible reality of Sin: He heals the visible sickness to lend credibility to His real miracle - the forgiveness of Sin. Leprosy is the only disease mentioned by name by all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) when they discuss Jesus' healings. In Jesus' time Leprosy caused one to be cast out - out from society and out from public worship; cut off from man and God alike. Leprosy, more than any other illness, reveals to us the nature of sin and our need for salvation. Today's Gospel asks us to approach Christ as the Leper did, saying "if you want to, you can heal me."
The names Al Pacino and Shakespeare are not two that you would normally put together. The star of films like Scarface and the Godfather trilogy isn’t your typical Shakespearean actor, and yet the famous silver screen mafioso is the star of my favourite film adaptation of a Shakespeare play - the 2004 Merchant of Venice, in which He plays the moneylender Shylock. Pacino’s portrayal of the most notorious Jewish character in literary history is breathtaking, and to date I have never seen anyone deliver a better version of Shylock’s revenge speech than him.
At its core, Shylock’s story in the Merchant of Venice is a story about belonging - Jews have always been threatened wherever they have lived outside of Israel, their lives always precarious, always waiting for another pogrom or round of persecution. Even when they had more security, as in Venice at the time this play was set, they were forced to wear a uniform and live in a Ghetto - locked in every night to their own part of the city. In his revenge speech all the resentment and insecurity that comes with being treated like a something less than a human being finally boiling over, as he explains exactly why He plans on extracting a pound of flesh from the Christian man who defaulted on his debts: the villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. In other words, what you do to me I will do worse to you.
By the end of the film, Shylock’s planned revenge has come undone - and to avoid the death penalty the Law decreed for a Jew who tried to kill a Christian he is forced to be baptised. The final moment of the film shows Pacino’s Shylock, standing in the rain outside the Ghetto, watching as He’s shut out - no longer belonging to his own people, not really belonging to the Italian Christians. The look of utter desolation on his face as the gate is closed to him and he finally loses everything is, for me, the most haunting and powerful moment of the film.
Human beings are social animals, we were made for relationship, we were made to belong. There is no greater pain for us than separation, than having nobody or nowhere to belong. We account something as a great suffering if it causes us to lose our friends, family, or community, as Shylock does at the end of the Merchant of Venice.
The book of Leviticus, one of the books of the Law of Moses, this morning imposes such harsh restrictions on people with Leprosy: He must shield his upper lip and cry: “unclean, unclean.” As long as the disease lasts, he must be unclean: and therefore he must live apart, he must live outside the camp. An extreme measure to protect the community from an extreme and infectious disease: total separation from the community, unable even to be touched by another person.
It’s no surprise then, that when Jesus comes onto the scene and begins to heal people, it is the Lepers (more, it seems, than any other) who come flocking to Him to be healed. Healing for them was more than just freedom from their illness, but restoration to their people. The fulfilment of that deep human need to belong again. It is a Leper who comes today to Jesus, saying, if you want to, you can cure me.
Whenever Jesus performs a miracle, there are three layers to it from which we might learn. The first layer is simple; He does a good thing, a kind thing, out of love - He sees someone suffering and wants to help Him. Read this way, the Gospel tells us simply to help those who are sick or isolated, as an act of love.
Go one step deeper, and we find that the second thing Jesus is doing by performing miracles is proving that He is who He says He is; He is the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Read this way, today’s Gospel reminds us who Jesus is, and calls us once again to submit to Him.
But if we look even more deeply, we see the third thing Jesus is doing, whenever He performs a miracle, is revealing something to us about Sin and His mission to save us. Thus, in each of His miracles, we find an allegory for Sin and Salvation. That Jesus’ miracles are almost always healing sicknesses is a fairly obvious allegory for sin as a disease, but there is something peculiar about Leprosy. Something about it that merits it being mentioned again and again in all three of the Synoptic Gospels (that is the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke). It’s the only disease mentioned by name, and the only one that appears repeatedly when Jesus’ healings are mentioned. Why?
Leprosy is a serious disease, a disease which causes other illnesses - difficulty breathing, difficulty seeing, the inability to feel pain which results in multiple injuries through infection and thus to the loss of limbs. It is a crippling and blinding disease if left untreated, a disease which tends towards the death of the victim. It can be highly infectious if you have prolonged contact with someone who has it. If you were looking for an allegory, a representation, of the state of a soul in sin, you would be hard pressed to find a better allegory than Leprosy; Sin weakens us, crippling us spiritually, until we can no longer do good at all. Sin blinds us to what is right, and allows us only to see what is evil. Above all, Sin separates us from one another and from God, and deprives us of our belonging: we were made to belong to each other and to Him, and Sin turns us away from God and from one another. It ruins every relationship, it breaks every friendship, it tears apart families and societies. Wherever there is violence or discord, wherever people have stopped belonging to one another, there you will find Sin abounding and multiplying like an infectious disease.
If the Leper in today’s Gospel stands for sinful humanity, then His attitude before Christ stands for Christian conversion. The Leper knows he is sick, and the consequences of His sickness, and He approaches Christ saying - if you want to, you can cure me. If his disease is an allegory for Sin, this moment is his repentance. If he has reminded us already that sin is a sickness and that we ourselves are sick, he now reminds us where we can find our healing. And Christ responds immediately; of course I want to. Be cured. There is no great price to be paid, no punishment, only healing. Jesus heals because He is teaching us; He frees us from sin, and turns us back to God and back to one another.
Read this way, the Gospel today is a powerful call to repentance, a powerful call to seek healing in Christ. He is waiting for us to approach Him, to ask to be cured. He waits especially for us in the Sacrament of the Confessional - where He works the miracle of spiritual healing day after day. He waits for us, all we have to do is approach Him, saying with the Leper; if you want to, you can cure me. He waits for that day, when He can say to us; of course I want to. Be cured.
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