6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
Last Thursday, the New York Times published an article
by Jon Ronson entitled “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life”. In it he talks about a 30 year old public
relations executive who, while traveling from New York to South Africa for the
Christmas holidays in 2013, fired off a series of tweets about the indignities
of international travel. Most were just harmless complaining, but the last one
completely changed her life. On December 20, just before boarding the plane for
an 11 hour flight to Cape Town she tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get
AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”
Little did she know that her inappropriate statement would
go viral far beyond her 170 twitter followers to almost immediately become the
number one trending tweet in the entire world. And she was completely oblivious
to what was going on as she slept on the flight. By the time she arrived in
Cape Town, there were tens of thousands of angry tweets in response to her
comment, all calling for her head. But it went beyond that to become a form of
entertainment, as thousands of people anticipated what Justine’s reaction would
be when she got off the plane and turned on her phone to see what had happened.
Someone even went to the airport to tweet to the world about what she was like
as she deplaned.
Justine’s entire life since then has been a living
hell. She lost her job and received hate mail and death threats. She has been
mocked virtually the world over. She cannot date because any potential suitor
runs away after Googling her. Her family in South Africa has been hiding in
shame. She eventually took a job at a Non-Governmental Organization in Africa,
trying to hide from her detractors, but as one of her friends tweeted, “Sorry,
your tweet lives on forever.”
Ronson goes on to chronicle many more instances of
public shaming today, usually because someone posted something stupid or
insensitive on social media, or because a post was taken completely out of
context. It is a sad reality of our times that the practice of shaming has
become so widespread and vicious.
It was the same for the early Jews. We hear today
Moses’ prescription for the treatment of lepers by the community. Lepers were
to be treated as outcasts from the community. Even the suspicion of leprosy
meant exile. There were two reasons for this; first, it was a public health
issue. Leprosy is extremely contagious, so it made sense to isolate those
suffering from it. However, it was also a question of morality. The ancient
Jews believed that the sick suffered because they were sinners. If you pleased
the Lord He would bless you with good health, wealth, long life and children.
If you were poor, sickly or barren it was because you or your parents had done
something sinful, and God was punishing you for it. Lepers had to actually take
the posture of the penitent - rending their clothes and uncovering their heads –
not because they were sick but because their sin had made them impure. They
were unclean and to have contact with them not only exposed you to their
illness but to their sin. To touch the unclean made you unclean.
And people would be very cruel to the unclean. They
would drive them away, throw rocks at them, and cut them off from everything
they loved. They would be publicly humiliated and shunned. Like poor Justine
Sacco, they would lose everything and live in desperation. All because of
ignorance and a mob mentality. Look! There’s the evil one. Not me. You!
And so Jesus’ compassion towards the leper in the
gospel today has several meanings. Of course the leper wanted to be returned to
health. He did not want to suffer and eventually die all alone. But he really
wanted to have his dignity restored. He wanted to be clean again, both in body
and soul. He also believed that he was suffering because of something he or his
parents had done. His self-guilt was probably worse pain than his physical
suffering. And he wanted the shaming to stop.
It was easy for Jesus to heal him physically. But what
about the emotional scars? What about his family and neighbors? Would they
really believe that he had been made whole? And even if they believed the
evidence of his cure, would they ever think of him as more than a sinner? Would
his tweet live on forever?
The leper came to Jesus
out of desperation. He had nothing to lose. He fell at Jesus’ feet and groveled
in the dirt. And he said basically, “You are the only one who can make me
clean. You are the only one I trust not to judge me. You are the last person I can
turn to and I desperately hope you won’t turn me away. Please make me clean.
Please see me as a person of value. Please don’t join in the shaming but accept
me.”
And Jesus did. What else
could he do? He didn’t see before him a sinner being punished for what he had
done. He saw him as a complete human being. He returned his dignity to him. And
he made him feel that he was free from the effects of sin. It’s as if all had
been wiped clean.
But what about the cultural
norms of the day? Jesus was also telling Jewish society that this poor leper
was a human being and should no longer be cut off from the community. Instead
of joining in shunning him, he accepted him and gave the example of how to
treat people with illness. Jesus did this often. “Which is easier to say, your
sins are forgiven, or rise, pick up your mat, and walk?”
We fall into the same
prejudices today against the sick, the poor, the elderly and the infirm. We
often see them as unproductive, worthless, people to be shunned. Our hospitals
and nursing homes are filled with people who suffer all alone. We visit folks every
week here in Park City whose family and friends have abandoned them. They wait
to die alone. All they want is to be made clean.
We look back on the
public humiliations of the Middle Ages and think them to be ignorant and cruel.
But we do the same thing today all over social media. We sit here in Church on
Sunday yet tomorrow will revel in the vitriol that is hurled all over the
internet against those who do not share our political beliefs, our nationality,
our sports teams, or who simply make a mistake. Just ask Brian Williams. The
only difference between now and a thousand years ago is that we can do it anonymously.
The mob has only gotten bigger and meaner and crosses international boundaries.
With four simple words
Jesus can change things. “I do will it.” God’s will is what is what matters,
and he does will that we be clean. And he wants us to see those around us who
are hurting as clean also. He wants us to step out from the mob and not join in
the shaming of the vulnerable.
Because you know, some
day that vulnerable, suffering, worthless-feeling person will be you.
