Sixth Sunday in ordinary Time Year B Mark 1,40-45

We can say that today’s first reading and the Gospel form such a frame of the picture. We could also compare it to a series and say that the first reading is the first part and the Gospel is the last, final part. The final part went well, the sick man was healed, so we could leave with a good feeling. When you watch a series, you end up saying to yourself: “Well, after all, it’s happening somewhere on that TV, it doesn’t concern me”, but this series, which today’s texts are talking about, concerns us, it concerns every one of us. But I will start with the disease and the history as it was.

The Israelites were very afraid after they left Egypt. They were afraid that some calamity, some epidemic would befall the nation, and therefore they tried to eliminate, eliminate all risks, reduce them to a minimum, and therefore here with these diseases that they could not cure (they did not even know how to treat them, not as cure it yet), so they were already putting forward what are called quarantine measures, isolation. And that measure was very harsh, because as we heard in the first reading, three symptoms were listed there: a sore on the skin, a scab, or a bright spot. But all these are far from the symptoms of leprosy. These are the symptoms quite extensively of other various diseases. But because there was that great fear, this person was isolated, immediately.

So it also became obvious that they isolated people who were not lepers, and who, on the contrary, were in great danger of contracting the leprosy. A man who was thus brought before a high priest or a priest, and he preached over him that lesson about the signs, that man was truly isolated. We can say, he was dead in three ways: medically, socially and religiously. On the social side, there was the fact that he had to move out of the Israeli camp. After that, when they lived in Palestine, in the Holy Land, these people had to leave the city, the village, and lived in some caves or in some shelters. They had to wear clothes that showed that something was wrong with the person, that he was dressed strangely, that something was wrong with him. And when they had to meet someone, they had to shout: “Unclean, unclean!” In later times, they “improved” it even more, so that if they were moving in a group, then at least one of them had to have a bell and ring it, so that a random pedestrian would not approach them. Other people were not supposed to approach them at a distance of less than 10 steps. Why? Well, because then they themselves risked being put in that quarantine. So great was the fear of this disease. The man was cut off from everything. He was actually surviving. There was a big mistake on the religious side. They believed that this terrible disease will be given to the person who has sinned in some terrible way, transgressed against God. And in this they made a great mistake, that they always connected it with sin and with the punishment for sin. This is definitely not the case. When we hear it like that, we say to ourselves: “So it was inhumane.” Yes, it was very harsh, and those people who were infected with leprosy, those people were actually sentenced to death, to a slow, gradual death. They actually justified it by saying that if they were left there, far more people would die. This is a question of prevention and these things, but we will look at it in a different way. When we talk about the lepers, about the fact that they were isolated, we say to ourselves: “That was once upon a time, that doesn’t concern us.” But let’s try to realize that every leper had a family – a father, mother, siblings, or even a wife , children. And for these people who remained in that company – their brother, husband, wife – it was not a stranger, but it was a person they loved, and he could not be with them at once.

So these relatives tried to make life easier for them. They brought them food, clothes, made appointments to have fun at a distance of ten steps and thus tried to support them in every possible way. They tried to show them sympathy. And now we come to what is in the gospel, and what concerns us. Every quarantine, isolation builds dams between people, barriers that are sometimes difficult to cross, that many times people don’t even want to cross. Many times we come across that those barriers are artificially created and people have no compassion. Jesus breaks down that barrier – he talks to him, goes to him, touches him. If that person was healed or if Jesus healed him, then Jesus would also have to be quarantined. And the fact that Jesus touched the leper, that he stretched out his hand to him, for all those around Jesus, was unimaginable, something unheard of. In doing so, Jesus really broke all the regulations of the time. He did it because he had compassion, could help, and knew how to help. Jesus does not stop at pity, but helps.

As a result of original sin, we all tend to build barriers around ourselves, to protect ourselves. In a way, when we think about it, we all want to live in safety, and we also try to build the space we live in to be safe. This means that people I like, people I like, people who don’t threaten me (at least that’s what I tell myself), people who don’t compete with me, for example, with those friends. Those who, in my opinion, could in some ways threaten, harm or overshadow me, I push them out: “They are not my friends. Let them stay somewhere, I don’t count with them in my world.” And this is how we build barriers.

As I say, we are all prone to it, it is a consequence of the fall of the first people. So, it can be explained humanly, but according to the Gospel it is not justifiable. The Gospel asks us, first, to realize that we have these tendencies, and secondly, the Gospel asks us to try to destroy them. I would point out that the emphasis is really on “trying to break down”, because we don’t always succeed. But now I am not talking about those barriers that are, we would say, worldwide, like enmity between nations, barriers between races, the gap between the rich and the poor, but I am talking about the environment in which each of us lives. It is not so visible there. We do not live in any tense situation, in any strained relationships. It’s all more “combed”. Perhaps it is not visible at first glance, but … There is a “but”. Each of us should ask what it looks like with those barriers around me, if he doesn’t like it and if he isn’t happy with it. The barriers are of all kinds: barriers of political opinions, economic situation, between the young, between the old, between the healthy, the sick and I don’t know what else. The first thing to overcome them: it is necessary to have compassion, to see the other person, that he has a face, that he is not an anonymous person, that he is not just some number in statistics, but that he is a living person. This is how Jesus sees him.

And then another thing: asking Jesus: “Lord, what can I do? How could I change it, how could I tear it down?” As I say, it doesn’t always work, but almost always it can be at least mitigated. We have to realize that the Church in which we live, which we create, does not belong only to some elite, some selected group of people, but all those who belong to it are healed and purified. From what? Well, from our mistakes, because Jesus is the one who heals us all the time. He heals us by forgiving us. We can say: “I belong to Jesus, but I belong there because He healed me.” Jesus is the one who came to heal, to purify, to unite. All these are the basic features of the gospel. We, as disciples of Jesus, should report to this and try to apply it. So let us succeed with his help.